I posted a write up from my day yesterday about chainsawing in the morning, spending part of the afternoon on the beach playing volleyball and enjoying the truly fantastic weather with friends.
It came to pass that there was a pair of women a decent ways off hanging out. One was topless and didn't seem to have any issues with it. Several guys in our group developed whiplash from frequent glances in her direction. I snapped a pic, almost more curious as to the quality of the pic at such a distance, full on 11x digital and optical zoom, and to demonstrate to my northern blog brethren that allure of the California beach culture.
I didn't intend on transgressing, wasn't leering, wasn't snapping pics to jack off to, wasn't wandering the beach in search of photo ops of topless sunbathers. Keep in mind that this is a public beach, one I've been coming to for the last decade and believe me when I say that a pair of naked boobs on the beach is nowhere near the wildest thing I've seen. Picture a pack of drunken skinny dippers under a full moon and you'll be part of the way there.
Anyway, it begs the question of whether I was ethically out of bounds in snapping her pic. I didn't ask her permission but also didn't intrude on her space in anyway and she is, effectively, nearly nude in a public place. It may have been in poor taste and I'm not denying that which is the main reason I took the pic down after Leblanc left her comment. And it makes sense, I wasn't thinking about in that way but I got her point and appreciate her making it.
But I'm curious. Where's the line? In a public area, aren't I allowed to use my camera in more or less any manner I choose? If someone is in public then isn't that some sort of tacit permission to record them? I know this has some paparazzi angle to it with the jackasses who live their life trying to get naughty pics of celebrities and I guess it really does. But I'm interested in hearing from other folks, what do you think? Is your right to privacy extended into public spaces merely because you opt to be naked or are you exposing yourself with the knowledge that others may record your actions?
0 comments:
Post a Comment