This morning I spotted a forum thread talking about street photography in Brunei. The 1st post was about:
- Concerned parent finds teen daughter’s pics uploaded on blogs and facebook.
- “Street Shooters” took pix.
- Apparently in other countries, models under 18 must have written permission from their parents before having their photo published anywhere.
- One of the photogs proposed the teen to pose indecently – which the kid sensibly declined.
More discussion after the break:
Well – as far as I know:
- Taking photographs of people in the street isn’t prohibited … if you’re in a public place and you’re photographed, you don’t really have much to argue your case with.
- In fact, the copyright of the photographs rest solely with the photographers – and they have specific rights over their artistic work.
- The model release forms I’ve seen tend to protect commercial interests – not decent interests.
- The kid had the good sense to flatly deny the photog wanting to take the compromising pix.
This is a great case study of “right & wrong” and the “dangers of social media”. I reckon the teen showed the right response with denying being compromised – the line that shouldn’t be crossed.
This would be a good time to get those Bruneian model agencies involved in the discussion.
I followed the discussion on Twitter at first:
I added some discussion to the thread (“wajib” means “compulsory”).
The discussion continued on Twitter:
And finally …
As an aside … Bruneian laws talk about lawful carnal knowledge with *married* girls under the age of 16. How bizzare.
UPDATE#1: Thanks to @EmmaGoodEgg for some excellent links: Legal info-ish here http://bit.ly/bWS1eR & here http://bit.ly/U1ody on model release forms.
No related posts.
Whoa! I’m in the twitter discussion.
On a serious note, yeah I’ve been looking for some or any modeling agency in Brunei. So far, there is one but its pretty beat down for a modeling business. Sure, there are photo-studios and hair-salons who have models too but they are only part modeling for those kinds of business. If you know any other modeling agencies in Brunei, let me know.
On the blog post, yes I believe that there should be rules on whether kids can go model for a photo-shoot or not. Someone should put some sort of awareness for this or something.
Ah great, more reason to get us Photographers vilified in the public mindset.
I’m all for street shooting, artform or otherwise, but the action of a few will screw it up for the rest of us. Street shooting for the sake of street shooting is fine by me, but be careful once you even think about showcasing those photos. Post a few photos of a person doing something pretty embarrassing, or have some sort of mishap befalling him, or in this case, posting photos of underage children, the general consensus can be as mortifying as what has happened in the US, (paranoia of paedophilia is rampant over there). Self censorship is key, and if you think you’re above everything and you view your photos to have no flaws and can do no wrong, you’re just opening yourself to trouble. And screwing it up for the rest of us.
I’ve shot thousands of photos of children portraying their innocence and exuberance of youth, I wouldn’t even dare to think of taking it any other way.
VERY interesting post Izam.