Did I commit a Crime?

did I commit a crime when I was photographing the streets of Geneva hi it's Peter here I visited Geneva Switzerland last week and it was a bit of a struggle to photograph on the streets because of the strict laws that they have about Street photographs and people in them I will discuss that a bit later about the crime that I committed or did I after I talk a little bit about the rules and ethics of street photography and disclaimer these things that I've talk about are not strict legal advice this video only discuss things or the things that you need to consider when making photographs in the public in a public place and what is the difference between law and the ethics if we start with the first difference that we have to remember that photographing and Publishing in most countries is a different thing I take a example here from Finland in on the street in a public place where everybody has access that there is no cost to get in you can photograph anything you want there is no restrictions on that by law but publishing an image and showing it to the public is a different thing if you kind of show the person in bad light and I don't mean the the light that lights my butt in a in a way that people might U think that person is you know or there's something wrong with the person for example and let's take an example if someone passes out on the streets you can take a photograph of the person but you cannot publish it because it will show the person in bad light and the same goes with you know anything else if somebody you know takes a p in a middle of the street you can photograph but you cannot publish it and I for example never photograph drunks on the streets or you know people that are in trouble or Beggars or something like that even though it's legal I find it not to be very ethical and that's what we have to remember ethical versus what's legal and differ from photographing and Publishing that in most cases I will get back into that because there are some countries that there is no difference but I will get into that a bit later and then about publishing there is one uh thing that we have to always remember too is is the cont of Art and commercials in most countries and I would say that 100% of of the places commercial use you always need a consent from the people that you are photographing so you cannot use a photograph in a commercial if you don't have the consent from the people that are in the photograph and they know that it's going to be a commercial that's always but then the art part is a bit on the gray side or totally fine and even in places where you don't have the the right to publish without the consent there might be some exceptions if it is about art because they consider art to be part of free speech and you can express your views as a photographer photographing people on the street and Publishing them even though there might be some requirements for consent when you're photographing people in the streets and France for example is on this side a bit gray area where you kind of need a permission but then if you publish the photograph in the context of art it's it might be totally fine but as I said in the disclaimer this is not a legal advice this is just stuff that I've read and I I will share a a website where you have all these different rules for different countries I will put the link in the description about that site it's a very helpful site when you're traveling around you can check the the rules and the laws and the stuff that requires or is involved with straight photographs street photography in Geneva Switzerland has probably the strictest laws what comes to photographing people in public places and there aren't many countries that has these strict rules I think like Brazil and Spain are quite close and France but that's about it most other countries in the world that I know of are more liberal in this sense and I'm not saying that Switzerland is wrong it's it's you know their law and I can see the the point that you cannot for photograph people in the public and use them in your own Advantage as a photographer yeah I can see that but on the other hand it's a bit odd thing that you can't photograph people in the public place because you know when you're walking in a public place you know why cannot I express my free speech through photographs if I want to in Switzerland that is so so when I was in Geneva switzeland I struggled a bit because of course you have to be a bit careful not to photograph people in a way that they are a big essential part of the photograph and the gray area is where can you photograph people if you don't recognize who they are and there is also a thing that if they recognize themselves at least here in Finland it's not enough it has to be so that everybody else knows who it is or can but if if you photograph people from behind a general public won't know who they are so that's a bit of a gray area and you need to figure out another ways to do Street photographs maybe you photograph something that you have traces of humans that or you got some street views or cityscape type photographs or something like that and that's of course one part of Street photographs and I do have a video about these different types of or different um ways of making Street photographs different U Styles and different genres inside Street photograph where there are no humans and I think that's totally fine it can tell a story about somebody leaving something somewhere and you can photograph that and you have a sense of someone has been present in the place leaving this and doing that so it is I think a very good way of making Street photographs too so there's nothing wrong with that but to be honest to get emotions to get feelings you might need some people in the photographs this photograph of a swan I think this has a lot of emotion and you know the sense of loneliness and bit sadness and the position of the head and everything it's kind of like a little Melancholy image so you can do this type of images if you you know feel like it and I did have some Melancholy feeling on the images because I was a bit struggling because I saw a lot of things that I could have photographed would have been uh making the image and would have been come out of course that we don't know because I never took those images because I respected the law but I could not resist a few situations where I took the photograph and told the person and it's it okay if I you know took this Photograph and use it in in my video and you know both they said yes I showed the photograph and you know they said it's totally fine to use these photographs so did I commit a crime in a sense that I photographed them without their consent yes I did but on the other hand I asked afterwards that if it was okay because I just couldn't resist these two situations but what do you think about this role should it be totally legal to photograph everybody everywhere and publish them how what's your opinion on this because I think this is the fundamental thing about Street photographs and street photography that we have to know and here is the site Commons viip page and again a disclaimer these are the Bas basic rules on different countries but of course this is not a legal document or the legal site if you do photograph people in the public you might get into some troubles maybe but to be honest I've never gotten into any trouble when photographing people in the streets and nor did I get into trouble in Geneva even though I was you know photographing as a tourist and as a street photographer on my trip so well it remains to be seen if something happens afterwards when they see this video I don't know hopefully not but of course I tried to respect the rules and made some different types of Street photographs in Geneva beautiful city by the way so if you have never been there it's a worth of worth a visit because it's it's a beautiful city by the lake and you know everything looks nice expensive though because they have the un thing there so there are a lot of un officials and usually places with that that is prettyy expensive but I hope you enjoyed this video and here are some more videos about Street photographs and how to be invisible which is very essential if you are doing classical Street photographs and you don't want to interfere with the things that are happening but hey thanks for watching and bye for now

Channel: Peter Forsgård

Views: 20,253

Keywords: photography, Peter Forsgard

Id: wHsmYwXDodc

Length: 9min 20sec (560 seconds)

Published: Fri May 10 2024