The sticky issue of consent in street photography

>Forgive me if I don't think someone else should have that kind of control over something that could affect me deeply.

No, I am not going to forgive you for that. Not you nor any one else with such views. It sounds like you are ready to deny to other people their basic freedoms just because it "could affect you deeply". This way any oppression really work. To avoid repeating myself I'll direct you to my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29335887

>I understand this and also disagree with it. It may be the way things are but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Of course it doesn't mean you have to like it. You may not like it as long as you do not convert it to aggressive actions that I have observed many times in the streets.

>You are asking me to care more about people's artistic freedom than my own peace of mind. That is never going to happen.

I am not asking you anything it is your responsibility to care about things that could lead to loosing freedom in society.

I am claiming it is a right of an artist to have freedom of thoughts and art expression and if you really mean what you say it seems like you are ready step over it. From my perspective you are crossing the line there with severe consequences.

>I don't see how asking for a good faith effort to ask permission to take or publish photos of an individual is trampling the ability of artists to express themselves.

Street photography doesn't work this way at all which means zero ability for artist to express themselves in that way. If you ask permission then you already lost the moment you wanted to picture. If you have to ask permissions you are not free to do what you really wanted because the subject who is sometimes unable to grasp what was in your mind due to the lack of education or any other reason would have the ability to block your work just because to his uneducated or corrupted or super enlightened mind it is not what photographer should picture. Why to bother then if someone else in full censorship over your work? It is zero freedom for art expression. And it influences the mood of photographer thus not allowing him to feel free and make pictures of what is really going on according to his perception. So instead of work of art you'll get glamour stupid pictures. Artificial demo instead of quality observation by the artist. Thanks to the attitude you've perfectly described it makes it in some countries absolutely impossible to do proper street photography and even harder to publish due to a lot of hassle. This leads to the situation where I simply do not publish my street photography and this is exactly: "how asking for a good faith effort to ask permission to take or publish photos of an individual is trampling the ability of artists to express themselves."

>When people photograph you, they can then do anything they want with that photo. They can delete it, or store it indefinitely, or post it online, turn it into a meme, whatever.

It is not exactly like that, there are nuances in each case of usage and they vary in different countries. But in general freedom of other person means that it is choice of that person and yes it can affect you deeply. Does it mean you should prohibit everything that affects you deeply? again there are other things that affect you much more deeply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29335887

Would you also be in favor of prohibiting a free speech? After all some of it could be unpleasant and affect you deeply? Just keep in mind that once you do that the society looses ability to discuss hard issues thus unable to face real issues thus separating itself from reality and together with inability for the artist to deliver different perspective on things would exactly be moving toward doomed oppressed society that is unable to deal with real world. If you wish to see live example you can look toward Russia and Belarus. Would you prefer to live there?

It's interesting that the incredulous replies to my comment have to resort to describing contrived situations that go beyond simple candid photography in public to harassment or other illegal acts to "prove" I can't possibly feel how I do.

There's this pervasive attitude in the comments for this article that having your photo taken in public is some major affront. I see people equating it with assault, even. That feels very "Internet tough guy" to me.

I feel like I've made the "Internet tough guys" unhappy by not falling in line behind them. They simply can't conceive that I wouldn't be "outraged" at the same things they are. That, too, "outrages" them, apparently.

>You could consider the possibility that debates over this are a proxy issue for discomfort with surveillance in general

So you suggest to support avoiding real issue of surveillance and support redirection of concerns toward those who has nothing to do with it because for people it is easier? This is reminds me the attitude with which Jewish people in Nazi Germany where claimed to be the source of all problems.

I was literally faced questioning attempts with threats in the public street just because I was making test shots directed toward the bush and AWAY from any people or any private property. Talk to me about 'performative rudeness'...

Once I was questioned for making photo of parked old motorcycle. I had telephoto lens and had to take my distance from the motorcycle coming close to the the few stairs of some building directing my camera AWAY from that building staying in public street.

Turned out those stairs were leading to the backdoor of some restaurant where some local TV stars happens to be celebrating something in that very day. Of course I had no idea about any of that.

One of the tv stars was smoking outside and was very concerned and ready to attack me with security of the restaurant even though I have never directed camera toward him. He was attempting to question me aggressively while I was trying to be nice with him.

It was very hard for this local star to believe that I with my serious equipment was interested more in some old parked motorcycle rather then in His majesty amazing Him who I failed to recognize by the way because I simply did not watch TV at all for some years already. Now I regret that I was too nice with such bright individual.

Again talk to me about 'performative rudeness'...

Many people went far beyond 'performative rudeness' toward photographers. They treat photographers as criminals just in case and do not hold themselves from aggression quesioning attempts and yet you prefer/propose to discuss my 'performative rudeness' for paying attention to some obvious facts rather then discussing their attitude and the real issue of surveillance?

Well, once someone publishes your street photo, it becomes instantly available to a plethora of searchable databases from all kinds of jurisdictions.

If it's CCTV, it's just one company that manages the photos, under local regulations.

That's the difference though. It doesn't happen in practice if you aren't famous, because the person with the eye can only do a limited number of things at the same time, and spending all day tweeting about random people isn't what most people want to spend their time on.