I thought it was pretty interesting. Good to hear from the legal professional, although she was a bit light on detail. Hopefully she'll do someof the research she talked about and we'll see a report. Maybe if more of us sign up with
http://www.artslaw.com.au they could afford to make a proper version of the 4020.com summary for us all to use. It's another $99/yr or perhaps we could all chip in and get the $220 for an organisation rate
Most of the factual stuff you can get from 4020, but having a letterhead+official org saying it in print would IMO be useful.
It was interesting to hear more about taking photos on private land, as that's something I've not really thought about. I mean,I do it, but haven't been challenged for it. Untillast night, anyway, when half way through a performance someone asked me to stop taking photos completely, when the usher had just said "no flash". But interestingly, they apparently can't stop me publishing the photo's I had already taken, or make me delete them. They could sue me for any consequent loss of income, though (but proving damages would be interesting).
I was struck (and said) by how much people there were still drawing a meaningless distinction between "photographers" and "other people", when these days people without cameras are probably an absolute minority (at least in Australia). Making laws (or decisions) based on the idea that most people don't take photos is somewhat foolish, I think. 10 years ago that made some sense, back before digital cameras were really affordable. Even 5 years ago, cameras were still a photographers tool. Today, people without cameras generally also don't have cellphones and often lack houses too. So "photographers" are only distinct from "everyone" in the sense that (say) "painters" are different from "people who paint" - it's about pretensions, not actions.
I also didn't expect Andrew Nesmith to be such an upfront arsehole. But it was useful to have someone present arguing on behalf of a group of photographers that are already legislated against, so we could see the pro-regulation argument more clearly. I don't really support what he does, because I can't see the point of what he's trying to do. The change he's trying to create seems to be to have more agressive security guards in malls, which is not something I want to see.
Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 11:00 am