AMBUSH PHOTOGRAPHY
-Mason Cooley
Just about every family has at least one cell phone in America now, and every cell phone has a camera in it. You can take pictures or short videos and send them to family and friends. Or you can take pictures of people who don't know what's happening or see you do it and post it on the internet. Sometimes this is good, or perhaps interesting; as soon as you heard of flight 1549 crashed in the Hudson River you knew that at least one person got a picture or even video footage of the crash.
Sometimes these pictures are a bit less welcome. There is a whole industry of "upskirt" pictures where people slip a camera under a dress and get a shot of what's underneath like a giggling junior high kid. The way some women dress, you wouldn't expect them to be upset by this (particularly the ones that forgot their underwear that morning) but there is some outcry against it. Others use the cameras in dressing rooms or other areas to get a picture of someone unaware.
The problem, according to Representative Pete King (R-NY), is that these cameras don't make an audible click like the old ones used to. I personally prefer a sound when a picture is taken, so you have some clue it has happened, but apparently there isn't much consumer outcry for such a feature in cell phone cameras or even many digital cameras.
Pete King's answer is a new law, a regulation requiring all cameras to make an audible click sound when a picture is taken. Kent German at CNET has the story:
Like New York City Mayor Bloomberg's desire to cut salt in foods by half (he won't stop until all food is bland and without savor!), this is a rejection of personal responsibility and an embrace of centralized government force making people do what someone believes is right. In the place of a culture where people are taught right and wrong, pressured by societal shame to avoid the wrong and are encouraged and praised for personal responsibility, we have today's society: you are praised for being a rebel and avoiding the rules, taught to reject authority, and then the government passes laws to try to limit the chaos.
Laws cannot make people do what is right, they can only punish what you have decided is wrong. And at some point the people of a free country have to draw the line and say "you cannot pass laws beyond this point." Yet with the continuous pressure of things going wrong combined with a deep seated desire to avoid any possible training on what to do right, anyone who comes along and offers well-meaning answers from on high that don't require any responsibility by individuals all too often is successful.
Trans fats are bad for you, according to some studies.
Well then I guess I won't eat as much of that, or be willing to pay the price for doing so.
No, that's not good enough, we have to keep people from hurting themselves.
Everyone has a right to be stupid.
Your stupidity costs me money in the health care system
Only because you insist on making everyone else pay for my bills.
We need a law to stop smoking and eating trans fatty acids!
And so it goes.
It seems to me that enough negative reinforcement might cut back on the misuse of cameras, such as this woman's approach:
Sometimes these pictures are a bit less welcome. There is a whole industry of "upskirt" pictures where people slip a camera under a dress and get a shot of what's underneath like a giggling junior high kid. The way some women dress, you wouldn't expect them to be upset by this (particularly the ones that forgot their underwear that morning) but there is some outcry against it. Others use the cameras in dressing rooms or other areas to get a picture of someone unaware.
The problem, according to Representative Pete King (R-NY), is that these cameras don't make an audible click like the old ones used to. I personally prefer a sound when a picture is taken, so you have some clue it has happened, but apparently there isn't much consumer outcry for such a feature in cell phone cameras or even many digital cameras.
Pete King's answer is a new law, a regulation requiring all cameras to make an audible click sound when a picture is taken. Kent German at CNET has the story:
The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act (H.R. 414) would "require any mobile phone containing a digital camera to sound a tone whenever a photograph is taken." What's more, the bill would prohibit such handsets from being equipped with a means of disabling or silencing the tone. Enforcement would be through the Consumer Product Safety Commission.Apparently adults being exploited in this manner isn't a concern. The bill so far has no cosponsors and is unlikely to get out of committee, but it is typical of congress to figure that the answer to any problem is another law. Granted, they're lawmakers so that's what they are there for, but a clicking camera isn't likely to stop this behavior.
The text of the bill is short, and King's office has not released any public statements. Yet, the reasoning behind the legislation is clear. The text states that "Congress finds that children and adolescents have been exploited by photographs taken in dressing rooms and public places with the use of a camera phone."
Like New York City Mayor Bloomberg's desire to cut salt in foods by half (he won't stop until all food is bland and without savor!), this is a rejection of personal responsibility and an embrace of centralized government force making people do what someone believes is right. In the place of a culture where people are taught right and wrong, pressured by societal shame to avoid the wrong and are encouraged and praised for personal responsibility, we have today's society: you are praised for being a rebel and avoiding the rules, taught to reject authority, and then the government passes laws to try to limit the chaos.
Laws cannot make people do what is right, they can only punish what you have decided is wrong. And at some point the people of a free country have to draw the line and say "you cannot pass laws beyond this point." Yet with the continuous pressure of things going wrong combined with a deep seated desire to avoid any possible training on what to do right, anyone who comes along and offers well-meaning answers from on high that don't require any responsibility by individuals all too often is successful.
Trans fats are bad for you, according to some studies.
Well then I guess I won't eat as much of that, or be willing to pay the price for doing so.
No, that's not good enough, we have to keep people from hurting themselves.
Everyone has a right to be stupid.
Your stupidity costs me money in the health care system
Only because you insist on making everyone else pay for my bills.
We need a law to stop smoking and eating trans fatty acids!
And so it goes.
It seems to me that enough negative reinforcement might cut back on the misuse of cameras, such as this woman's approach:
Went for a movie with Perl yesterday at Tiong Bahru Plaza. Just as we arrive and took the escalator up to the ground floor, I kinda felt someone being a tad too close to me at the back..Enough of that and the frequency might drop, after all, these guys are taking the pictures in public with many people around them. Defend the girl's honor, even if she's not really dressed in an honorable way. Maybe people will get the message after a while, at least some of them.
Turned back to take a look and caught this old man using his handphone camera to take an upskirting photo of me. My immediate reflex action: I wacked the guy real real real hard in his stomach
posted by Christopher Taylor at 10:40 AM
6 Comments:
I took my wife out to see Travis Linville play a show in Norman last month, and at the show we saw a guy who looked exactly like a taller version of my cousin. It was uncanny, he looked like my cousin (who is short) if he'd attached to a taffy puller for a few hours. It was uncanny enough that she wanted to get a picture of this guy, and as she discreetly whipped out her cell phone and tried to look like she wasn't doing what she was doing, it occured to me that I'd be highly offended if I caught somebody trying to take a picture of me in public, unawares. I pointed this out.
So she spent the rest of the evening sneaking pictures of me when I wasn't looking.
She thinks she's funny.
...it occured to me that I'd be highly offended if I caught somebody trying to take a picture of me in public, unawares. I pointed this out...
That would be between you and the photographer. Making a law against it does not take into account that OTHERS may not think the way you do - the creation of such a 'one size fits all' law is an indicator that the lawmaker does not take into account the personal aspect of the issue.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want a law against it... but maybe a law granting a degree of clemency to somebody for knocking the piss out of a person if they refused to quit taking pictures after being asked nicely. While I generally don't think too highly of Hollywood celebrities, I always applaud them when they knock the paparazzi around a little, and think they are well within their rights to do so, even if it isn't legal. If I was a Hollywood star and had millions of dollars to my name, I'd whup up on the paparazzi at every opportunity.
Which, come to think of it, reminds me of an idea I had for my blog, which (sort of) focuses on rural life: I wanted to do a series of posts where I secretly took pictures of the contents of the beds of random pick-up trucks parked around town, and then invited readers to psychoanalyze the owners based on what could be seen in the picture (you find some WEIRD stuff in truck beds around here).
I thought about it and thought about and finally decided against it, because I can almost guarantee I'd have to physically defend myself the first time some farmer saw me snapping pictures of the bed of their truck in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Not worth it.
Sometimes the threat of an arse-whooping is a valuable social tool.
..but maybe a law granting a degree of clemency to somebody for knocking the piss out of a person if they refused to quit taking pictures after being asked nicely...
I'd be all behind that one - provided there were witnesses. Invasion of privacy can sometimes be a form of trespass - the use of someone's property without their express permission.
Anyone in public is presumed to be visible and known to everyone: if you're walking down the street, you can't claim privacy the same way you can in a house or even a business. If someone takes a picture of you in public, then I wouldn't have a problem with that. If they harass you, that's another matter entirely, and if they try to take pictures up your skirt to reference the article, then that's a more specific violation of privacy.
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