Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Last week I had a donut break with my photographer pal Barry Staver who was telling me about the challenges that he encountered with trying to handle the logistics and photographic realities for a location portrait that included the subject’s horse. Shooting any kind of portrait outdoors means that sometimes you’re going to have to be creative about where and when you shoot and need to search for places that will accommodate your subject’s and the shoot’s photographic requirements but even after doing research doesn’t mean you won’t encounter some problems.
It seems like shooting almost anything outdoors in post-911 America has made many people, especially those wearing badges, sensitive about photography and photographers and sometimes they can overreact to what is really a harmless situation.
At left: I was shooting a model portrait of a fully clothed Jennifer Groen outside a county office building and after ten minutes of photography a polite Sheriff’s deputy showed up asking us to move along because we were “disturbing people working in the building.” (Maybe “distracting” but I suppose that could be true or not.)
During those ten or so minutes, I managed to make twenty-two shots and while I would have liked to have made more but I agreed to leave. My personal rule is never argue with anyone who carries a badge and a gun.
This is one of the photographs that got the sheriff’s deputy attention. Unfortunately, I never got the shot that I was trying to achieve but this one pose is close to it and gives you an idea of the look of I was trying to achieve—black dress, white building—you get the what I was going for.
How I Made this Photo: The above image was shot using Canon EOS 60D and a EF 22-55mm f/4-5.6 lens with an exposure of 1/200 sec at f/11 and ISO 100. A 550EX speedlite was use as fill. An interesting postscript was that after Jennifer and I were asked to leave, we moved the shoot two blocks away to a city building were she posed on a ledge just outside the City Court bailiff’s office. During the whole shoot nobody said a thing to us but is was such a public space space that we had lots of comments from the Peanut Gallery as people drove by.
What are your rights under these kind of situations? Bert P. Krages II attorney-at-law has developed a one-page PDF containing information about what your rights are when stopped and confronted by authorities. As the author of the incredibly useful book, Legal Handbook for Photographers, Mr. Krages is knowledgeable about photographer’s rights. I would like to thank him for producing a document that explains your rights and legal remedies when confronted by law enforcement or others when shooing but more importantly how you should handle these kinds of confrontations. Print a copy of the PDF and keep it in your camera bag—just in case.
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