Kicked off Facebook Group and proud of it!

I have friends who’ve been in Facebook Jail trouble so many times, the moderators see them coming. This one is a first for me.

I joined a Facebook group called Urban Street Photography. Which as you all know is kinda one of my things. I submitted one of my photos, then another, another and I got up to about 10 and started asking WTF? when none of them met the stringent standards of the group.

The photos in this forum, about half of them are done by talented if not pro photographers all over the world. They are gorgeous, color-drenched shots of the world’s most photogenic cities. Another half are “lucky” kamikaze grabs where photographer A snaps a full face photo of subject B and then zips off without in any way engaging the subject.

This was the case on June 29, when a photographer snapped a shot of three morbidly obese kids waiting for a bus. They did not look happy. People commented on the composition, the framing, the black and white treatment but many took it as an opportunity to poke fun at the kids for their body sizes.

One person even posited that the subjects were not pleased to be photographed and the photographer joked that he’d been lucky, that he snapped the shot, stepped on the tram and was whizzed off. One goody-two-shoes chided the snarky commenters about their insensitivity and exclaimed that we should “comment on the photography,” not on the weight of the subjects.

Maybe it was the ongoing rejection I’d suffered at the hands of this group, but I felt a bee buzzing in my bonnet and decided to let it out: 

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Okay, so let’s comment on the photo. I wonder if the subjects had known they were going to be posted on this forum and have their images subjected to ridicule and snarky fat-shaming comments, would have consented. The photographer said basically that he snapped the shot and zipped away on the tram. No consent. Like a previous submission of a nun trying to block her face, their facial expressions showed they were not happy being photographed.

I’m only a serious amateur photographer of some 50 years, though I am a professional filmmaker. When we go out and capture images of people for release in public media, we need to get signed consent.

The best street photographer who ever lived was Diane Arbus. She spent hours if not days with her subjects, got to know them, then secured their consent before photographing them.

Nobody here does that. What gives you the right to “steal” peoples’ images? Think on that the next time you get in somebody’s face and their expression clearly indicates they don’t want to be photographed.

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These are words I don’t just spout; I live by them. If I happen to catch a person in my frame who is unhappy about being there, I do not post the shot. Generally I photograph the landscapes of my favorite city and if a person on a bike or running zips through my shot, that’s on them.

I shoot people in large groups or at a distance where it would be hard to identify any one individual. Being in public does not constitute consent to be photographed. Many “urban street photographers” don’t get this.

I personally do not want to be photographed so I do not creep on people, at least not at a proximity where it is obvious to them that I’m photographing them. I guess, what I do would be better called Urban Landscape Photography as honestly, the people in my shots are not the primary subjects. They are compositional elements.

They are small in the frame. They are often not facing me. And if they are, I make sure to not linger and reel off multiple shots. Unless I’m taking photos of people I know.

I think that consent is important when you are shooting people as your prime subjects. The moderators of Urban Street Photography do not. After I posted my critique of the group, I never heard from anybody supporting or rebutting my contention. I found out why last night when I discovered I was no longer a member of this august group of voyeurs.

I’m just an old guy who found it creepy when cell phones came equipped with cameras. People are going to be running around taking pictures of strangers without their consent I thought. How naeve. Little did I know.

There was an article in PetaPixel (an online photo mag) about an urban photographer who got his nose and camera smashed by a guy he photographed smooching his girl (maybe she wasn’t his girl; who knows).

“I took a photo of a couple embracing each other on some doorsteps. Naturally, as a street photographer wanting to capture the moment undisturbed, I didn’t ask their permission.”

I think he probably deserved it. I do not condone violence, but this urban hipster sees the world as his canvas, free for the taking. Somebody needed to remind him this was not so. Somebody did.

Cameras are wonderful tools and with today’s phones everyone has one. That doesn’t mean that everyone is fair game. It’s a lesson lost on some of the members of Facebook’s Urban Street Photography group. And even though I have never published there, the feedback and likes I get from my Facebook friends is validation enough for me.