You could have asked first!

I love to snap strangers, those candid shots of random people, with expressions you can only capture when they have no idea they are being photographed.  But is that being too intrusive?

On a recent day trip with Jess to meet the good folk of Instagramers Brighton, as part of our Instagramers London and Instagramers UK roles, we took a little stroll around the town, as you do!  In the distance I could see a street musician, or busker, and thought he might make a perfect subject.  So, as we approached I took a couple of what I thought were sneaky snaps, until he piped up "You could have asked first".  My immediate reaction was to apologise (after all I had been busted!) and offered to delete the photo from my camera roll.  And the discussion could have been left there, chalked up to experience, and moved on.  But he clearly had a bee in his bonnet about this and was determined to give us his thoughts on the matter.  While our Brightonian host Dave (from Printagram) hovered above his guitar case with some change, our (un)friendly busker continued to tell us that we weren't the first, how fed up he was with people not asking before taking his photo, and that it wasn't about the money, just the principle.  To which our response was that while he is performing in a public space (apparently Brighton has an open policy on street musicians), and clearly looking for an audience, he was bound to attract such attention.  It is not illegal to photograph people in a public space, with the obvious exception of children, and so our discussion went on.  You could argue that we might not like his style of street music but he didn't ask us whether we minded him playing within our earshot!  Anyway, we eventually moved on, considered him a miserable git, and here's the photograph anyway!

And here's some useful reference on photographers rights:
Metropolitan Police
Simon Moran's Photographers Rights Guide V2

Debs
12 February 2013