Getting hassled for photography in a public place isn't something that happens to me very often, but it's always frustrating when it does. That's because photography isn't a crime and anyone in a public place has no expectation of privacy. So why do some people think they have a right to hassle photographers when we aren't doing anything wrong?

Why Were We Photographing in a Public Place?

I honestly never expected things to go south so quickly, and for such a silly reason. Here's how it got started.

Lee is out of town for a marathon. Our daughter, Tové, has a high school art class assignment. She needs to visit the local art festival, engage with some of the artists, take a few photos, and then write a report about her experiences.

The festival is far away enough that I needed to drive her, and it was a really nice day for a walk around the park.

It also provided me with an opportunity to create something for another blog – Orlando Local.  We recently ended the podcast for that site, but announced that we still planned to add new information on the blog and YouTube channel. A walkthrough video of the art festival seemed like something interesting and useful.

It also gave me an excuse to play with my new DJI Osmo Mobile 2 gimbal for the iPhone.

What Happened as Soon as We Arrived?

Tové and I were about 20 steps away from the first tent when I assembled my phone and gimbal. I started walking toward the tent and recording video of the paintings on display.

The DJI Osmo Mobile 2 worked extremely well. The video smoothly scrolled up and everywhere else. I had a bit of a learning curve to keep it pointed in the direction I wanted, as it seemed to rotate toward the right. That's probably because I didn't balance my iPhone 8 Plus correctly.

What happened next, you can hear on the podcast.

The vendor in the tent was talking about people taking photos. How would they feel if someone walked up and took a photo of their child?

As if any of his art was as valuable as a child.

At that moment, he noticed me and yelled out “No photography, please.” So I immediately complied. I moved along and heard him mutter about how he felt violated.

So much drama. I replied and told him that I was sorry he felt violated. Then Tové and I moved on to see what she needed.

Then things got a bit more tense.

The Aggressive Artist Confrontation

We're walking down the sidewalk and an angry man comes right up to me, finger pointed straight at me as if he's going to do something to my gimbal and iPhone.

“Sir, don't do that!”

Seriously, that's his first approach. I don't know him and he doesn't know me. We've never seen each other before. He doesn't have anything nice to say, he's just rapidly coming at him with that damn finger and trying to tell me that I can't do what I'm doing – taking video in a public place.

He tells me that most of these artists have signs saying “No Photography.”

To be honest, I hadn't seen any of those signs yet. I've been there less than 60 seconds.

After telling him not to point his finger at me, I remind him he's in a public place.

He immediately turns to a few police officers and asks them, “You going to do anything about this?”

The cops calmly tell him “It's a public place”, which I also repeated to him. Then I moved on down the sidewalk.

As I walked away, I could faintly hear some more banter. Another vendor joined the discussion with the cops and said that they pay money to get these spots and people come along taking photos of their art.

That's about all I heard because I had no interest in this pissing match. I actually felt bad for the police officer, because they were doing a great job, were very friendly, and now he's dealing with some angry artists who don't understand that photography is not a...