Comment 57212

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted January 20, 2011 at 12:47:07

This is a pretty common policy, and almost always silly beyond belief. At one point I was stopped on the sidewalk outside Dofasco and threatened with arrest as two security guards went through my camera deleting every picture of the plant I'd taken from the sidewalk. The same is true of malls and many other areas. Virtually all of these areas, of course, photograph us constantly with surveillance cameras, but that's another matter entirely, right?

I fully support the right to take pictures of things and places. However, going around photographing anyone you wish, and then publishing those pictures has consequences (especially on social media). Don't be surprised if people don't want to be a part of your slideshow. Is it a "right" not to be photographed? That's a big question. But as a photographer, it's absolutely horrible etiquette not to ask (at least by gesture).

A far better policy for the library and elsewhere would be "ask first", posted widely. It's not the photos they're worried about - it's the ensuing shouting matches.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

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