UK's upskirting law can put a photog in jail for 2 years.

[Old-N-Feeble]

...drive-by upskirt shooting!!

 

[Sirius Glass]

I wonder why we haven't heard from the OP since his original post? He visited Photrio this afternoon so has been onsite. It may be that if his aim was to engender a frank discussion that has retained a good degree of friendly banter then there is no need for further facilitation on his part

pentaxuser

No just trolling down the river.

 

[guangong]

I would not be surprised if such a law had been passed decades ago, but in light of current praise for all kinds of perversion, not limited to but especially in the U.K. where even child marriage is permissible for certain groups, I am surprised that up skirting is not encouraged as a contemporary artistic endeavor funded by the government.

 

[Agulliver]

Child marriage is not permitted in the UK.....I have no idea where you get that idea. And let us not confuse consensual adult "perversion" with illegal acts. I know a lot of "perverts" who are thoroughly decent people and who generally know a heck of a lot more about respect and consent than the average person.

On the two occasions where I photographed up men's kilts, I had the good sense to seek permission from the wearer of the kilt. In both cases drunken partying was involved and I could probably have "got away" without....but for me that would have been unthinkable. I have conducted lingerie and nude model shots with women, again with their permission (signed in this case). There is no possible excuse for "upskirting", which is only half a step away from sexual assault in that it involves exposing a person's body without their knowledge or consent. I fully support the efforts to outlaw the practice.

As for more general street photography, I fail to see how a law banning "upskirt" photos will have any impact. There is a clear difference between happening to open the shutter as a gust of wind carries loose clothing and deliberately taking shots up women's skirts (or men's kilts) without the wearer's knowledge. In all other circumstances UK law permits photography of anyone if the photographer is in a public place. The limits of this have been tested, for example using a long lens is OK but poking a lens over a fence is not.

Times have, sadly, changed though. Try taking anything other than a phone camera to the beach these days....let alone a medium format SLR. People will assume you're up to no good and possibly a paedophile. I look back at photos my dad took of me on the beach....I am clearly the subject but there are other kids in the background....such photos are looked at with suspicion especially if taken by a man.And it is also sadly true that general street photography is difficult because an increasing number of people simply don't want to be photographed on the street (despite the fact that in any UK city they are photographed by the CCTV everywhere they go).

 

[Ko.Fe.]

....
Times have, sadly, changed though. Try taking anything other than a phone camera to the beach these days....let alone a medium format SLR. People will assume you're up to no good and possibly a paedophile. I look back at photos my dad took of me on the beach....

I quit looking at this guy photos, they rapidly declined once he get addicted to the beach snapshots few years ago.
And it is not a phone camera.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/72064726@N08/

Lynn B is in Australia and on opposite, takes fine photos on the beach for years and not with phone as well.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/91846820@N00/

 

[pentaxuser]

Inot limited to but especially in the U.K. where even child marriage is permissible for certain groups, .

I'd be interested in the source of this. The source appears to suggest/state that U.K. law states that child marriage is permissible for certain groups ( unspecified). Does the source inform you of when this law was passed, why it was passed and to which groups it pertains?

As has been said, it is completely and totally wrong

pentaxuser

 

[pdeeh]

I have no idea where you get that idea

There are plenty of wacko US websites and commentators who are only too happy to make shit up in order to press their (usually extremely right-wing, usually racist) agenda.
Fox News is a good example.

 

[larfe]

Well I didn't want to post in this thread initially but I cannot stand any more of it.

Just for the record, I live in the UK. I'm not a US troller like suggested above.

I profoundly disagree with passing any such law for the simple reason that there is enough paranoia towards cameras and men who carry cameras. I am not in favour of the "practice" of upskirting however, but I won't be in favour of some law that might make exercising my art practice harder.

I've taken enough crap as it is from plebian philistines, really I don't need more of this. It's already too hard as it is.

Tough guys tell weaker, less tough guys to "man up" when they're depressed. Tell your girlfriend to "man up" if this sort of thing happen to her.

What a bunch of wimps...

 

[Saganich]

Sir Chope must have quite a collection. But seriously isn't this is an assault against women with social media being the weapon of choice, not photography?

 

[eddie]

I profoundly disagree with passing any such law for the simple reason that there is enough paranoia towards cameras and men who carry cameras. I am not in favour of the "practice" of upskirting however, but I won't be in favour of some law that might make exercising my art practice harder.

I've taken enough crap as it is from plebian philistines, really I don't need more of this. It's already too hard as it is.

Tough guys tell weaker, less tough guys to "man up" when they're depressed. Tell your girlfriend to "man up" if this sort of thing happen to her.

This is the sort of statement that makes such a law necessary. Does your "art practice" require you to invade the privacy of others? If so, it's not art. It's voyeurism.
Telling a woman to "man up" if her privacy is violated is frighteningly close to "lay back and enjoy it".

 

[railwayman3]

Well I didn't want to post in this thread initially but I cannot stand any more of it.

Just for the record, I live in the UK. I'm not a US troller like suggested above.

I profoundly disagree with passing any such law for the simple reason that there is enough paranoia towards cameras and men who carry cameras. I am not in favour of the "practice" of upskirting however, but I won't be in favour of some law that might make exercising my art practice harder.

I've taken enough crap as it is from plebian philistines, really I don't need more of this. It's already too hard as it is.

Tough guys tell weaker, less tough guys to "man up" when they're depressed. Tell your girlfriend to "man up" if this sort of thing happen to her.

What a bunch of wimps...

Perhaps it's because standards of behaviour have deteriorated so much that laws are seen to be necessary. Maybe all "men who carry cameras" have become distrusted through the actions of a few ?
I was on my own last year taking photos at a UK stately home and waiting for the light to be just right when I realised that I was "lurking" quite near a group of young Mums and toddlers enjoying a picnic on the lawn. They hadn't noticed me, but I immediately put my camera away and moved on. I didn't complain that I had missed a good picture........I just regarded it as normal (and "gentlemanly", if that's not a too old-fashioned concept for you to understand ?) behaviour not to risk embarrassing or making anyone uncomfortable in the course of "exercising my art practice".
(And, if you had ever had the misfortune of suffering depression, you would know that "man up" is the most useless thing anyone can say. Being depressed is nothing to do with being "tough"...I had a great uncle, a former professional footballer, athlete and some-time prize-winning amateur boxer, who committed suicide shortly after his wife died unexpectedly. Would you class him as a wimp ??? You would have found yourself flat on the floor....and with a second black-eye if you had up-skirted his daughter in the course of your art.)

 

[benjiboy]

Well I didn't want to post in this thread initially but I cannot stand any more of it.

Just for the record, I live in the UK. I'm not a US troller like suggested above.

I profoundly disagree with passing any such law for the simple reason that there is enough paranoia towards cameras and men who carry cameras. I am not in favour of the "practice" of upskirting however, but I won't be in favour of some law that might make exercising my art practice harder.

I've taken enough crap as it is from plebian philistines, really I don't need more of this. It's already too hard as it is.

Tough guys tell weaker, less tough guys to "man up" when they're depressed. Tell your girlfriend to "man up" if this sort of thing happen to her.

What a bunch of wimps...

If someone tells their girlfriend or wife to "man up" after someone has upskirted her they will soon have an ex-girlfriend or wife because women find this practice so demeaning and disrespectful to their person, personal space and privacy that they consider it almost a rape. I don't claim to be an expert on female behaviour, but I have had the opportunity to observe at close quarters the woman in my life for more than fifty years and know how she would have reacted when she was young if I had told her to "man up" if some creep had assaulted her in this way.

 

[larfe]

This is the sort of statement that makes such a law necessary. Does your "art practice" require you to invade the privacy of others? If so, it's not art. It's voyeurism.
Telling a woman to "man up" if her privacy is violated is frighteningly close to "lay back and enjoy it".

NO!

Art was there before you and me and it is bigger than you or me.

I don't care about any woman's privacy.

 

[larfe]

If someone tells their girlfriend or wife to "man up" after someone has upskirted her they will soon have an ex-girlfriend or wife because women find this practice so demeaning and disrespectful to their person, personal space and privacy that they consider it almost a rape. I don't claim to be an expert on female behaviour, but I have had the opportunity to observe at close quarters the woman in my life for more than fifty years and know how she would have reacted if I had told her to "man up" if some creep had assaulted her in this way.

That might be why I am woman free.

I DO NOT CARE

Leave me out of this nonsense, I want none of it

 

[Agulliver]

By the gods, if you think that telling a depressed person to "man up" will do anything other than make them more depressed....I sincerely hope that you know nobody who suffers from clinical depression.

As for a ban on "upskirt" photos in any way impinging on street photography.....really....there is a huge and demonstrable difference between photographing a street scene or even an individual....and angling your lens (or using a mirror) such that you are photographing up someone's skirt. We're talking about a major invasion of privacy and photography of someone's knickers or even genitals for titillation purposes without their knowledge or permission. There is a huge chasm between the two which is easily defined in law.

Unless you want to be the kind of creep who takes photos up ladies' skirts without their knowledge and permission then this law will not affect you.

 

[eddie]

I don't care about any woman's privacy.

Unbelievable... It's people like you who created the public paranoia some have towards photographers.

 

[benjiboy]

That might be why I am woman free.

I DO NOT CARE

Leave me out of this nonsense, I want none of it

Congratulations, you just made my ignore list.

 

[larfe]

Unbelievable... It's people like you who created the public paranoia some have towards photographers.

And how close is northern virginia to england exactly?

 

[larfe]

Congratulations, you just made my ignore list.

it's an honour and a privilege

 

[BMbikerider]

This post is getting very dangerously close to a public slanging match. Those who I mean, know who they are and the mods need to sit on this one to cool it down. This is a photography forum, let us keep it that way and either walk away and ignore comments, or don't even look at them. (Or as one has done press the ignore button)!

 

[eddie]

And how close is northern virginia to england exactly?

What does the distance have to do with anything?

 

[larfe]

What does the distance have to do with anything?

it's not the distance you muppet it's the placement. come 'round here and check for yourself for the level of paranoia and suspicion that there is, as I posted earlier, towards men who will point a camera at anything that's not their own puppy dog.

i'm tired of it end of the story

 

[Sirius Glass]

Okay, I'm going to do something I never do... call someone an ASSHOLE!!!!!!

Wow people like that give real assholes a bad name.

 

[Agulliver]

You're starting to sound dangerously like some kind of pervert.....

Please don't tar all perverts with this brush.

Somebody who states they do not care about any woman's privacy isn't a pervert......there is something else quite seriously wrong.

 

[guangong]

I never said that there was a U.K. law permitting child marriage, but there have been instances where authorities have looked the other way. Sorry, don’t have references at hand but sources are reliable. Not an everyday occurrence but has happened at least a couple times.
This thread started out bazaar and only went downhill from there.