If you have been into photography for any significant amount of time, chances are that at some point you have been harassed over something you were shooting. More often than not this kind of bullying is commenced without any true legal basis. Anyone that enjoys photography should know what their rights are as a photographer and be ready, willing and able to defend them should they be challenged.
There are a variety of resources available to become educated on what rights you have as a photographer. An excellent downloadable guide on photographer’s rights is available on attorney Bert P. Krages website. A condensed version of the photo rights guide is even available for purchase as a set of exposure cards on the petapixel.com website.
Now the problem with knowing these rights is that they are constantly being challenged. Earlier this month there was an article about a lawmaker in Illinois that was seeking to ban the ability of citizens to photograph accident scenes. Poor taste and safety concerns aside, this is a clear violation of our first amendment rights. To inhibit the documentation of an accident or crime scene would be a major violation of the freedom of the press.
Today I came across another article concerning photographer’s rights and this one, being a lifelong resident of Florida, is much closer to home. The state recently had a bill introduced (cs/sb 1246) that sought to make it a felony to photograph a farm, even if the photo was taken from public lands. This would mean that if I was to stop on the side of the road and photograph a barn out in a field I would technically be committing a felony.
This bill did pass. However, the language and severity was scaled back to downgrade the felony charge to misdemeanor and to specify the photos were being taken “on” and not “of” the farm.
When you look at the final draft of this bill you have to ask what was the point of this?Shouldn’t this have been adequately covered under trespassing laws? Well, the primary aim of this law was at curtailing animal rights groups that were sneaking on farms to document animal abuse. That, of course, is a whole topic of its own and is beyond the scope of this post.
What bothers me the most about this is that when laws like this are allowed to pass, it slowly erodes away our rights as citizens.
There is currently a similar law being considered for Iowa. So, be careful what state you take a picture of a cow in… it might be illegal.
