LO2: M2: Legal and Ethical Report

 Explain legal and Ethical Considerations for the Photographic Shoot

In this report I will be discussing the legal and ethical issues that I must consider when taking my photos for this 'Beautiful Doncaster' brief. The legal issues surrounding my shoot are the laws which affect the shoot as I will need to abide by them to avoid facing a lawsuit. There are also ethical issues that I must abide by in order to not hurt or offend anyone with the photoshoot or the photos themselves.

During my photo shoot I will need to consider the legal issue of privacy. I will need to ensure that I Do not take any pictures on private property without the land owners permission. To do this I will research the place where I am taking my photos to see their status and then if I need to I will ask permission and if they say yes then I will take my pictures there and fill out a property release form which is a written contract between me and the land owner that states that I am permitted to take photos on the property. If they say no, I will find somewhere else to take my photos. however, since the places that I have chosen to take photos are all on public land, I won't need permission.

I will also need to make sure that if I take pictures near houses, you can't see inside and if there are number plates  I need to make sure that they aren't readable to protect the privacy of the car owner/s.

https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/report/taking-photographs-in-public-places/

I will not need to fill out any model release forms as there won't be any people in my photos. However if there was I may have to do so to ensure that I have their permission so I don't end up getting sued or anything like that. However this isn't a legal requirement since my photos will be taken in a public space. Ethically I would rather not take photos of people without their consent because I know I wouldn't like it if it happened to me. I would much rather ask for their permission and if they said no I would respect that decision rather than being rude to them and trying to pressure them into having their photo taken. An example of this Is Bruce Gilden. If you watch the way he takes photos of people in the streets of New York you can clearly see he doesn't have the same ethics. He gets right up in their faces and takes their photos with the flash on with no permission or warning. I feel although this is very risky since he doesn't know the people and therefore doesn't know how they will react. He puts himself at risk of lawsuits and also abuse. If I am trying to take a photo and someone walks into shot I will either wait patiently for them to pass or ask them politely if they would be able to move out of the shot. I also need to make sure that all of my photographs are appropriate and don't contain anything that could offend the viewers. This means things like drugs, nudity and other things similar.

I don't want to be interfering with nature so I will be careful not to stand on any flowers or other plants or anything like that in order to get a shot.

I will need to consider if any content would be offensive or inappropriate. An example of this would be things such as gang signs, inappropriate graffiti such as swear words and slurs and also nudity. These kinds of things may offend viewers and would be inappropriate for children. Some of this, such as nudity, I will be able to avoid easily since I will be doing landscape photography rather than portraiture. However there might be some inappropriate graffiti in some of the locations where I may be shooting. I will have to avoid this when taking my pictures in order to not offend anyone. I also would not want to include this since the brief I am working towards is beautiful Doncaster and inappropriate images would not support this theme.

To conclude I will have to abide to both the legal and ethical considerations discussed within this report. This will ensure that no one is offended and I don’t face any legal consequences such as being sued.