Street Photography: Children — law, morals & ethics, commonsense

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a 20th century French photographer. He is considered the father of photojournalism and perhaps the most important pioneer of street photography.

Cartier-Bresson was more than a street photographer. His images transcended the genre in a way that street photographers aspire, but rarely achieve. Cartier-Bresson was a humanist photographer. His photographs tell the stories of human endeavor, customs, social and economic class, human character and characteristics, behavior and distinctiveness. His photographs purposefully witness human nature.

Cartier-Bresson walked the streets of the world from the 1930s through the early 1970s, after which he retired to drawing and painting until his death in 2004.

There was little fear of public photographers while Cartier-Bresson walked the streets of the world with his 35mm Leica, unlike the last four decades which have seen increasing fear of public photography, rising almost to hysteria after 9/11. Today, street photographers, particularly those photographing children, must balance their desire to capture candid storytelling moments, with the potential of physical attacks, and social media witch hunts with the potential to destroy one's reputation and career.

And we thought the Florida law was bad?

A while back I wrote about a proposed law in Florida which would make it a first-degree felony to photograph a farm without first obtaining written permission from the owner.


Wilton Simpson, a Florida farmer said the bill is needed to protect the property rights of farmers and the "intellectual property" involving farm operations. Simpson, also said the law would prevent people from posing as farmworkers so that they can secretly film agricultural operations.

Of course, Simpson couldn't name a single instance when that happened.

The originally proposed bill was so crazy, it even would have made it a first degree felony to photograph a farm from a public road, where the farmer enjoys no expectation of privacy whatsoever.

Do I need “model” releases, and if so, how can I easily obtain them while traveling?

Generally, when people are located in public spaces, they have no expectation of privacy, so the photographer doesn’t violate their right of privacy when taking their photo in a public space.

While that’s generally true in the US, I hasten to add, however, that different states have passed their own laws regarding personal privacy, and the laws of other countries often are considerably different than the US, so you need to know the laws in your specific location.

The “rule of thumb” above, has to do with taking photographs, however, not using them.

After the photo is taken, new concerns of privacy come into play, and one’s person right of publicity. For example, generally, a photographer violates a person’s right of publicity when, without permission, the photographer uses a photo of a person for the photographer’s own benefit, sometimes referred to as “commercial” use as opposed to an “editorial” use. Like many concepts in law, this one isn’t precisely straightforward.