Photography and French privacy laws

[Dave Wooten]

Is a writer, qualified as a researcher?

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Is a writer, qualified as a researcher?
See page 19 of the above mentioned document, which applies only at Le Louvre and Tuileries gardens.

Etudiant dans le cadre d'un travail de recherche : gratuit
Means that you should be a student and doing a research work. Then it will be free within the working hours where the place is opened to the public.

I have no idea how you can prove that you are a student doing research.
I imagine that you'll have to show a student's ID registered somewhere and a certificate by the professor that you are actually doing a photographic research...

Well, as far as I am concerned I do not want to argue with the French administration in order to get a permit at Le Louvre... instead I'll try to disguise my Rolleiflex TLR hand-held as a new kind of consumer-grade digital camera !
Many consumer digital camera can adapt a folding hood similar to the one in use on the Rolleiflex

The other option would be to unfold your favourite tripod but in the public domain outside the Louvre and Tuileries regulated areas... many good views can be made from the other side of the river Seine

[Mark Sampson]

Just tell them that your name is Eugene Atget and that you are making "documents pour artistes".

[claudiocambon]

Speaking of tripods, Emmanuel, how about monopods? Are they considered tripods, or is there a clear, technical distinction made that one can rely on not to get harassed?

[bsimison]

Zillions of tourist freely take pictures with their digital compact cameras near Le Louvre, but if you come with the same camera on a tripod, you'll be forbidden to do it.
So I know people disguised as regular tourists shooting hand-held with their Alpa 12 instead of unfolding a tripod and a LF camera

How long has this restriction been in place? I suppose I was lucky a couple years back when I took the panoramic below. Several people came up to speak to me, curious about the tripod and oddly shaped pano bracket.

Good thread, and thanks for all of the information.

[r.e.]

As a former resident of Paris, and frequent traveller there, this strikes me as not complicated.

People take countless millions of photographs there every year and are not questioned, let alone challenged, by anyone.

The suggestion that the current French laws and attitude toward photography would make it impossible for Cartier-Bresson to do his work is just plain ridiculous.

The problem with tripods in Paris is that the sidewalks are crowded. The issue that I ran into when I used a tripod had to do with courtesy for other people, i.e. using a tripod in a way that stayed out of the way of pedestrians. Personally, I have never been stopped, but I think that that has had mainly to do with being careful about using a tripod in places, and under circumstances, that didn't involve obstructing others.

To answer the latest question, using a monopod is in my experience a non-issue.

As for people who don't want to be photographed, this is something that one can run into anywhere. The two times that I have been challenged in markets were not in Paris, but in New York. The first time, the guy threatened to call the police. The second time, I said that I was a tourist, and the owner of the grocery just smiled and let me take the photo.

There are indeed issues about using a tripod, without a permit, at major tourist spots. So get a permit, or don't be surprised if you are told that setting up a tripod in a major traffic area and/or major cultural site, is an issue.

Geoffrey James did a great photo essay of Paris, resulting in a book, using an 8x10 camera. If I recall, there is also an old thread on this subject in which a photographer who is perhaps no longer active on this forum wrote about doing hundreds of 4x5 photographs of buildings in Paris, for a book, without any difficulty whatsoever.

Cheers

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Speaking of tripods, Emmanuel, how about monopods?

As mentioned in the previous post, on the parisian public domain there is no restriction to the use of a tripod or, of course, a monopod.
The reference text about this is a letter sent by the préfecture de police de Paris several years ago to a photographer asking for a clarification. Dated : March 15, 2001, an answer to Mr. Frédéric Gourhan.
Page 1 : explicit waiver of any authorisation for tripod use by a single person as soon as as there is no obstruction to road or pedestrian traffic (this does not apply to a full staff making a movie !)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2299/...6e473a_o_d.png

The other pages a relevant to movie or TV work with heavy equipement.
page 2 http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2142/...fce67d_o_d.png
page 3 http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2102/...9d495d_o_d.png

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Now the Louvre & Tuileries gardens are a different issue. Specific regulations have been posted above.
The complete list of fees & royalties referenced above does not mention anything about tripods or monopods.
If we apply a stubborn reading of the document, all photography is subject to prior authorisation & fees within the liimits of the regulated area. You can read it as if the usual indoor museum anti-photographer restrictions (common to many museums, worldwide) were extended to the outdoor surroundings of the Louvre palace.

One may object that many, many, people take pictures routinely without any authorisation nor fee, including professionals with hand-held equipement working fast.
Clearly this is forbidden but a large tolerance exist since you'd have to place a security guard behind each person inside the garden in order to enforce the regulations.
However it is easier to chase for tripod users.
This does not mean that no tripod-LF-photographer has ever succeeded in taking picture within the Tuileries gardens !
So the tripod, in practice, seems to set the actual limits of the tolerance ; and of course do not expect to see this clearly stated in written in any official document.
So to me, the monopod within the Tuileries gardens is just at the limits of the tolerance !
Good luck !

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I may add some historical notes about Paris monuments & city landscape.
Unlike London where a dramatic fire destroyed the city in the XVII-st century (1666), and where the Blitz in WW-II heavily damaged the city, Paris was preserved from many disasters. WW-I did not reach Paris and WW-II operations stopped in May 1940 before an actual battle could take place in Paris. In August 1944, the city migh have been destroyed by the madness of the nazis while allied forces were progressing fast, hopefull nothing serious happened to most historical monuments.

The last "catastrophic" destructions in Paris took place in the XIX-st century when Baron Hausmann directed large scale rebuilding around the opera. Many old houses were destroyed.
Photographic recordings of old buildings can be found in the work by Marville and other XIX-st century masters.
Another major destruction concerns the Tuileries palace, just where the Tuileries gardens are located today.
This took place during the dramatic events of the Commune de Paris in 1870-1871. The Tuileries palace was destroyed on May 23, 1871.
http://www.parisenimages.fr/fr/galer...urce=&start=20

There has been some discussions about re-building the palace, but this is so costly that I doubt that we'll ever see it.
However in Warsaw, Poland, the City Hall was rebuilt with a classical façade as an exact copy and the back of the building as something modern and functional.
In Berlin a major rebuiding project is taking place, the Stadtschloß will be back after destruction of the ex-GDR state palace.
http://www.stadtschloss-berlin.de/englisch.html

[r.e.]

The old thread that I mentioned above is called Tripod use in Paris? and is at http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=10348

Contrary to my recollection, Driscoll did indeed run into problems. However, his difficulties did not have to do with ordinary buildings, but with major cultural attractions and museums.

I agree with the comments in that thread to the effect that it helps, if you want to set up a tripod to photograph major cultural sites, or buildings that are the possible subject of an attack, to speak good French, or to be with someone who does. My own photography in Paris has been of ordinary streets and people, particularly in the 14th arrondissement where I used to live, so I haven't run into these issues. But yes, if you want to set up a large format camera at the Louvre, or on the grounds at Marly-le-Roi or Versailles, there is likely to be an issue if you don't have a permit.

I think that the book that Driscoll was working on is called One Thousand Buildings of Paris: http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Build...0089733&sr=8-1.

Geoffrey James, who also participated in that thread, has many of his 8x10 photographs of Paris in his book Paris: Photographs by Geoffrey James: http://www.amazon.com/Paris-Photogra...0091854&sr=8-4 It is a wonderful book, but I am biased because one of my favourite prints, which I have in a prominent place in my office, is a contact from one of the negatives

[Roger Hicks]

If I can add my 0,02 euros to a discussion where I'm glad to read the contributions of Roger Hicks (BTW, I did not suspect that one of my favourite authors of photo books was a francophile ;-)

An interesting note in this case is that French judges referred to the European law (article 10 of the European Chart for Human rights granting the rights to journalists to freely publish) ruling against the French law (I quote Le Figaro) :
Le tribunal avait alors fait primer le droit à l'information garanti par l'article 10 de la convention européenne des droits de l'homme sur l'article 9 du code civil. Un retournement.

Have a good time and enjoy a really funny automatic translation here (Roger Hocks will appreciate since I can't imagine that he does not speak nor understand a traitor word of French as we say in France

Dear Emmanuel,

The translation, he is for to laugh, my brave! How do the Italians put it? Traductore, tradittore?

Thanks very much for the kind words -- also to Pete and Joe -- and thanks still more for the link to the newspaper report. I have to confess that I had not seen this ruling: the papers in la France profonde are more concerned with local traffic accidents and sex scandals.

From the Le Figaro article and the grounds for the decision, it looks highly unlikely to me that this will be further appealed, though I have to admit that my understanding of the Cour d'Appel and the Cour de Cassation is lamentably poor.

I am so grateful that I contributed what little I know here, because (as so often the case) I have learned far more than I taught. Thanks once again!

Amitiés,

Roger

[Dave Wooten]

Just visited "The Forests of Fountainebleau" show at the National Gallery in Washington DC-1850-1900, landscape photographs and landscape paintings, quite interesting to see contemporary work of painters and photographers-side by side in the same show. Oil painting, salt prints, wet plate , albumen etc.
Would one have an issue with using tripod in the forests today?