joey wrote:The first one was near a shopping centre, and about 50 metres away from the ANZ bank.
Define "near"
Some places that appear to be public, might not in fact be so.
Consider, say, downtown Sydney. Let's say Pitt St Mall.
Pitt St is public property, and therefore you are, in fact, in the public domain. As long as you're not obstructing traffic (vehicle and/or pedestrian) or doing anythign otherwise illegal, you are free to make images of anythign and everything in sight.
If you're going to be doing something commercial with the images, then there may be some licensing issues that the city council might wish to discuss with you, but apart from that, if there's a bank on the street frontage, and you want to take a photo of it, or a person standing in front of it, that is your legal right.
Let's now move a few feet away, perhaps into Centerpoint or the Imperial Arcade. These are both properites toi which the public has, effectively free access. There seems to be little difference between these properties and the streeet outside, but the reality is that both of these properties are privately owned, and your rights of access are governed by the owners of those properties.
That probably means that they will have overgrown and under-educated goons who will try to boss you around. They can ask you stop making images. They can ask you leave the premises. They cannot make you show them your images. They cannot touch you or your camera.
If you're taking a photo of a property within those premises, then you may need to follow the directives of these gorillas.
The bottom line is to know where you are, and from where you're making your image.
If you're on a public street shooting a bank that's located in a mall, while the mall management and the bank management might not like it, you can make images all day and all night, and they can all go to hell.
The bank was behind and I was composing a picture in front of me, across the road. Security guard came to me and asked me what I was photographing. I told him: the scene in front of me. He was rude and asked me why I photographed around that area. I said him, I was only taking a picture. “Haven’t you seen people taking pictures before”? He asked me to show all the pictures I’ve taken around that area. I didn’t show him anything. I left the place ignoring him.
Good for you.
The other incident was near a night club. It was early in the morning during dawn. I think there was a brawl inside of the club and few people got out; they wore interesting clothing and women had make-up on them. I thought I’d take a picture of them from across the street. DSLRs are not compact cameras and can easily be noticed from a fair distance. The bouncer of that club spotted me taking a picture of those people, and literally, he ran towards me yelling why I was photographing them. Not risking losing my camera and being tackled by the bull-head, I deleted the picture in front of him.
Big bloody deal.
With appropriate software, you can recover the image on your PC once you get home.
But again, this goon was way outside of his sphere of influence, and was abusing his power. You should write a letter to management of the club, ccing a copy of it to the relevant licensing authority, asking them to review the conditions of trading of the club.
Anyway, my question is what do you tell to the thick-headed security guards? What are my rights when photographing around the areas patrolled by the security guards?
If you are in public, you have all the rights in the world and the goons can go to hell.
That said, you need to be prudent in the way you deal with these people, and you certainly do not want to put yourself nor your equipment into harm's way.
Always be polite and professional, but always stand your ground. If they have an issue, invite them to call the police. Indeed, insist that they do so, and in fact offer to do this for them. They will usually know that you have called their bluff, and will back off at that point.
Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:36 pm
