A widely practiced movement within photography is street photography. In doing so, you will shoot images of street life, often including unfamiliar people. Only this is a dilemma: Are you allowed to photograph everyone on the street? The answer is not easy: yes, in many cases it is allowed. But then again, this publishing is a little more difficult. In this article, I explain to you the rules surrounding street photography.
Word of warning: this text is not a legal text, nor am I giving legal advice. I just want to share with you how I behave as a street photographer in public spaces. No rights can therefore be derived from this text.
Street photography for me is like top sport: this is the way for me as a photographer to practice my reaction time. For example, I maintain the art of clicking at the right moment and making a good composition very quickly, while sometimes adjusting my settings. I really love doing this.
You can use several strategies here: you follow your subject (you can do this quite unobtrusively), or you pick your scenery earlier and let people walk through it. Since the pandemic, I especially opt for the second option. This way I set myself low profile as a photographer and don’t come across wrong. Added to that, I also tend to click especially when people with both headgear and mouth masks pass by, making them quasi unrecognizable. Or I even leave the face out of the picture entirely by picturing someone on their back, or rather as a silhouette, or even as a shadow.
What is GDPR? What is AVG?
I chose this because I noticed that since the first lockdown, people could react hot-footed faster. As a photographer, I wanted to avoid conflicts with strangers at all costs; we all had our hands full keeping our backs straight. I also regularly thought about the laws that apply in the European Union. Yes, we’ve had the famous GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) since 2018, but still, a lot remains possible for street photographers.
There were already several privacy laws in the EU, and this GDPR was created to unify them somewhat. It deals with data protection and operates in both the Netherlands and Belgium under the name AVG (General Data Protection Regulation). This regulation is actually a guide for the decent use of personal data by institutions and companies. For us photographers, the bottom line is that we must be careful with images of other people. This is mainly about tracking and/or publishing.
Portrait right or right to image
Actually, we already had such legislation: portrait rights in the Netherlands and image rights in Belgium. Those laws indicated that you had to ask permission if you could publish other people’s photos. Taking pictures on the street was also allowed back then. That’s still allowed with the GDPR, only you have to keep some considerations in mind when publishing photos of unknown people.
When I publish my street photos of unrecognizable people, I’m usually I’m safe. If someone is partially recognizable in the picture, I dare to publish them as well. Provided the main focus is not on this person. But standing in front of someone with a camera at the ready and pressing the shutter button? I don’t, because I don’t feel comfortable doing that. On the other hand, when unknown people start posing at a climate demonstration or at a carnival party, I naturally hit the shutter button. And in many cases at events, I make eye contact first to ask for approval. Such pictures I then feel free to put on my website.
Right to freedom of expression
There are also a number of rights that could be in the photographer’s favor. For example, we can think of the right to freedom of expression, freedom of the press and freedom of artistic expression, these are part of the European Convention on Human Rights.
These are all very important treaties, regulations and laws, but you won’t actually come into contact with them as a photographer anytime soon. Just know what you are doing. Roughly speaking, yes, you may photograph almost anything. And no, you may not publish everything.
How to proceed.
As mentioned, I use the following rules of thumb for myself in street photography:
- I set a low profile (i.e. not pointing the camera specifically at anyone)
- I usually let people walk through my image or photograph them when they are (quasi) unrecognizable. Silhouettes and shadows can also be very cool.
- Are they still recognizable? Then I prefer them to be as small as possible in my image and then I’ll think about whether I’m going to publish that image first.
- Do I really want to portray an unknown person, i.e., large and recognizable in the picture? Then I ask permission first. Go and ask, they only can say no.
Furthermore, I think these principles are also important:
- Photographing children is often sensitive. So I always try to avoid recognizing them unless I have permission from their parents.
- Try to be good to people: I don’t usually photograph beggars on the streets of Brussels, nor do I want to ridicule people.
- Street photography is not always about people. You could also take part of a bicycle as the main subject or a necklace parakeet in a Brussels park.
So, as you can read through the rules, there remain plenty of opportunities to engage in street photography. And remember one thing, just in case you accidentally make a mistake: the odds seem pretty slim that you’ll have to go to trial as a street photographer. Online, then, I encounter few examples of this.
Curious about my work as a street photographer? You can view a series from 2020 here.