Legal v ethical photography of incidents
morgan20
Registered Users Posts: 76 Big grins
I have read a lot about what is legal and ethical when photographing buildings, people and incidents in other countries but I am hoping New Zealander's may be able to comment on this question.
I have occasinally come across incidents that would make the evening news. For example yesterday I was photographing an event in a public place when someone fell to the ground and some time later I saw him being given CPR. Sadly when I reviewed my photos last night I found I had a photo of the victim as he hit the ground. At the time he was about 150m away (I was using a long telephoto lens) in the crowd and I was panning and shooting as I went and hadn't noticed. I hadn't seen the fall myself and only realised something was up 5 mins later.
There were lots of Police and paramedics. Ethically I could not do what people I know would do and sell the photo to the media. I bet it would have made front page. I also moved away from the resusication scene to a different location and continued working there so not to get any of it in the background.
The big question - (and I'm aware of the privacy act requirements) is it legal to photograph scences such as developed above. You can't identify the victim in closeup but even a photo of 7 paramedica, 4 ambulances, 11 police and concerned onlookers would have made a good pic. I'm sure the Police would tell any photographer to go away but what's is the law on this issue?
Commens please.
Thanks
I have occasinally come across incidents that would make the evening news. For example yesterday I was photographing an event in a public place when someone fell to the ground and some time later I saw him being given CPR. Sadly when I reviewed my photos last night I found I had a photo of the victim as he hit the ground. At the time he was about 150m away (I was using a long telephoto lens) in the crowd and I was panning and shooting as I went and hadn't noticed. I hadn't seen the fall myself and only realised something was up 5 mins later.
There were lots of Police and paramedics. Ethically I could not do what people I know would do and sell the photo to the media. I bet it would have made front page. I also moved away from the resusication scene to a different location and continued working there so not to get any of it in the background.
The big question - (and I'm aware of the privacy act requirements) is it legal to photograph scences such as developed above. You can't identify the victim in closeup but even a photo of 7 paramedica, 4 ambulances, 11 police and concerned onlookers would have made a good pic. I'm sure the Police would tell any photographer to go away but what's is the law on this issue?
Commens please.
Thanks
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