Single-Serving Photo

Back in June I wrote an article about the Creative Commons project, Creative Commons: Good Idea?, in which I advocated the use of their licenses for promotional purposes and how that approach ties in with socially-driven sites like Wikipedia and Flickr.

This month the debate over Creative Commons licenses in photography flared up once more, with Jim Goldstein declaring that he would never use CC licenses, and Brian Auer retorting that he had before and would most certainly continue to in the future. Underscoring the points made by both of these fine fellows was an interview I read with author Cory Doctorow about giving away free electronic versions of books that brought many relevant points into play.

I’m revisiting the topic here today, not simply to agree or disagree with anything Goldstein, Auer, or Doctorow said, but rather to paint a picture of why I think the Creative Commons plays a very valuable role in photography in today’s copy-and-paste culture and why you should be thinking very seriously about how it can help you. (more…)

As part of my contribution to Blog Action Day, I posted a story about being confronted by a park ranger while photographing using flashlights in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Although I believe the ranger overstepped his bounds and acted with undue suspicion under the circumstances, my colleague and I reacted—in my opinion—in a completely appropriate way. We were very polite and understanding of the issues at hand and we recognized that Tennessee might do things a little bit differently than Connecticut. For example, in Tennessee, photographers get frisked under suspicion of poaching.

Anyway, it’s a good idea to hold up your end of the bargain if you do get approached by an officer of the law, and to act in a way that reflects positively on yourself and on all of us as photographers. Especially if there is a video camera in the officer’s car…

Yesterday, I ran across this article, 5 Things Photographers Should Do When Confronted By Police. It contains some helpful tips and might be useful to you in your travels.

It’s also a good idea to know your rights in these situations, and to help you I will once again point you toward Andrew Kantor’s Legal Rights of Photographers (pdf)¹ guide, a somewhat abridged yet very straightforward and understandable overview of your rights as a photographer (at least in the United States).

For a slightly more technical view, you may wish to read The Photographer’s Right by Bert P. Krages II (attorney at law). Although no advice given by an attorney from outside of your state could be said to be formal, anyone out there from Oregon just struck gold. For those of us who aren’t from the pacific wonderland, at least you can say that this advice was cobbled together by someone with actual legal training.

If you want to dive in yet further, please do visit the forums at PhotoPermit.org where you can read all about your rights, current events, and first-hand accounts of being hassled or confronted by authority figures both various and sundry. [Edit: Apparently photopermit.org has now been replaced by a spam site. Condolences.]

1. Linked with permission. If that copy is down, get it from me [back]

$random:right$

I hope you read the subject of this article and gasped. I hope that your first reaction was indignance or perhaps anger. I share your feelings, but we photographers continuously deal with a level of public distrust and scrutiny that should worry us all. It’s important, whether you’re an amateur or a professional, to know what your rights are and to stand up for them so they don’t erode into nothingness, leaving us all standing there with our cameras and nothing to point them at.

Today I’m going to talk about photographers’ rights, a topic discussed in many other forums and at great length. My focus will be on United States laws: what you are legally permitted to photograph; what, if any, argument you should be willing to put up with from certain officials; and some of my own experiences.

Please come in, photography is allowed. (more…)