No picture today, just a comment on something that disturbs me: On at least two separate photography podcasts recently, I’ve heard people talk about the rights of photographers to take pictures in public places, and the clash of photographers exercising that right with various authority figures (police, security guards etc.) harassing, threatening, arresting and assaulting them to prevent the taking of these pictures. These authority figures (either through ignorance of, or worse, disregard for the law) make up their own rules about what it possible in a public space. In Toronto, we only have to look back to the G20 debacle for this kind of misuse of power.

What disturbs me is when people say, yes you have the right to take a picture in a public space, but do you really want the confrontation, and wouldn’t it be better just to back off and go take pictures somewhere else? In the next breath, photographers who don’t back down but stand up for their rights are negatively characterized as confrontation junkies, who just want the thrill of getting in the face of “the man.”

When people suggest giving up their rights so meekly, they are insulting everyone who in the past fought and suffered for every right we take for granted.  Would they have suggested to Rosa Parks that yes, she had the right to keep her seat on the bus, but wouldn’t it be simpler if she just gave up her seat? Would they have suggesting to Ghandi that while India deserved independence it would have been better to avoid confronting the soldiers and police (the ones with the guns).

There is a time and place for being polite, and when confronted by someone trying to take away your rights, going ballistic at the start is not normally the best way to go; but neither is meekly surrendering those rights. Sometimes manners aren’t enough and you have to get in someone’s face if those rights mean anything to you. Our rights are like gardens: constant attention is needed to prevent authoritarian weeds from growing and choking our rights out of existence.

As a photographer, there is no middle ground here; where do you stand?