One year ago, in August of 2012, New York Times photographer Robert Stolarik was arrested for allegedly using his camera flash to interfere with police during an arrest. However, after taking a look at the evidence, it's the police officer who is in hot water and may face up to 7 years in prison after being indicted on three felony counts and five misdemeanors.
Photographer/rights crusader Shawn Nee is back in the news, this time after he was detained and handcuffed by Los Angeles police for "interfering with an investigation" while taking photos in a public place.
A Miami man is in jail after allegedly killing his wife, then confessing to the crime and posting a grisly image of the body on Facebook.
Dominic Holden is the News Editor for the Seattle area newspaper The Stranger, and he was recently threatened with arrest and workplace harassment by some local police officers for standing on a public sidewalk and taking their picture.
A photo of sweet justice or a picture of cruel gloating? That's the debate raging on Facebook after a Philadelphia antique store posted a hard-hitting photo of a young man being arrested last week after being caught in the act of robbing the store.
Most years around this time we take a road trip to visit my family in New Jersey. There are always a couple of camera bags in the back seat, as there will be tomorrow night when we saddle up and head south once again. And most years around this time I think back to something that happened on another hot summer night less than two months before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
For photographers, a lot has changed since then, but we have to remember that most of it started changing well before 9/11. When my students complain about the hassles of trying to make photographs in public places, I tell them that it’s something they’re just going to have to get used to. And then sometimes I tell them this story.
If you're planning on stealing somebody's credit card (and we don't suggest you do), then at least have the presence of mind not to hop in a photo booth with the card and several of your friends to take potentially incriminating photos. That's what police suspect a group of teens did after stealing a woman's credit card in Crofton, MD.
In response to September 11th and London Bombings, the UK drafted a series of Terrorism Acts, giving their officers certain rights they thought would help fight terrorism. This included a section (58a) added in 2008 that made it illegal to photograph or film a police officer if the footage was likely to be useful to a terrorist. The police's interpretation of that section has since changed, but not before that "if" caused some newsworthy controversy.
This short animated documentary covers that controversy from the point of view of one of the act's victims, Gemma Atkinson, who was assaulted by police in 2009 because she was filming them searching her boyfriend. It tells the story of the subsequent legal battle she went through trying to get the act changed and hold the police officers who were unnecessarily rough with her accountable.
The San Diego Police Department is in hot water with photographers and First Amendment rights advocates everywhere this week over the way two of their officers handled a situation this last Saturday.
The story and the video that goes with it -- which went viral after being shared by the website Photography is Not a Crime -- shows one of the officers violently arresting a man for exercising his right to record the officer during the course of his duties.
Montreal resident Jennifer Pawluck was arrested earlier this week after she posted the above photo of anti-police graffiti to her Instagram account. The photo shows a caricature of Montreal police Commander Ian Lafrenière with a bullet hole in his forehead, leading police to accuse Pawluck of criminal harassment against a high-ranking police officer.
The US Department of Justice issued a statement this past Sunday that confirms the fact that the 1st, 4th, and 14th Amendment protect citizens' rights to photograph police in public places.
Mug shots and airbrushing are both photography-related, but they aren't commonly found together in stories. Not so with some ongoing controversy over in Greece, though. The police there may soon be under investigation after releasing a number of mug shots that appear to have been Photoshopped.
Why would they 'shop photos of suspected criminals, you ask? The claim is that the images were edited to hide injuries that were inflicted by officers during (or after) the arrests.
If you're a street photography-loving New Yorker who's worried about being stopped and harassed by the New York Police Department, check out this official memo that was sent out to officers back in 2009.
Bad news for photographers in Southern California: the Los Angeles Police Department issued a notice regarding its official terrorism handling policy earlier this week, and the document still identifies photographers as potential terrorists.
Some people who find themselves on hard times try to have themselves arrested so that they can eat for free in prison. It turns out that people in Southern California can do the same thing for a free studio-style headshot. Cat Cora, a chef on the Food Network show Iron Chef, recently got booked for a DUI after drinking three beers and getting behind the wheel. Her mugshot wasn't taken until 11 days after her arrest, so Cora had time to have her hair and makeup done in order to pose for a picture-perfect mugshot. When the photo made its way onto the Internet, websites began to comment on how it looks more like a studio portrait than a police station mugshot.
DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier (left) and Earl Staley (right) Well, that didn’t take long. Just one day after Washington …
One of the reasons photographers raise a fuss when their rights are infringed upon is to create awareness in …
When photographer Mannie Garcia -- known best, perhaps, for his iconic photograph of President Obama -- was arrested for disorderly conduct while recording Maryland police officers performing an arrest, he didn't realize that it would mean the loss of his White House credentials. And although he was eventually acquitted and given back his camera (with the memory card missing), the damage had already been done and Garcia is looking to hold someone accountable.
In the past year -- and especially with the growth of the "occupy" movement -- police interfering with photographers or pedestrians trying to snap a photo of them has been in the news quite a lot. Just yesterday we reported on the Olympics' security guards who landed in hot water after harassing photogs shooting from public land. In the past, this was no problem, as police officers had little to fear in way of personal liability when they interfered; however, a new Connecticut bill -- the first of its kind -- may soon change that.
After being arrested on October 1, 2007 for using his cell phone to film officers making an arrest, Boston …
David Hobby has written up a great post over at Strobist on how …
Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania-based photographer Jason Macchioni was recently shooting a time-lapse project from an …
Here’s a disturbing video called “If You See Something, Film Something” that shows why it’s important that citizens have …
16-year-old photographer Jules Mattsson has won a settlement from the London Metropolitan Police after being stopped and …
The New York Times has sent an angry letter to the New York Police Department after video emerged showing photojournalist Robert Stolarik being pushed around and then blocked while trying to photograph officers arresting Occupy Wall Street protestors. The memo itself hasn't be published, but NYT VP and assistant general counsel George Freeman is quoted as saying,
It seemed pretty clear from the video that the Times freelance photographer was being intentionally blocked by the police officer who was kind of bobbing and weaving to keep him from taking photographs
The department has acknowledged receiving the note from the NYT, but has not issued a formal response yet. This incident comes just weeks after Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly ordered officers to avoid unreasonably interfering with media access during news coverage.
Three years ago, an Illinois man named Michael Allison was arrested for videotaping …
Jasna Hodzic, the photo editor of the student run newspaper at UC Davis, has been covering the Occupy UC Davis movement since its inception -- before the pepper spraying incident became international news.
Last Friday, 45-year-old Chris White was at the Braehead shopping center near Glasgow, when he took a snapshot of his daughter Hazel eating some ice cream. He was then confronted by security guards -- and later the police -- who cited the Prevention of Terrorism Act to explain that it was in their rights to confiscate his phone. While they did allow him to keep the photos, they demanded his personal details. Afterward, White created a Facebook page titled "Boycott Braehead" in an effort to draw attention to the incident.
German satire program Extra 3 conducted a humorous — albeit disconcerting — experiment testing photographers’ (and videographers) rights in …
Boston lawyer Simon Glik was arrested on October 1, 2007 when he used his cell phone to record officers making a drug arrest, and later sued the city and the officers for violating his rights. After the officers tried to having the lawsuit dismissed on the basis of qualified immunity, a Federal Appeals Court denied the motion last week and ruled that filming and photographing police is in fact protected by the First Amendment.
What do you think of this photo of a refinery by photographer Sander Roscoe Wolff? Apparently Long Beach police …
Freelance news photographer Phil Datz was recording the conclusion of a police chase from the opposite sidewalk last Friday …
Here’s a short clip from the talk show Stossel where American libertarian journalist …
On June 21, 2011, non-profit organization Shoot Experience sent out six photographers to various parts of London to see the current state of photographers' rights.
If ordinary citizens have the right to photograph police in public places, what about the other way around? That’s …
On Memorial Day 2011, Narces Benoit witnessed and filmed a group of Miami police officers shooting and killing a …
29-year-old student and avid photographer Christopher Fussell was taking photographs of trains at a Baltimore station back in March …
Libertarian magazine Reason created this video about the erosion of photographers’ rights in …
If you’re planning to try your hand at solargraphy, it might be a …
Apparently this is what some police officers see when they look at a camera, which explains the horror stories of photographers being harassed by law enforcement for having cameras and making pictures.