Legal and Ethical Considerations

Legal & Ethical Considerations

There are a lot of legal and ethical considerations that photographer's have to consider throughout their careers to produce their photography. There are a lot of laws that a photographer has to be aware of and may easily come into conflict with if not the properly versed with up to date laws that apply to a photographer
Listed below are the subjects that may be of concern and may affect  how a photographer goes about his or hers everyday work


Law of trespass 


This has to be taken into consideration. Photographer's have to be careful they remain on public land and public places in pursuit of their images,it's very easy to stray onto private land and private property which could result in prosecution
Shopping centres for example can be considered as private places and the owners have the right to expel a photographer taking images on their properties


Shown below is an extract from a website I have researched on the Internet which I find is a really good guide for a photographer which outlines all the major laws and photographers rights

http://www.how2fundraise.org/OneStopCMS/Core/CrawlerResourceServer.aspx?resource=D9C09F0D-16DB-4F20-92DA-CA8B1FE90462&mode=link&guid=41c98c36a1c54e1283d1b27391e36803



Obsenity law


Law established by the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 prohibiting the publishing of any material that tends to deprave or corrupt. In Britain, obscene material can be for example pornographic or violent, or can encourage drug taking.There is a defence in support of the public good if the defendant can produce expert evidence to show that publication was in the interest of, for example, art, science, or literature. 


Copyright


A copyright basically allows the author of a photograph (the person who took it) control over how that picture is copied, transmitted and reproduced. Copyright issues have become more commonplace since the birth of both digital cameras and the internet because people now have far more freedom and flexibility when they share images, and it is all too easy to copy or post an image that you do not own


People may be unaware of copyright laws on the internet. When they  reproduce an image in digital form and copy it many times without consent of the person who took the original image they are actually breaking this law


Copyright law is there to protect your images and prevent you taking credit for other peoples work.



Health and safety at work act
All workers have a right to work in places where risks to their health and safety are properly controlled. Health and safety is about stopping you getting hurt at work or becoming ill caused by your working environment. Your employer is responsible for health and safety, but the employee is also resposible must follow giudelines set out by this act

The main piece of legislation is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSWA). All work places are covered by this legislation which says that an employer must do everything reasonably practicable to provide a safe and healthy workplace with adequate welfare facilities. HSWA has been supported and extended by various sets of regulations, codes of practice and guidance, all of which deal with various aspects of health and safety. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is the government body which decides upon and implements health and safety policy.


Please see a more detailed Health and safety document I have compiled on blog "Health and Safety Considerations" (Unit 205)


Photography of children or Minors

IIt is important to note that there is no law against photographing children. You are perfectly within your rights to take a photograph of a child. Ridiculous stories are common of parents being told to put their cameras away at dance competitions or swimming pools.

There are some common sense guidelines that you should keep in the forefront of your mind when photographing children. The first of these is that, where possible, you should always seek approval from a parent or guardian before you begin shooting. This is particularly important if you are doing street photography. Photographing children in public places can be controversial and is also a sensitive issue,permission should be granted first and with this in mind no real problems are encountered


If in any doubt, I would suggest when taking photo's of minor's always make sure that the parents are present when the photography takes place. I would then show all images to the parents and ask for their approval before the images are processed or printed



Contract Law



A contract intends to formalize an agreement between two or more parties, in relation to a particular subject. Contracts can cover an extremely broad range of matters, including the sale of goods,property,services etc


In order to be valid, the parties to a contract must exchange something of value. In the case of the sale of the photographs, the buyer receives something of value in the form of the photographs and the photographers services, and the seller receives money for these services and the images


There must be an offer and this must be accepted to make an agreement. While this would in the first instance appear to be self explanatory, it is important to distinguish between what the law says amounts to a valid offer. An offer can be made orally, in writing or by way of conduct.

Contract: the elements of a contract

The first step in a contract question is always to make sure that a contract actually exists. There are certain elements that must be present for a legally binding contract to be in place.

Shown below are the two most common elements of a contract

• An offer: an expression of willingness to contract on a specific set of terms, made by the offeror with the intention that, if the offer is accepted, he or she will be bound by a contract.

• Acceptance: an expression of absolute and unconditional agreement to all the terms set out in the offer. It can be oral or in writing. The acceptance must exactly mirror the original offer made.

Disability Discrimination

Consideration must be given to people with disabilities so we all have the same equal opportunities. The photographer may need to go to extreme lengths to provide resources and to accommodate people with disabilities but equal opportunities must be of paramount importance

The Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to other members of the public

Extra provision may be needed to enable a disabled person to fulfill their every day lives and this may come at quite some considerable cost

It may be necessary to have another person available to help with people with disabilities. They may need to be lifted,guided or helped in a variety of situations to carry out their everyday duties that an able person may take for granted

A studio may need to be kitted out to meet the requirements of a disabled person and a variety of different aids may need to be put in place to accommodate this. Wider doors,lower sinks,ramps and larger toilets are all a major consideration to provide proper equal services for everybody

Similar considerations have to be taken into account when shooting on location or outdoors which maybe an even harder challenge for the photographer to complete if additional resources are needed to accommodate someone with a disability


Handling Confidential Information

Care should be taken when handling other peoples information. This information is very personal and confidential including banking details etc.. The photographer needs to protect this data and care must be taken if this data is stored on pc's etc.. There are laws governing the storage of  personal data, this is called "the data protection act" The DPA was first composed in 1984 and was updated in 1998.Shown below are the basic principles of this law

The Eight Data Protection Act Principles

The act contains eight “Data Protection Principles”. These specify that personal data must be:

1. Processed fairly and lawfully.

2. Obtained for specified and lawful purposes.

3. Adequate, relevant and not excessive.

4. Accurate and up to date.

5. Not kept any longer than necessary.

6. Processed in accordance with the “data subject’s” (the individual’s) rights.

7. Securely kept.

8. Not transferred to any other country without adequate protection in situ.

Cost analysis of a project brief

The overall costs incurred when working to a photo imaging brief can vary considerably. The costs vary due to the the type of brief that a photographer has to work to and the end product that is required by the customer. Image costs vary by the type of images reqiured by the customer for eg: whether they want low res images for production of websites to be viewed on the internet or high res images needed to produce printed media,books or wedding photos.


Estimates are hard to produce because, the main features that govern the overall costs of working to a photo imaging brief are unpredictable and all depend on the clients needs:


Time (Resources).


How much of the photographers time is taken up to shoot the required images depends on a variety of factors


This can vary considerably from photographer to photographer and what the end result the client requires. Some photographers price themselves by an hourly rate which include taking a variable amount of images over certain periods of time at a location of the clients choice. Others price themselves with an overall cost of hiring themselves including a studio complete with props models etc



Studio Time Costs 


Is it neccessary to hire a studio for the photography or can the photography be completed out on location? Studio time is very expensive and the overall price for a set of bespoke images can easily run from hundreds if not thousands of pounds

Some photographers have their own studio's and chargre by the hour to hire their studio's out to others photographers others let their studio's out to groups of photographers at slightly cheaper rates

Photographer's time is very expensive. Some have there ready equiped studio's ready to produce the images complete with Models,costumes,props etc this all adds to the overall cost of pruducing a set of images

Location photography Costs:


These costs can also vary considerably. A photographer may need to travel to various locations to produce the end set of images images.


Costs incurred could  be:

• Transport, Petrol and possibly car hire costs

• Accommodation which would include hotel bills

• Food costs as the photographer may be working a various remote locations,pub meals etc would become an additional cost

• Insurance. A photographer may include this in his overall price but their equipment is vary expensive and would need to be covered out on location for the threat of,theft and damage

Post production Costs


Costs can be pushed up even further as the photogrpher has to post process the images captured using image manipulation software such as Photoshop,this is the modern day digital darkroom. Most images require some kind of image processing and the process is very time consuming




Material Costs


There are various materials needed by a photographer to produce their end results and these vary in price dependant on the the client's needs


Printing
Print costs can vary considerably. factors governing this output include: print size,printing paper,print quality, Inks and papers


Photobooks 
The modern approach nowadays is show off images in photobooks,prices vary considerably with quality. £40 will buy a nice quality photobook moving into hundreds of pounds for higher quailty books


Digital media 
Cd's and Dvd's are an excellent way to store and transport images. Clients like to purchase a lot of these items to promote or sell their business's or to send to friends as presents

Contingencies

It is very hard to put an actual price on the costs to produce an estimate for photography services. There are a lot of costs involved that a photographer will incur and some of these charges are hidden which are not accounted for  

Contingency plans must be put in place to allow for the unexpected. A bank account with substancial funds would need to be in place to cover for cancelations,none payments,bouncing checks,illness etc, payment for a photographer's services are not always guaranteed

Weather conditions are not always ideal when working on loction and contingentency plans have to be taken into consideration again. Transport to and from various locations may be cancelled which could push up the costs and this could prevent the photographer getting to the location adding more time to the photogrphers costs

A photographer working for himself has to have a certain amount of money set aside to cover a contingency fund.

Contingency funds must be put in place to allow if the Photographer becomes ill and cannot continue with their work and photo shoot's. A second photographer may have to be put in place to allow for illness and to honour excisting contracts and work

Equipment is another major cost for the photogrpher and any failure with cameras,lighting etc can be very expensive. A photogrpher may have to purchase secondary cameras or additional equipments so a contingency fund must always be available to allow for replacement of this equipment

Most photographers use a laptop and other various pc's and software to run their businesses. If this equipment is lost,stolen or fails and needs replacing at a moments notice this can put a considerable ammount of strain on the photographers resources so a sizable contingency fund needs to be in place to replace these items 


Contingencies have to be considered if the photographers camera fails or is stolen. This is the photographers main piece of equipment and is absolutely critical to any photography shoot. A second or third camera must always be carried by the photographer at all times and this also pushes up the costs of resources



Mark Up


A mark up must be added to the overall costs a photographer charges. This margin allows for a profit to be made to cover a lot of the photographer's costs such as equipment,wages and business costs etc. This mark up is passed onto the customer in the final price of the photography for their images and services

Burton Photographic Society Annual Exhibition

Free Exhibition open 10-4pm each day. Sat and Sun 13th and 14th Nov at the Priory Centre,Church Lane,Stretton. Over 500 images on display,refreshments available,all welcome

The deputy Major of Burton will be Presenting the winners of BPS open photographic competition at 2pm on Sat 13th.

Structured and technical evaluation of my images

My Images

The techniques and equipment I used to capture them


Shown on this blog is a selection of my images which I took on a recent visit to the Lake District

The majority of my images produced for the modules I am studying on this course were taken with my excellent Canon 7D camera. I have owned this camera for about 9 months now and have really got to grips with using this camera. I find this camera ticks all the boxes for all my requirements and would recommend this model to anyone


This camera is very fast and shoots at 8 frames a second due to two really fast Digic 4 processors.It has a whole host of new features that the Canon 5D should have included. It has a brilliant 19 point AF system and shoots at ISO's up to an impressive 64000. I Use this camera because it has all the features that most photographers need.It's great for fast sport shots and also good in the studio for close up/portraits with very good clarity for a crop sensor camera

 Some of my images and their meta data from my lake district shots


Shown here is the meta data which accompanies the image.This is a record of all the technical data that is recorded at the point the image is taken.


I recorded this information by taking a screen grab from the software Bridge. This shows all my camera settings including F stop,Shutter Speed,ISO and even the lens used at the point the image was recorded


These images were taken for one of my course subjects

Lake District Landscapes in Autumn

I will also be using approx 20 of my completed images  for completion of my friends Calenda/photobook that she has asked me to commission.

Meta Data

She has commissioned me to produce a portfolio of Autumnal/winter images for inclusion in a business calendar or photo book she wants to produce to promote her aromeatherapy business 

I really wanted to consolidate my skills of landscape and macro photography and at the same time wanted to capture some Autumn colour shots to add to my portfolio of images for my friends business

I had some spare holiday left over so decided to spend 5 days up in the Lake District to produce my images 


I specifically waited until late ocober because this is the time of the year you can capture some really nice images. I wanted to produce some images depicting mist,frost and lovely Autumn glows from the different shades of orange and yellow created by the dying leaves of the trees

Most of my Landscape and Macro shots were taken very early in the morning or early in the evening at various locations in and around the lake district when the light levels were not at there best.

I distinctively choose this time of day because this was the best time of day to capture really nice images when the light is coming from a horizontal direction

Meta Data

I have gained a considerable amount of knowledge and information being a photogrpher over the years and know that these special periods of light don't last very long long,so early starts are essential. This time of the year produces a very  different kind of light,when the sun is very low in the sky. The sky tends to produce more of a warm orange glow at this time of year.


At this time of year Shooting in these conditions, I knew I would be taking some long exposures because of the low light levels. I knew I would be using slow shutter speeds,so a tripod was absolutely essential


I used my Velbon Sherpa Lightweight Tripod to support my camera  and record all the images on this particular morning


All of my shutter speeds that I used to produce these images were longer than 1/60th of a sec. I used my Hahnel Radio remote shutter release trigger fitted to the hotshoe on my camera to fire the shutter, as holding the camera at these lower shutter speeds would have resulted in blurred images. I stood about a meter away from my camera then triggered the remote unit on the camera from a hand held radio remote unit to avoid camera shake

Meta Data

I first checked all my equipment making sure I had enough memory cards and all of my batteries were fully charged. I made sure I'd got a change of clothing and enough food and drink to last the day. Alot of the locations were very isolated so food, torch and warm clothes were essentil at this time of year

Weather wise the first day of the holiday was ok but very misty but I did manage to capture a few half decent images

Shown here are a few of my images from a village called Grassmere, far from my best work, but I have been limited with the amount of images available to me as the weather took a nose dive from here on

The weather from this point on was atrocious with torrential rain, gales, completely flat, grey, dull lifeless skies, I nearly packed up and came home it was that bad.


For all of my landscapes images shown here I used my Canon 17-55 wide angled zoom lens. I used this 2,8 lens because of it's clarity and it's wide angle of view of 17mm. This means I get a lot more content in my pictures which produces very wide angled shots which is ideal for landscapes. This is also a very fast lens
 at 2.8 which allows me to produce images even in the darkest of situations with great clarity and reasonable lighting

Meta Data

Most of the images were recorded using the widest focal length of 17mm which gives a very wide angle of view essential to take in wide panaramas which also give depth to a landscape photo

The majority of my Landcape photos were shot with very high end F stops ranging from F11 to F22. I prefer to use high end f stops which gave me a very large depth of field from virtually the end of the camera lens to infinity.

I have learnt through research that for a proper Landscape shot it’s very important to keep the foreground and the background in very sharp focus. Using this method gives a great feeing of depth.

The highest F stop on my lens is F22 which produced some very pleasing results.

I used a variety of shutter speeds ranging from 3 Sec’s to 1/60 th of a sec hence the need for a tripod


For the majority of my images above I used an ISO of 100. I used this setting because the lower the ISO setting on a camera the more clarity is recorded in an image without any evident noise. Using higher end ISO's produces more noise in an image which obviously reduces clarity


The lighting conditions didn't improve on this morning so I reluctantly started to push up my ISO's from 100 to 200 then 400

Whitby Gothic Festival Portraits (Street performers)

Shown below are a group of photographs I have taken recently on a visit to Whitby Gothic Festival a town on the coast in North Yorshire


Anybody studying portraits for their blogs? I would reccomend you get over there and get some nice portraits. You can learn so much all in one day which gives you hands on experience of working with different models which I feel is essential to to give you confidence of approaching strangers for your phtogrphy


Here's a few charactor's from the day, I've got loads more more to follow when i get time to sort them all out


For most of these close ups I have used Canon F4 L Series zoom lens with  an aperture of F4 which enables me to to zoom close into my subjects. Using this aperture allows me to blur the background of my subject which emphasizes the subject from its' background. Using an F stop of F4 produces a large aperture on my camera which produces a shallow depth of field hence the reason for my blurred backgrounds


Using a small aperture would have given me a small aperture on my camera which produces a large depth of field which is not really ideal for producing portrait photographs. Using apertures of F16 and above would not be ideal for portraits as most of the photograph would be in focus with no blurred background because of a large depth of field