Gajan, your piece hit a nerve in the best way. The permission debate in street photography often collapses everything into a yes or no question, and like you said, that is where the whole conversation goes flat. I work in a very different environment most days, but one thing that carries across both my legal work and photography is this simple reality: a question that reduces complexity usually reduces truth with it.
I shoot in Switzerland and across Europe, where my work is largely built around anonymity and observation. Most of my frames don’t hinge on identity. They hinge on light, geometry, tension and timing. In many cases people never realise they were photographed at all. That doesn’t remove the ethical question, but it shifts it. The intent behind the image matters more than the encounter. If the photograph is made to dignify a moment rather than exploit it, it becomes difficult to argue that harm was done.
Your point about asking better questions aligns strongly with how I navigate this space. When someone asks “Do you need permission?” the strictly legal answer is - unsurprisingly - it depends. Context, recognisability, country, use case, commercial intent. That’s the boring half. The real substance lies elsewhere. The question I actually weigh is whether I caused any damage. Did I exploit someone? Did I take something away from them? That analytical frame has served me far better than any binary rule.
The more interesting and defendable question is whether the image respects the person whose presence shaped it, even if they’re unrecognisable, even if their role is simply a silhouette anchoring the frame. That’s the axis my decision making turns on. And ultimately, if a person genuinely doesn’t want to appear in an image, even after all that, I respect it and I delete it. As much as I care about my work, no single photograph is worth distressing someone who happened to stand in my line of sight.
Where your article resonated most is this shift from “permission” to “honouring the story”. That’s where the craft lives. It cuts through the noise, the bad-actor content tourists, the people collecting strangers like trophies. A lot of what has soured the debate comes from those who want the aesthetic of authenticity without any responsibility attached to it.
What I’m curious about is the second half of the lifecycle. Capture is one thing. Publication is another. Does the ethical ground shift once the work enters the world, becomes part of a portfolio, a brand, a commercial ecosystem? My instinct is that it does, especially in a climate where intent is often misread or misrepresented. I’d be interested in how you see that transition.
Gajan, your piece hit a nerve in the best way. The permission debate in street photography often collapses everything into a yes or no question, and like you said, that is where the whole conversation goes flat. I work in a very different environment most days, but one thing that carries across both my legal work and photography is this simple reality: a question that reduces complexity usually reduces truth with it.
I shoot in Switzerland and across Europe, where my work is largely built around anonymity and observation. Most of my frames don’t hinge on identity. They hinge on light, geometry, tension and timing. In many cases people never realise they were photographed at all. That doesn’t remove the ethical question, but it shifts it. The intent behind the image matters more than the encounter. If the photograph is made to dignify a moment rather than exploit it, it becomes difficult to argue that harm was done.
Your point about asking better questions aligns strongly with how I navigate this space. When someone asks “Do you need permission?” the strictly legal answer is - unsurprisingly - it depends. Context, recognisability, country, use case, commercial intent. That’s the boring half. The real substance lies elsewhere. The question I actually weigh is whether I caused any damage. Did I exploit someone? Did I take something away from them? That analytical frame has served me far better than any binary rule.
The more interesting and defendable question is whether the image respects the person whose presence shaped it, even if they’re unrecognisable, even if their role is simply a silhouette anchoring the frame. That’s the axis my decision making turns on. And ultimately, if a person genuinely doesn’t want to appear in an image, even after all that, I respect it and I delete it. As much as I care about my work, no single photograph is worth distressing someone who happened to stand in my line of sight.
Where your article resonated most is this shift from “permission” to “honouring the story”. That’s where the craft lives. It cuts through the noise, the bad-actor content tourists, the people collecting strangers like trophies. A lot of what has soured the debate comes from those who want the aesthetic of authenticity without any responsibility attached to it.
What I’m curious about is the second half of the lifecycle. Capture is one thing. Publication is another. Does the ethical ground shift once the work enters the world, becomes part of a portfolio, a brand, a commercial ecosystem? My instinct is that it does, especially in a climate where intent is often misread or misrepresented. I’d be interested in how you see that transition.
Best, Janusz