You Can't be Private in Public

The person whose legs and hand are visible in this photo from the French Quarter is in public view and has made no effort conceal herself (assuming it’s a woman) from public view. Stated differently, she has no reasonable expectation of privacy.

smoke break in the French Quarter

I state this because too many people have put forth the idea that a person in a public space, clearly visible to anyone nearby, has a right to privacy from photography.

A street musician, of which we have way too many in New Orleans, has the right to refuse to play for a photographer unless compensated. A person who has erected some type of shelter in a public space and concealed himself or herself within it has a right to expect photographers to leave them undisturbed.

I’ll state it another way: The space you’re in is either public or private but it can’t be both and if you’re in a public space when I’m around with my camera you can look away, run away, flip me off, make an ugly face, and call me mean names but you can’t demand privacy that doesn’t exist.

Is Street Photography Art?

I have mixed feelings about the elevation of pointing the camera at scenes you find interesting, for whatever reason, to the artistic category of “street photography”. It’s true that making interesting photographs of people and things normally found outdoors requires a certain eye for the scene. Each of us in photography thinks we have such an eye. The reason I hesitate to elevate street photography to an art form is that the photographer simply must recognize the scene and capture it before it changes. That’s exactly what I did to capture the scene shown here. This did require that I saw what was happening and anticipated the shot. I guess it's artistic in a way. It’s mainly an example of timing.

In my profession, as a convention and event photographer, I must keep watch for a good scene and be ready to grab it with my camera. Often the scene is planned by the meeting planner and I just have to be at the proper place on time. I try to be creative in the way I capture the moment but “art”? I’m not feeing it.