20/12/2016
Photography in Australia - in grave danger of being a regulated and policed activity requiring a permit in many public places? If you agree that this sounds an awful lot like insanity, then add your voice to those of outstanding and outspoken photographers like Ken Duncan in their quest for sanity and reason to prevail. Stand up all of you creatives, or your art form might be the next one in line...
Below is a photo of Peter Walton, a great Australian photographer, who joined with me and over a thousand other photographers in 2010 . We held a rally in Sydney to fight for photographers rights. This was one of the proudest moments for me, as an Australian photographer, but we need to keep fighting. So please read and spread this news update.
We need to be passionate about standing up for the rights of photographers - our freedom to take photos and to pursue our artistic rights.
As you are all aware, bureaucracy is getting out of hand. Increasingly photographers are being treated as criminals and even being threatened with arrest. This has happened to me on many occasions. On my last altercation in Barangaroo, Sydney, I posted on Facebook how outraged I was - it reached over 1.4 million people.
The response was so great that NSW Premier Mike Baird promised to try and do something. The NSW Premier Department was asked to conduct a review in order to return NSW to its former glory as a user-friendly Arts and I was asked to speak with them to enlighten to explain the issues and their effects on photographers, the Arts and NSW at large.
So after months of review and talking to all the different governing departments, the Premiers Department now realise how overly controlled and complex the process of people taking photos has become. Their basic recommendation was just to write a friendly directive and talk to all the departments and ask them to play nicely with photographers and artists. They still wanted all the different department regulations to stay in place. They realized it would be hard to change all the existing rules. So their initial solution was to try and put more red tape on something that was already out dated and broken. I said "This is unacceptable, we have to get our Premier to lead from the top on this issue. We need to return the rights and freedoms that have been lost - as long as a photographer or artist does not want more access to, or to create more impact on the environment than the average tourist/person, there should be no charges or permits required.
They said "but what about commercial artists or photographers?" I said "It shouldn't be about wether or not someone is hoping to make money from their artistic talent, it should be about the potential impact to an area".
I agreed that if some one is going to be doing a creative activity where there may be more than 3 people, or they may want access into special areas, or they may want to bring in big equipment, or props that may create potential traffic issues, then I understand that permits and fees could apply. The way it is now, with all the separate departments and their different domains with differing regulation, it's become a minefield. If a photographer wanted to do a Landscape book just from photos taken in NSW it would be an organizational and financial nightmare just to deal with all the different requirements of over zealous regulations. They think if anyone is potentially going to commercially make a gain, then they make it difficult. They want artist to fill out paper work, work out fees for shoot or telling exact dates of when they will be taking photos.
In the end all photographers get caught up in the process. Because what is deemed a commercial activity and who is at sometime going to make possible financial gain from their images?
The thing rangers and enforcers look for most in photographers as potential commercial targets is if they have expensive looking gear or God forbid a tripod. This surely means they are commercial. I said to the Premiers department "You can not tell if someone is shooting commercially or not by the size of their camera or tripod. It is possible now with technology to shoot commercial footage just using your smart phone or a small camera. Just recently, Apple promoted iPhone using a billboard campaign comprised solely of photos taken with their phones. I wonder if they paid location fees and filled out permits?
I also mentioned how ridiculous it is that most of the year it's a big issue taking photos of Sydney foreshore and then at events like New Years Eve or Sydney Vivid all photographers are encouraged to take as many photos as they want. So sometimes it's OK and sometimes not?
I said "At a time when there have never been more photos taken and photography is Australia's number one hobby, it is like standing under Niagara Falls and saying to the water stop. It's not a time to try and stop photography but embrace the medium and the exposure that images can bring.
These days with social media being so strong, people are even paid by the amount of likes they get. They are paid by companies and tourist organizations all over the world to help promote products and destinations. So what are all these regulatory bodies going to do? Troll the internet to arrest these potential criminals for promoting something? And then what? Potentially have them arrested or fined for promoting the country of "freedom" they love so much".
Who out there in the real world, if offered money for a photo they had taken, wouldn't jump at the opportunity? If it was an appropriate usage of that image, of course. Well if you would take the money, you would have just broken the law as you have now sold an image which you took with no commercial permit.
And if commercial activity is the criteria for fees and permits, then how come no one has taken action against Google as you can view anything you want on Google Maps even street view - which is just so cool, might I add.
So, after this and many more examples of why the rules and regulations of all the various department do not work any more in this modern, technological age, the Premiers Department asked "well what is it that photographers and artists want?"
My reply, "I believe we need our Premier to intervene and help create an arts policy that overrides all departments when it comes to low impact photography. It would allow our beautiful State, NSW, to become the first truly Arts Friendly State. (The existing rules and regulations for different departments will only apply when real impact from an artists activities could affect the area and its usage for future generations). When bureaucrats from all over Australia see how well this will work in promoting the beauty and creativity of our State. Hopefully they will also jump on the peace train with the photographers and artists".
PM Malcolm Turnbull talks about innovation but the thing that kills both that, and creativity, is bureaucracy.
Dear Mr Turnbull, you could really help Australia become the user friendly Arts country. Now
that would be truly innovative.
The NSW Premiers Department is now looking into how this could work, but it could be swiftly assisted by an overriding directive from the top to bring back sensibility and freedom of the arts.
The Premiers Department will be getting back to me in the New Year so let's keep our hopes high for sensibility!
Freedom would be one of the greatest gifts our leaders could return to us in the years ahead. If logic does not prevail then we will rally again - that our voices may be heard!
Regards,
Ken Duncan OAM
Mike Baird
