more trouble, photo at school leads to disciplinary meeting

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Hey jeremy, how do like the adult world so far?</p>

<p>Better get used to it.</p>

<p>Hope you enjoy your spring break. </p>

<p>Geez! You live in New York and you've survived this long, you'll do fine. Good luck.</p>

[daverhaas]

<p>so - as i pointed out in an earlier post - this isn't about photos at all, it's about yelling or threatening or sending an email to someone in a position of authority at the University.</p>

<p>Jeremy - if you learn nothing about photography from this - learn that when you are upset or angry with someone - and your first instinct is to write a nastygram to them...DON'T. Count to 10...If you still want to write the e-mail - Count to 10 again...Repeat until you no longer want to write the e-mail. If after all that you still want to write something - write it on a word processer or in your email program - but don't put an address in the To: field. Save it as a draft and go get drunk. or go to bed - or something...</p>

<p>Then in 2 days come back to it and re-read your draft - have a laugh and then discard it. Electronic communication is great - but it is also dangerous - just ask a few U.S. Ambassadors how they feel about it now.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

[jeremy_dennis]

<p>barry, i'm glad you're finally talking sense</p>

<p>also tim, i wouldn't consider college the adult world :P</p>

<p>thank you for your confidence</p>

<p>david, this is no an issue about boosting my ego or my emotion, it is about preserving my rights to take photographs. the other two just became involved. if my rights weren't threatened, this would not be an issue. I know that others have said things like 'the school has its own rules' and as a business/establishment, i understand that. but based on the two rules that i have allegedly broken, I have done nothing wrong, so my conscious is clear.</p>

<p>sorry, i forgot who told me to be careful of what i post, but what have i said that i should be ashamed of?</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>For everyone here calling you at fault, I'd say that they, the two girls - and your school - are <em>just as much responsible </em>( as I think you are too ) for how they choosed to react and think about the situation, creating their "little story", wanting to make a point out of it, consuming all this energy that could've been put elsewhere, and for...what exactly ?!</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"what have i said that i should be ashamed of?"</em></p>

<p>Start with calling an understanding of women experiencing discomfort or fear of unknown men at night "gender discrimination" and go from there. </p>

[jeremy_dennis]

<p>but i am sincere about gender discrimination. i am being accused of being a stalker by a few of you, and a pervert slash creep by a female employee. need i remind you, i do not have xray vision. i heard people coming and prepared my camera, gender is not an issue, it could have been men walking past and i still would have taken the photo. the accusations of being a stalker have no substance, besides primitive generalizations and prejudgements of photographers</p>

[woolly1]

<p>Jeremy, it's not us you have to convince.<br>

<br /> Ever hear the phrase '<strong>When you're in a hole - stop digging</strong>'.<br>

<br /> When you grow up you'll learn that girls get away with all sorts of cr@p from poncing free drinks to crying rape and sending a guy down because they can't 'fess up .... and the guys have to allow for it. Get used to it and you'll be able to have a happy, peaceful, married life. If your are in a relationship now you would have already grasped this FACT.<br>

<br /> You're in trouble over this and blaming it on art or discrimination doesn't help. Save your protestations here and spend your time preparing yourself for the meeting - nobody here can help you further. Perhaps take your camera and pump up the Flickr 'portfolio' with the type of 'art' you claim you were capturing, it's a little lightweight.<br /> I tell you, if you continue with this strident blinkered denial into the meeting you'd better get used to being a starving artist.</p>

<p>Is any this still worthy of a photography forum? We seem to have moved on a bit.</p>

[simon_crofts]

<p>It sounds like Jeremy is (mostly) in the right. If I understood correctly, he took at picture of the parking lot, using a 50mm lens (no creepy zooms) using people walking into the frame. Running away was a bad idea. There seems to be a certain amount of hypocrisy in the criticism he's getting on this thread. Either street photography is OK, or it's not OK. If there was some evidence that he was taking the pictures for sexual purposes, girls semi-dressed or whatever, that would be a different matter. From his description, we can assume he wasn't.</p>

<p>Many on this thread seem to be too intent on sitting back, projecting the image of being worldly wise, experienced, and a little bit patronising: 'grow up sonny' and similar nonsense.</p>

<p>Most street photography on this website could come in for equal criticism. Suggesting that he should lie about whether a picture was taken or not, for example, wouldn't make everytrhing OK. If he'd done that, he'd doubtless be in much bigger trouble now.</p>

<p>It sounds like he did nothing wrong except perhaps react angrily to the tutor.</p>

<p>Jeremy, just go along to your hearing, explain calmly and clearly why you did nothing wrong, and why you got frustrated that someone had accused you of something terrible with no basis. Try and remain calm and appear as reasonable as possible. Take along examples of the kind of street photography you are interested in and in what ways you are trying to emulate it. Point out to them that you are going to be doing a photography course, and show them any other evidence of your legitimate interest in photography. And don't let the comments on this thread get to you.</p>

[ray .]

<i>consuming all this energy that could've been put elsewhere, and for...what exactly ?!"</i><p>You

could be talking about this thread. He obviously doesn't get it....<p> Don't feed the troll any further.

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Jeremy, you still have not understood the criticism (nor has Simon).</p>

<p>No one is accusing of being a stalker or a pervert or a creep. We are asking you to understand why a stranger coming across you in the act of photographing the way you were photographing would THINK you were a stalker or a pervert or a creep. BIG DIFFERENCE. Like I said, it's about perception. Your actions are perceived as creepy and that starts a chain of events. And you, yourself, though not a creep, act creepy by running away, thereby confirming the original perception that you're a creep. So, you're not a creep but you've done everything in your power to appear to be a creep and now you're angry because you've been perceived as a creep. Self-defeating.</p>

<p>The fact the you didn't anticipate they'd be women has nothing to do with it. They are women. And women are unnerved by strange men taking their pictures at night. Had it been men, maybe you'd have been punched out and saved us all the trouble and learned the lesson a harder way, with a broken jaw or something. Then you could have cried all the way to the hospital that you didn't deserve a broken jaw. And maybe you wouldn't have. But, you know what, you'd still have a broken jaw.</p>

[jgalyon]

<p>If you read all the posts thus far there seems to be a presumption that the two girls were fearful, suspicious...that they perceived the photographer to be lurking, perhaps stalking, etc. I didn't read that account in the original post...but if that actually<em> is </em>the reason they objected to his taking their picture...why would they be knocking at the door of someone they fear, demanding that they delete the photographs? That doesn't sound like fear to me! It just seems illogical that if these two young women were fearful of a lurking, pervert with a camera ...they would have steered as clear of him as possible and reported the incident to someone in authority. When people are afraid the general instinct is to flee or fight...not to follow the person they perceive to be a threat. Whatever the reason the girls objected to their picture being taken...do I think Jeremy is handling this the right way? From the moment he chose to walk away ...no.</p>

[simon_crofts]

<blockquote>

<p>We are asking you to understand why a stranger coming across you in the act of photographing the way you were photographing would THINK you were a stalker or a pervert or a creep.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The same applies to all street photography. Sometimes, people can just get offended by being photographed. Inevitably, their reaction is going to be that the person photographing them must in some way have invaded their privacy, or be creepy in some sense. That is as likely to be the response on Madison Avenue as anywhere else.</p>

<p>The mistake was to run away rather than face them. That was a mistake, fine, there would have been better ways to deal with it. Especially those starting street photography probably haven't learnt all the tricks for getting people to accept what you are doing yet. Lesson learned there I think.</p>

<p>The next thing is that, given that the OP wasn't doing anything wrong, how should he deal with the situation. I believe that was what he was looking for advice about.</p>

<p>Act calmly, reasonably, explain what you were doing and why, show examples. Give them a lecture on the history of photography if need be. Explain why you were offended at even the suggestion you might have been being creepy. Show examples of work. I think that was perhaps the kind of advice the OP was looking for. And yes, don't run away, it doesn't help.</p>

[simon_crofts]

<p>p.s. and don't forget to mention the photography course: "it's part of his coursework that he's preparing for" = box ticked in their heads.</p>

[david.wagle]

<p>Jeremy, from everything you've said this has nothing to do with your right to take photographs. This is about how you interact with people. This is about your right to be abusive to people in authority positions within a university. As a student you don't have any such rights. And you put yourself in this position because you did't understand that interacting with other people requires tact, honesty, empathy and integrity even when you're frustrated and feel imposed upon.<br /> <br /> A public University is typically in a grey zone between public and private property under the law, if that was a university parking lot then those girls are basically in their driveway walking into their house. They have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that situation. You can quibble the fine letters of the law all day long, but once the RA and others are involved then it's time to be pragmatic. You weren't pragmatic.<br /> <br /> You need to attend the hearing with your tail between your legs and try to stay in school.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"The same applies to all street photography."</em></p>

<p>It does, and that's why most of the street photographers who have added their voices here recognize the self-defeating nature of Jeremy's behavior throughout this incident.</p>

<p>Street photography on Madison Avenue is a different animal from so-called "street" photographs taken at night from a relatively clandestine position of completely unsuspecting students on a college campus.</p>

<p>Calling yourself a street photographer, IN MY OPINION, doesn't give you unrestricted license to shoot however and whatever you want without the expectation of consequences. You may be acting technically within the law, but if you rely on just that, you're likely in for some big surprises and setbacks.</p>

<p>Just as every snap-shooter with a camera is not a photographer, every guy on the street with a camera is not a street photographer and CERTAINLY NOT an artist. The claim that "I'm a street photographer" to excuse the kind of public behavior being described here just doesn't fly.</p>

<p>We throw these terms around loosely to our peril. Buying a camera and lying in wait for a candid shot of strangers does not make you a street photographer. I imagine all the street photographers participating here have put a little more thought and effort than that into being a photographer. They all seem to bring some responsibility to the table and some sense of the societal and public or private setting in which they're photographing.</p>

[daverhaas]

<blockquote>

<p>david, this is no an issue about boosting my ego or my emotion, it is about preserving my rights to take photographs. the other two just became involved. if my rights weren't threatened, this would not be an issue. I know that others have said things like 'the school has its own rules' and as a business/establishment, i understand that. but based on the two rules that i have allegedly broken, I have done nothing wrong, so my conscious is clear.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I don't think I said anything about boosting your emotion or ego... I said - that this is all about you blowing up at a University Official - because you felt you were in the right and didn't want to listen to her or her point of view. </p>

<p>If you sent her an email - threatening or calling her names - you broke the code of conduct at your school. Period. Doesn't matter what your rights are as a photographer - If that's what you did - you are in the wrong. PERIOD. </p>

<p>Looking forward to the next situation that you get into... </p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>Start with calling an understanding of women experiencing discomfort or fear of unknown men at night "gender discrimination" and go from there.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>How is that different than calling something, justifiably so, racial discrimination, just because someone might be experiencing "discomfort" because of unknown non-white men with a camera, at night if you will, and therefore, they must be terrorists.</p>

<p>Not that long ago, after photographing an appartment in a building, I found myself locked in in the underground parking garage. Luckily, at the other side of the garage there was a woman about to get in her car and drive out. I asked her, from the other side of the garage, if she had a key and could open the door for me from the place where I was standing. <br>

She wouldn't wanted to come over and just got in her car without much of a word, which was ok too I suppose, since I could " run" with gear and tri-pod and all for the car garage door to go outside <em>but</em> I think that if it was a woman that would have asked her to come open the door she would've simply come over and helped out.</p>

<p>Now, I think she was sensible by not simply trusting an "unknown man" in an underground parking garage who asked her - in a very normal and polite way I must add, and I wasn't wearing my ice-hockey goalie mask that day - if she would come over for a moment to help out. At the same time, I think she was discriminating me too because I happened to be a man in an underground parking garage asking for her help, and therefore, "couldn't be trusted".</p>

 

[simon_crofts]

<blockquote>

<p>The claim that "I'm a street photographer" to excuse the kind of public behavior being described here just doesn't fly</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think you need to analyse it a bit more clinically - excuse which bit of the behaviour? Taking pictures with a 50mm lens at night with people walking into the image in a public space - is it acceptable? Actually, yes it is. Are you invading privacy in some way, bearing in mind it's a public campus? Not in the real world, only in public paranoia, whatever the technicalities of ownership of the campus.</p>

<p>So the only bits that can come in for criticism are avoiding the confrontation in the first place, and 'expressing hostility towards how they were treating me' - which has been translated by David above to mean being 'abusive to people in authority'. With little distortions like this, we move further away from the truth. Jeremy may indeed have been abusing people in authority, but he hasn't told us that he did so, that is spin - or distortion - that has been put on it by others in the thread.</p>

<p>Yes, perhaps Jeremy could have dealt with the situation better. I can imagine that it might be difficult to remain totally calm if someone is calling you a creep or a pervert. It's easy for people on this thread to say that they would have reacted much more calmly. But none of that helps the OP. And I really suspect that some of the street photographers posting here might not be quite so angelic in reality as they think.</p>

[simon_crofts]

<blockquote>

<p>If you sent her an email - threatening or calling her names</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Is this something I missed?</p>

[jgalyon]

<blockquote>

<p>Jeremy may indeed have been abusing people in authority, but he hasn't told us that he did so, that is spin - or distortion - that has been put on it by others in the thread.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Just as there's been nothing more than an assumption that the girls were "fearful" of Jeremy's stalkerish behavior. Once again, why would fearful, damsels in distress be knocking at the door, making demands and threats toward a perverted stalker? </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p><em>"Taking pictures with a 50mm lens at night with people walking into the image in a public space - is it acceptable? Actually, yes it is."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Obviously, it's not acceptable to many, which is why Jeremy is in a bit of hot water. And, as many street photographers in these forums have said, it's not the way they practice street photography either. They may get unwitting people in a frame they are taking of some sort of street action. But waiting (lurking!) for some unsuspecting specific individuals to walk right into your frame is behavior that many street photographers avoid, with good reason. </p>

[simon_crofts]

<blockquote>

<p>Obviously, it's not acceptable to many</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Chewing gum with an open mouth in public, is not acceptable to me, and when I'm Pres. of the Universe it will be a capital offence, until then unfortunately I have to put up with it.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>But waiting (lurking!) for some unsuspecting specific individuals to walk right into your frame is behavior that many street photographers avoid, with good reason.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I believe it's exactly what an awful lot of street photographers do. Henri Cartier Bresson for one described how he used to adopt a position that he felt was promising and then wait for things to develop eg. someone walking into the frame. In many ways, I think the public see it as less offensive as following them around trying to snap pictures of them. Or Bruce Gilden, confrontational style which is all the vogue at the mo. I don't think the public will necessarily see that as easier to stomach.</p>

 

[leslie_cheung]

<blockquote>

<p>Either street photography is OK, or it's not OK.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>What a load of crap...there are so many grey areas. But aren't you the same guy that said zoom lenses aren't as good as primes? In practice, many situations are grey...neither absolutely right or wrong, legally or morally...</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p><em>"Now, I think she was sensible by not simply trusting an 'unknown man' in an underground parking garage . . . At the same time, I think she was discriminating me."</em></p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Sensible discrimination occurs all the time. As a matter of fact, many teachers teach their students to be discriminating, in a positive way. Discriminate fact from fiction, be discriminating about your sources. Using the term "gender discrimination" is loaded here, and completely uncalled for. Gender discrimination is women being paid less than men, women not getting jobs that men traditionally hold. If you want to call women being creeped out by men alone at night in a parking garage or on a college campus "gender discrimination" go right ahead. I think it's an awkward usage of the germ, at best. More likely a very misleading use of the term, a use which undermines the seriousness of true gender discrimination which is still a big societal problem.</p>

[simon_crofts]

<blockquote>

<p>What a load of crap...there are so many grey areas. But aren't you the same guy that said zoom lenses aren't as good as primes? In practice, many situations are grey...neither absolutely right or wrong, legally or morally...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Insightful comment of the week?</p>