German Street Photography?

[analoguey]

In the city of Krefeld, Germany it was even not tolerated by local regulation just to stand in the major shopping street watching people.
One either had to look into shop-windows or just pass.

Wow. Really?
Something to do with history?

 

[AgX]

No, just a city counsel going crazy.

I was told that it was forbidden to "form groups" in the inner city. And that a person not shopping nor window-shopping has to be considered the nucleus of a group and that could not be tolerated.

You hardly find a bench or alike. People are made to move on.

 

[AndreasT]

How does the saying go? A fox smells it hole first.
These discussions about photographing on the street always make me angry and sick. People can’t differentiate.
I live in Berlin and photograph on the street. The things I have had to put up with. Being threatened with law suites, getting threatened by fists and people demanding money for getting photographed. Even if they walked behind me during me taking the photo.

Loredane Nemis is one although being Rumanian, and photographing around the world, and it isn’t street photography in the classic sence.

Volker Echte, a very good German photographer although nobody knows him, but remember his name.

Harald Hauswald, out of the good old GDR. Kai Wiedenhoefer, but he did most of his world in the near east.
Barbara Klemm is another one.
As well Karsten Thielker.

 

[AgX]

These discussions about photographing on the street always make me angry and sick. People can’t differentiate.

What makes you sick in this thread? Or are you refering to those people on street?

 

[AndreasT]

Well the thread doesn't make me sick.
This thing about having to ask permission to photograph someone on the street, as far as I am concerned it is for something „higher“. It is either reportage or an art form. Which enriches mankind.

If people have bad thoughts about it, they have bad thoughts themselves wherever those thoughts may come from. If people were innocent and act innocent, things would be fine.
For me it often has a feeling that people accuse one of doing something bad although they do not know what the whole thing serves.

 

[AgX]

To be fair, there are people that get hostile even if you look in their direction (not even at them...), yelling "He, was guckst Du?" You know.

So, people are strange; it even does not need a camera to bring that out.


Have you tried telling people on street about what you are doing? Not necessarily effective if someone tries to beat you up though.

 

[AndreasT]

Thats true, come to think of it. That would be a great photo projekt.

 

[kilgore72]

Well, i am from Germany and shoot Street. I dont much care about our laws. One of my rules is not post "local" pictures at local web-sites, so the stranger have no options to recognize thereselves and make probably trouble....
I post my pictures around the world like e.g. flickr in different Street-Groups.

Thomas

 

[kilgore72]

 

[MartinP]

My neighbour visited Germany during their recent holiday. I will tell them and their children to destroy all their pictures with recognisable people in, including selfies unless they can prove that they made those pictures themselves. All the pictures are digital, so they would be lost soon enough anyway during the usual digital-decay process.

More seriously, for examples of photography by a book-producing German photographer, the OP could look towards Dead Link Removed.

 

[AgX]

Concerning "selfies": there seems to be a trend in the Netherlands and Belgium at half-public places (public pools, hospitals) to ban making selfies or to photograph at all due to the chance of getting other peoples faces into ones images.