Drew Ott
Wish I were banned.
For those of you who saw my earlier thread (http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=146676), you know that I've had "issues" in regard to photography at school before. It gets better.
Today I was in our school library during my lunch period doing some homework. Next to me was my D90, and a friend of mine wanted to take a few pictures with it. I agree, and he walks around the library for a little bit taking random pictures testing out the camera. He takes a few pictures of people, books, etc.
One of the librarians sees him taking a picture in the direction of a girl who appears to not realize her picture is being taken.
---I'm going to interject and tell a little bit about our librarians. Nobody checks out books from the library anymore because of online encyclopedias and things like that. Because of this, the librarians don't have very much to do. To give themselves something to do, they spend their time making sure there are only 4 people sitting at each table, ensuring nobody is sitting on the floor, checking to see if anybody is eating food, and trying to keep everybody quiet. Their peskiness would be tolerable in most cases; however, there are always at least 3 librarians patrolling at all times, monitoring the activity of everybody.---
The librarian approaches my friend and asks him why he was taking a picture of this girl. My friend tells her that he is in journalism (he is not). The librarian asks him to see all of his pictures, and my friend (stupidly, in my opinion) consents and begins showing her the photos. She asks him to delete the photos he took, and he looks at my from afar trying to figure out what I want him to do. I walk over to the area, tell the librarian that it's my camera, take the camera, and walk back to my seat.
The librarian then goes to the "head librarian" and tells her the story. They talk for a little bit while eyeing us, and eventually the head librarian approaches us. She says, "You guys have to delete all of the photos off of that camera." I respond with something like, "Why is that?" She goes on to tell me that if I don't delete all of the photos immediately, she's going to get my grade-level assistant principal and get him to talk to us. I tell her she should do that (as respectfully as possible), so she does.
In walks our assistant principal. He sits down at our table, leaning forward and staring us down in an effort to intimidate. I meet his eye contact, and listen to him talk to us. He said something like this: "Not only have both of you taken dozens of photographs of people who don't want their picture taken, you are also liars. I want you to delete all of your photos right now." I apologize to him in advance for making the situation into a big deal, but then go on to tell him that I won't delete the photographs or show him the photos because I legally don't have to. He sees that I am going to be a problem, gets out a walkie-talkie, and calls in our campus police officer.
The officer sits down and asks what the problem is. The principal says something like, "These two boys have been photographing people in the library without permission. When asked about it, they lied about what they were doing by saying they were in photojournalism, and refused to show us the pictures. They have both been disrespectful about it." I told them a few things: 1) I never said a word about being in photojournalism, so I'm not a liar. 2) I apologize for seeming disrespectful; It often seems like disrespect when one takes a stand of noncompliance, but I am trying my best to be respectful. 3) I am confident that I haven't done anything wrong, and the only reason I am being difficult is because I value personal rights (in this case the 4th amendment against search and seizure).
The principal and the cop go on to tell me that I don't know my rights as well as they know my rights (I had never talked to either of these people before this day). They tell me that if I think I know my rights better than them, I am wrong. They also tell me that they have probable cause to search my camera to stop anything potentially illegal. In this case, or so they claimed, they were stopping me cropping the pictures of the faces in the background, posting them on YouTube, and making fun of the people. Their apparent "probable cause" was the fact that I am in high school. I tell them that they are right in that I cannot post pictures of the people on YouTube, but they are wrong because I can crop out the pictures of the people in the background and keep pictures of those who consented to being photographed.
We go on talking for nearly 20 minutes more (I don't remember all of the details. The cop told that they also share an interest in photography...), and they tell me that I have two options. The first option is to simply delete all of my pictures. My second option was to, "Make it into a big deal and get my parents involved, who would not be happy with me." The option was to have him take up my camera and keep it in the school office until my parents come up to the school and all of us go through, picture by picture, to make sure that only people who had agreed to be photographed were in the pictures. I disagree to both, and tell them that what I will do is show them the pictures, and they can tell me which ones need to be deleted. I show them the pictures, one by one, and none of them needed to be deleted by the time I got back around to the first picture.
A classic case of ageism (or, something like it). I realize there's a good chance I should have just complied in the beginning, but I love to use my personal rights... especially at school.
Today I was in our school library during my lunch period doing some homework. Next to me was my D90, and a friend of mine wanted to take a few pictures with it. I agree, and he walks around the library for a little bit taking random pictures testing out the camera. He takes a few pictures of people, books, etc.
One of the librarians sees him taking a picture in the direction of a girl who appears to not realize her picture is being taken.
---I'm going to interject and tell a little bit about our librarians. Nobody checks out books from the library anymore because of online encyclopedias and things like that. Because of this, the librarians don't have very much to do. To give themselves something to do, they spend their time making sure there are only 4 people sitting at each table, ensuring nobody is sitting on the floor, checking to see if anybody is eating food, and trying to keep everybody quiet. Their peskiness would be tolerable in most cases; however, there are always at least 3 librarians patrolling at all times, monitoring the activity of everybody.---
The librarian approaches my friend and asks him why he was taking a picture of this girl. My friend tells her that he is in journalism (he is not). The librarian asks him to see all of his pictures, and my friend (stupidly, in my opinion) consents and begins showing her the photos. She asks him to delete the photos he took, and he looks at my from afar trying to figure out what I want him to do. I walk over to the area, tell the librarian that it's my camera, take the camera, and walk back to my seat.
The librarian then goes to the "head librarian" and tells her the story. They talk for a little bit while eyeing us, and eventually the head librarian approaches us. She says, "You guys have to delete all of the photos off of that camera." I respond with something like, "Why is that?" She goes on to tell me that if I don't delete all of the photos immediately, she's going to get my grade-level assistant principal and get him to talk to us. I tell her she should do that (as respectfully as possible), so she does.
In walks our assistant principal. He sits down at our table, leaning forward and staring us down in an effort to intimidate. I meet his eye contact, and listen to him talk to us. He said something like this: "Not only have both of you taken dozens of photographs of people who don't want their picture taken, you are also liars. I want you to delete all of your photos right now." I apologize to him in advance for making the situation into a big deal, but then go on to tell him that I won't delete the photographs or show him the photos because I legally don't have to. He sees that I am going to be a problem, gets out a walkie-talkie, and calls in our campus police officer.
The officer sits down and asks what the problem is. The principal says something like, "These two boys have been photographing people in the library without permission. When asked about it, they lied about what they were doing by saying they were in photojournalism, and refused to show us the pictures. They have both been disrespectful about it." I told them a few things: 1) I never said a word about being in photojournalism, so I'm not a liar. 2) I apologize for seeming disrespectful; It often seems like disrespect when one takes a stand of noncompliance, but I am trying my best to be respectful. 3) I am confident that I haven't done anything wrong, and the only reason I am being difficult is because I value personal rights (in this case the 4th amendment against search and seizure).
The principal and the cop go on to tell me that I don't know my rights as well as they know my rights (I had never talked to either of these people before this day). They tell me that if I think I know my rights better than them, I am wrong. They also tell me that they have probable cause to search my camera to stop anything potentially illegal. In this case, or so they claimed, they were stopping me cropping the pictures of the faces in the background, posting them on YouTube, and making fun of the people. Their apparent "probable cause" was the fact that I am in high school. I tell them that they are right in that I cannot post pictures of the people on YouTube, but they are wrong because I can crop out the pictures of the people in the background and keep pictures of those who consented to being photographed.
We go on talking for nearly 20 minutes more (I don't remember all of the details. The cop told that they also share an interest in photography...), and they tell me that I have two options. The first option is to simply delete all of my pictures. My second option was to, "Make it into a big deal and get my parents involved, who would not be happy with me." The option was to have him take up my camera and keep it in the school office until my parents come up to the school and all of us go through, picture by picture, to make sure that only people who had agreed to be photographed were in the pictures. I disagree to both, and tell them that what I will do is show them the pictures, and they can tell me which ones need to be deleted. I show them the pictures, one by one, and none of them needed to be deleted by the time I got back around to the first picture.
A classic case of ageism (or, something like it). I realize there's a good chance I should have just complied in the beginning, but I love to use my personal rights... especially at school.
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