people taking pictures - in public

[Oddgitt 10]

Possibly one of the most over-moderated fora I've been on...

[maisie's_ill 10]

I heard that when someone takes your picture they're stealing a little piece of your soul... oh wait, we know that one's not true. I know, it must actually mean that they're some kind of psycho building a shrine to you in their basement... or maybe not. Get a little perspective, for goodness sake.

 

Maybe the teenagers were doing a school art project, maybe the person at the bus stop liked your haircut, maybe the picture wasn't even of you. Why the suspicion, paranoia, and imagining oneself at the centre of everyone's attention?

[rubydazzler 11]

I heard that when someone takes your picture they're stealing a little piece of your soul... oh wait, we know that one's not true. I know, it must actually mean that they're some kind of psycho building a shrine to you in their basement... or maybe not. Get a little perspective, for goodness sake.

 

Maybe the teenagers were doing a school art project, maybe the person at the bus stop liked your haircut, maybe the picture wasn't even of you. Why the suspicion, paranoia, and imagining oneself at the centre of everyone's attention?

So as outlined in the OP, a bloke sticks a mobile in ya face and tries to take your picture ... do you strike a pose?

[maisie's_ill 10]

...and vogue. Why not? I'd probably ask why he's taking it before getting all worked up about it - he might be a tourist who wants to show all the people back home how beautiful English women are... then again he might be a bit strange, or worse, but you just can't make the assumption.

[rubydazzler 11]

...and vogue. Why not? I'd probably ask why he's taking it before getting all worked up about it - he might be a tourist who wants to show all the people back home how beautiful English women are... then again he might be a bit strange' date=' or worse, but you just can't make the assumption.[/quote'] I wouldn't appreciate some random tourist geek using my pix in his holiday album. Why can't some of you accept that some of us might value our privacy? If you want to take pix, at least have the courtesy to ask. This blithe assumption by some photographers that everyone should be happy to participate willy-nilly in their hobby is arrogant beyond belief. I bet they don't even offer copies to their victims.

[six45ive 10]

I wouldn't appreciate some random tourist geek using my pix in his holiday album. Why can't some of you accept that some of us might value our privacy? If you want to take pix, at least have the courtesy to ask. This blithe assumption by some photographers that everyone should be happy to participate willy-nilly in their hobby is arrogant beyond belief. I bet they don't even offer copies to their victims.

 

Quite simply, nobody has a right to privacy in a public area. The idea is quite laughable if you think about it. I think the term is oxymoron.

[carosio 186]

Becoming a country of hypochondriacs.

 

Don't you mean paranoeics?

[Guest]

I wouldn't appreciate some random tourist geek using my pix in his holiday album. Why can't some of you accept that some of us might value our privacy? If you want to take pix, at least have the courtesy to ask. This blithe assumption by some photographers that everyone should be happy to participate willy-nilly in their hobby is arrogant beyond belief. I bet they don't even offer copies to their victims.

 

Then stay at home and don't ever go out in public, or if you do please make a box to cover yourself up with some eye holes in it so we can't see you.

 

Alternatively invent an invisibility field for yourself.

 

Or just get over it.

[SYorksDeano 10]

Not actually Sheffield but:

 

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/local/ilkleynews/4400376.Police_bid_to_trace_photographer/

 

Still rather strange

[fox20thc 10]

Not actually Sheffield but:

 

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/local/ilkleynews/4400376.Police_bid_to_trace_photographer/

 

Still rather strange

 

very odd, what will they do when they find him?

[fox20thc 10]

Well, that's fine, just don't ever take a pic of me when I'm not expecting it ...I wouldn't be amused. Some random sticking a camera in my face would not be welcome and I'd regard it as an invasion of my privacy - and probably a violation of my human rights at the very least meh, take pix of your own family if you need people in the foreground.

 

Erm .... <scuttles off to delete all her pics of Ruby out having fun>

[Squiggs 11]

It couldn't have been Squiggs, he's premediatatively covert about it, to the extent of having dummy lens That seems an assault in itself, too sneaky.

 

I agree with you, I wouldn't like to think random blokes were snapping me when I was unaware. Why would anyone want pix of total strangers anyway? It's different if they're taking pix of scenery and you just happen to be there, but to actually try to photograph individuals? I may be paranoid but that's just odd, imo.

 

You are indeed paranoid. And a little cocksure that you think you are so interesting that people want to take photos of which you are the main focus. But you're not alone in that. But there is self-consciousness too, I as most people do, become self-conscious when a camera is pointed at me. Let me explain a bit more of the point to candid photographs.

 

I have a photo (on film, not going to scan it just to illustrate) of a scenic, oft-photographed plave (NYM Steam Railway). Quite normal to photograph such a picturesque place. Except for some bizzare reason, because my lens was pointing at this particular person, he leant against the old platform light in a false, posed fashion, assuming that HE was the focus of the photograph, when the intent would be that anyone present would be incidental. It changed the whole photograph.

 

Now, if I'd shot from the hip, or used a mirrored lens attachment, he would just have been an incidental feature - a person on the platform waiting for the train. Nothing odd, just a capture of an everyday scene with incidental human interest. Rather than what it became, a photograph of a person, with a badly forced pose.

 

So you see, photographing candidly may not actually be about taking photographs specifically OF PEOPLE (the people becoming the major subject of the photo). The "sneaky" (as you put it) photography can be more about taking the focur of a photo away from the people present, playing them as incidental features of a different subject rather than, as you suggest, "try(ing) to photograph individuals". And also not making people feel uneasy, and having them posed.