Male and SLR = Predator?

Roger Hicks said:
1 Start out smiling and polite
2 If they can't handle that, tell 'em it's their problem
3 Walk away
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Words of wisdom.

I was photographing pumkins in an apartment window in NYC (yeah, well, I was bored). The window had a shade, so you could not see into the window. A lady came out of the building while I was doing this and asked me what I was doing. I explained that I was photographing the pumpkins and even showed her the photo... which clearly showed what I was doing (i.e. making a boring picture of pumpkins). She still decided to give me flack, so I told her to **** off. I get even more pissed when I'm being reasonable and they can't accept my answer. Idiots.
 
I think that most of this is, as another poster mentioned, just a ploy for the complainer to lay off a bit of their feeling of powerlessness on someone they perceive as in a weaker position than themselves.

If you have a ropey job, an unpleasant boss and a personality that can't respond in a balanced manner to these pressures, then you too might grab the chance to exert some power. I'm no psychologist - I just recognise the symptoms from myself. I hope I'm strong enough to resist but I rather fear that, in the past, I haven't.

Apart from feeling some pity for the poor sod, I find that behaving with absolute confidence and handing over a printed card defuses these things very quickly. No, you don't have to be a working photographer, you just have to be proud of what you're doing and happy to identify yourself.
 
Roger Hicks said:
I normally reckon on three stages:

1 Start out smiling and polite
2 If they can't handle that, tell 'em it's their problem
3 Walk away

Cheers,

R.
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my exact motto. that's your trip annoying individual, not mine.

sadly i am 200 lbs of solid mass, heavily tattooed and sport some battle scars so i run into this almost daily. my 'start out smiling' stage is beginning to morph into 'bugger off'.
 
DWScarpa said:
I don't see what this has to do with "political correctness", which seems to be a catch-all phrase.

There have always been people who believe they have a right to get into other people's business. They're called busybodies. This woman is clearly one such person...
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You hit it on the nose there. I've been shooting greyhounds at a public event and had a woman come up and ask me why I was shooting pictures of her kid (who may or may not have been standing nearby - I didn't notice). I've had a woman stop her car as I was leading a frightened mule (who got more frightened wondering why a scary car stopped beside us in the middle of the road), telling me how I needed to handle it differently. I've had a teenage girl on a trail (leading an exhausted looking tiny dog) telling me my mule was tired, and I should take him home and quit "abusing" him by making him continue. I've had women glaring at me when I park, walk, eat, order, drive, talk to my 3 kids, anything....just looking to gain eye contact so they can scold, instruct, admonish me.

What's the common denominator? Women have become ultra-empowered by society and TV to approach men and beat them down with their agendas. Men are expected to "take it" and meekly walk away, else they are being aggressive. Have you ever had a man tell you what to do? No, because there is a sense of "detente" with men - you don't start something because you both have a "right" to finish it.
 
goamules said:
. . . Have you ever had a man tell you what to do? . . .
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Dear Garrett,

Um, yes, actually. Not as often, it's true, and the only times I've had outright loony hysteria has been with women. One was in Arles, and the other in the north of France. The latter wanted me to ask her permission before I photographed anything belonging to her, and she really lost it when I pointed out that I had no way of telling what was hers before I photographed it... At the time I was taking a picture of the deserted centre block of a municipal camp-site, for piece on motorcycle touring and accommodation, with her caravan behind me and her inside it.

Perhaps, as emraphoto implies, it's because men don't generally hit women for being loony hysterics. If a man tried the same route, sooner or later he might have to run the risk of offering physical violence. I may be old, but I'm reasonably substantial and I've yet to be beaten in a fight. This is perhaps because I have fought so rarely and only when I couldn't avoid a fight. And because, when I do fight, I remember the advice of a Hell's Angel chum: "The point in a fight is to make sure they stay down long enough that you can leg it. To hell with fighting fair. If they didn't want to get knocked down, they shouldn't have started the fight."

Cheers,

R.
 
Addy101 said:
:eek:
Being European, i had to google this Packwood guy. I think this comparison with Packwood is inappropriate. Where Packwood was groping women, Rohan only was taking pictures of his own son - huge difference!

Anyway, wether the manager needs to know, or has a right to know, talk to her, Rohan!
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The point isn't what Packwood did (whether you like it or not); it is, he was witch hunted 25 years latter (plus it was a more common practice then; like it still is in Italy). Are we who took pictures of our children and other included children 30+ years ago (a more accepted practice then) going to be witch hunted?


Besides I thought this groping thing was all settled in this country after Bill Clinton. You get one 'don't go to jail' grope.
 
D.J. said:
Have you had much experience with hysterical, lunatic women?
I find it helps more to be substantially reasonable.
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Frst para: photographically, as I already said, twice. Otherwise... Still not that many times. But more than twice. For a given value of 'lunatic'. Or indeed 'hysterical'.

Second para: substantially reasonable is the best line of defence. Reasonably substantial is a VERY good second line.

Cheers,

R.
 
The Expanding Man said:
I've worked a little in the child-protection field.

Children are statistically most at risk from sexual abuse in the home from someone they are related to (step-fathers being one of the most common groups of perpetrators).

I suspect somewhere down the line the manager has had to deal with complaints from parents and is taking the easy way out by seeking to restrain your activities, rather than point out to the complainer that they are being irrational and unreasonable.

For this reason, I suspect you will have difficulties ever winning this battle.
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I think the implications of this message are being missed.

Firstly I want to make my stance entirely clear

Is it wrong that there is a perception of male photographers as predators? YES, the inference is disgusting and offensive.

Is it wrong that you should be stopped from taking photos of your own relatives in a public place? YES (and illegal).

The swimming pool is presumably a private building, so if you're asked to stop shooting, (regardless of the reason) you should.

There is a hyper awareness of "child safety" in society, and places like the leisure centre/pool will be just as much (if not more) at the mercy of people's perceptions of this, and being an organisation, they have much more to lose from the situation than an individual does.

Sadly it's often not even about any real danger, it's about a perceived danger. I seriously doubt that the employee in question thought the original poster was a predator, but more that somebody might perceive an adult male with a camera as a predator.

Wheras you might get approached by an irate parent, or told to stop shooting by an employee, in the current social climate an organisation stands to get either bad press or sued.

This kind of thing tends to lead to employees being less than subtle in their addressing of the issues, because as soon as it's brought up it is an "emergency", and we've all dealt with things unprofessionally in an emergency.

I did some work for an organisation with lots of educational programmes, (documenting them and shooting for publicity material). The adult programs were a joy to work in, everyone was friendly, relaxed, and happy to be a part of it.

The programme dealing with under 18s was much more difficult, nobody had informed the programme leader I was coming for a start, and he was immediately defensive, because HE was suddenly at risk from the repercussions of people's negative perceptions of photography/photographers, he'd be the one getting sued, or having his organisation lose funding, not me.

I understood that, and in the end we came to the compromise that I wouldn't shoot anything involving the students because they hadn't had a chance to send out consent forms to parents, but I would shoot some shots of him, and the equipment in isolation for the brief.

Not the best shots I've ever taken, but it filled the brief, and protected him from a potential backlash.

Yes it's absolutely ridiculous to be second guessing what someone else will think a third person's perception MIGHT be, but sadly that's the situation we're in with photography around minors.

It's exceedingly rare that I'll shoot anything with a minor in, and I'll almost never shoot an unaccompanied (in the frame) one. Solely because of the perception issue.

So many iconic photographs would never have been taken if this had always been the case, the Arbus shot of the kid with the grenade for one, and it's potentially artistically loss that many photographers feel this unspoken restriction, but it's also one that there seems to be no way to publicly challenge it because the reaction would be so kneejerk and damaging to any individual who did.

I don't know how to improve the situation, I just know how I try to protect myself from it, and yes, I know that probably makes me part of the problematic status quo

I hope that at least vaguely made sense, I started ramblilng
 
I often shoot kids basketball at our local Boys & Girls Club. Butt I got to know the guys running the league first, and I made all of my photos available to the club. A number have landed in their brochures.

So get to know people and share your photos.
 
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