Cat Street market stall advertising 'NO PHOTOS'

In recent news here in Hong Kong there has been much controversy about photographers rights to shoot in public places (in particular in front of large branded designer stores, etc). Security guards have been misinformed by their employers about what is 'public space' in front of a shop and therefore this has led to confusion, aggressive and sometimes even violent confrontations between photographers and staff.

These big stores are not the only places that try to 'enforce' a ban on photographers, even small market stalls have signs up saying 'no photos', 'no cameras', or 'photo - $200', etc.

To those of us in the know, this is basically outrageous behaviour on behalf of the shopkeeper, trying to create some kind of martial law around their own property, thinking they can control what you do with your camera in a public space.

Now, I don't want to confuse the issue of photographing people, I am well aware as should everyone be that some individuals do not like having their photograph taken, especially without permission, and I completely understand the issues surrounding that. This is not what this blog post is about, it is purely about having the right to shoot an interesting market stall, a shop facade or interesting building without having to worry about consequences or thinking that you are doing something wrong - you are not, its well within your rights to take photographs.

This short video we shot in an hour or so the other day shows a quick walkaround Central and Sheung Wan in Hong Kong shooting a few market areas where they have these signs. I have heard many people say they get confronted in these places so thought I would try to see for myself if we had similar problems and I highlight in the video the ways in which we shoot to try to avoid confrontation.

This is the first DSLR video that Gurung RJ has shot with very little instruction in advance, so I must thank him for his efforts in helping me put this together.

Also a special thanks to Will Gell who has very kindly allowed me to use his music for various projects, amazing musician, check out his albums here:

Please remember when out shooting that you WILL upset some people sometimes, that's unfortunately the nature of the beast with street photography, some people will always react negatively no matter how polite you are, maybe they just had a bad day, or maybe they just grumpy...thats life, its a choice you make if you wish to become a street photographer, never take it personally, and try not to respond in the same manner, keep smiling, say thank you and continue on your way.

Previous recent blog posts that relate to the same issues are linked below, the first one has an extensive video shooting street photography in Kowloon with a GOPRO camera attached to the top of the Leica M9, linked together with the images that we captured during the walkabout:

HOW WE SHOOT STREET PHOTOGRAPHY IN HONG KONG (VIDEO)

DOLCE & GABBANA PROTEST FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS RIGHTS IN HONG KONG

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Recently in the press there has been a fair bit of exposure about an incident here in Hong Kong involving a security guard (who looked more like a burly bodyguard) at the Dolce & Gabbana store in Tsim Sha Tsui stopping people with cameras from shooting the facade of the building from the public pathway. Allegedly they were refusing local Hong Kong photographers from taking pictures, but allowing mainland chinese customers to do so, as long as they were coming into the shop and buying goods. This kind of racism and discrimination is clearly unacceptable behaviour for anyone to have to endure and we are very happy that the public has reacted in the way it has over this incident.

A few of us expat photographers decided to gather during one of the Sunday afternoon protests and head down there armed to the teeth with cameras and HD video headcams to film the protest, take lots of photographs and generally assist the protesters in sending their message, wearing Grahams custom made 'No Photo' signs on our backs to add some impact to our message.

getting ready for battle... Our uniforms for the day

Both myself and Graham Uden, having previously served in Iraq as photographers were quite happy to stick on the headcams and dive straight in at the front, through the police line and get to the front of the action. We managed to attract a fair bit of attention from the chinese news teams and photographers as there weren't many other westerners there apart from our small crew of professionals and regular RGB members including myself, Graham Uden, Carsten Schael, Angelo Costadimas, Viveck Bansal and Gareth Brown.

Graham undercover on 'Operation D&G' straight to the front door...

Graham gave some interviews to various TV and radio media who were keen to hear our views on the subject and we believe we achieved our aim by showing that this is not just an issue for the chinese, but equally for all photographers, no matter where they come from.

Graham conducting interviews

Other protestors were dressed up in different outfits to attract attention from the media, so the whole event was good for us as there were plenty of things to photograph during the protest.

female protestor female protestor dressed up...or down...

The protest went without any problems, we didn't see any representatives from D&G come outside to apologise at all, despite the repeated chants of 'apologise' in cantonese from the large crowd that had gathered....This clearly irritated the protesters as it showed more arrogance from the brand as they appear to be simply refusing to acknowedge the problem (at least during the time we were there, this was the case).

protestors getting vocal

We commended the police on their manner during the protest, they were very polite and helpful towards us, and there was no violence during the protest, which is always good.

police controlling the crowd