Self Portrait on 6th Avenue,
2012
[I realize the title of this post might seem in poor taste in
light of the recent shootings in Colorado. I trust you’ll understand that I’m
referring to photography.]
It’s funny what we take for granted in the United States. But
one thing I’d never thought much about before is the freedom to go about taking
pictures pretty much anywhere you like in public space.
To be sure, there are unsafe neighborhoods. Retail stores,
banks and many corporations likewise prohibit or discourage photography on
their premises to thwart corporate espionage or keep the media out of their
faces. I’ve written here about my own run-ins with military police and Homeland
Security.
Several students in my workshop at the International Center
for Photography are from countries in South America where making photographs on
the street can put the photographer at serious risk. We’re not talking about
pesky copyright model release issues here. We’re talking about getting picked
up by the police, the national army or any of several secret police or paramilitary
groups.
One fellow student in my workshop is in the United States
attending college because he’s not safe in his home country of Venezuela. Both
his mother and an older brother have been kidnapped and held for ransom, which,
according to this young man, sounds like something of a national pastime in
Venezuela.
Another classmate, a young lady from the suburbs of Buenos
Aires who long ago gave up wearing good jewelry out in public because of the
high likelihood that it would be stolen off her body, said the gulf between the
rich and poor in her country is so great that people who commit petty crimes
are seen not so much as criminals, but rather as distressed people just trying
to feed their families.
Kidnapping happens in Argentina, too, it seems. And if you’re
predisposed to complain about it to the police, you might want to think twice
before saying anything since it’s the police who are sometimes the
kidnappers.
In such conditions—similar circumstances were described in
Guatemala City and Rio de Janeiro—classmates said it’s just plain stupid to
assume that you can step out onto a public street and start photographing
people. People don’t want to be photographed because 1) they don’t know who’s
doing the photographing and 2) they don’t know how the photographs will be used
or where they’ll end up. It may help some readers to recall that we’re talking
about countries where vast numbers of political dissidents merely
“disappeared.”
As best as I can tell, the only risk the members of my class
faced last week as we spread out across the streets of New York photographing
strangers was being told “No” when we asked strangers if we could photograph
them and encountering the occasional drunk or mentally unstable person. I
encountered one of the former while photographing men playing chess and my classmate
Joe was accosted by one of the latter while photographing a man in Bryant Park.
Who knew fending off drunks was an American freedom?
Very nice self portrait
ReplyDeleteWow! Incredible stories--once again, it hits home how very fortunate we are here in the US. Great SP, and I liked your chess player, too.
ReplyDeleteYes -- the self-portrait at the top is excellent.
ReplyDeleteRe: mentally unstable vs. drunk . . . probably a little bit of both, hard to tease apart on many levels.