Photographing in Stores

[Marvin McAbee]

I was wondering if you photographed in a store do you need to ask permission or not.  If it was RM and no property release is that good enough or should you ask the store.

[Betty LaRue]

2 hours ago, Marvin McAbee said:

I was wondering if you photographed in a store do you need to ask permission or not.  If it was RM and no property release is that good enough or should you ask the store.

Asking a chain store would be hopeless. They’d have to get corporate permission...you’d get your hair cut twice before getting your answer of NO.

RM. No release. If you don’t ask, you can’t be told no.

Mom and pop stores, (Privately owned) you could ask.

I once asked in a grocery store and was told no. So I just take pictures and nobody seems to care. Small camera, stealth.

[Steve F]

+1 to what Betty says. I take my smallest lens in and go shopping at the same time!

 

p.s. especially photographing empty shelves because of Covid-19. You're never going to get permission.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Steve F
p.s. added

[Robert M Estall]

sure, be discreet don't ask and RM no release. as far as empty shelves & all that, we already have a lot. I suppose the empty shelves/virus hoarding is a story, but not one I want to pursue

[Marianne]

Only time I ever asked in a store was when Bill Clinton walked into our local Walgreen's and I had my camera in my bag since I'd just been out hiking - and then I asked his Secret Service agent, not someone in the store - President Clinton saw me - smiled for the camera, then told me to give it to someone else so I could get a photograph with him. 

 

I usually try when no one's really around, but no one has ever stopped me, though it's not something I do often. 

[sooth]

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Edited October 19, 2023 by sooth

[sb photos]

I've only been challenged twice photographing in UK stores. Walked into a well known long established London shop selling umbrellas and walking sticks, fired off 2 shots before being challenged. I apologised, said I hadn't seen the no photography signs and left. The other was in a local Woolworths store that was a day or two away from closing, they were in administration. Had shot the nearly empty shelves, then was concentrating on the till queue when challenged by the manager. At the time that surprised me, as he was just about to lose his job. Both were long ago. I did ask in my local fish 'n chip shop, as Ideally I wanted to be on the other side of the counter. After a chat I obtained some commercial work from them which was a bonus.

Edited May 20, 2020 by sb photos

[Chuck Nacke]

Over the years I've photographed in many large and small public stores and always get permission, usually from

their corporate communications department.  It is not difficult and when it is a store that I frequent, I tell them that

I will spend some of the money that I make in their store.  One large chain told me "no" once and I told them I would

tear their card and cancel my charge account.  Their PR department called me back in 1/2 an hour to tell me to

"Please come and take pictures."

 

Several of the large chains I've gotten permission to photograph in their stores or on their property have called me

back to ask about hiring me to photograph for them.

 

Chuck

[Colblimp]

RM, no release, Sony RX100 MKIII 😁

 

I shoot stealthy and have already made sales with my new Sony, although I used to shoot in stores with my big guns before.  The Sony is so much easier - waist level, flippy screen, let the money roll in 😂

Edited May 21, 2020 by Colblimp

[Ed Rooney]

13 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Asking a chain store would be hopeless. They’d have to get corporate permission...you’d get your hair cut twice before getting your answer of NO.

RM. No release. If you don’t ask, you can’t be told no.

Mom and pop stores, (Privately owned) you could ask.

I once asked in a grocery store and was told no. So I just take pictures and nobody seems to care. Small camera, stealth.

 

+1

[wiskerke]

Sometimes it's the people not the store. Like here.

Discussion on reddit.

Who would know that a McDonalds is considered a public space in Australia?

And that Getty would charge $600? (Even if that may have been Aus $.)

Anyways totally different from France or Canada.

I'm somewhere in between Betty and Chuck on this. My problems usually are with security in large malls not inside stores though.

 

wim

[Marvin McAbee]

22 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Asking a chain store would be hopeless. They’d have to get corporate permission...you’d get your hair cut twice before getting your answer of NO.

RM. No release. If you don’t ask, you can’t be told no.

Mom and pop stores, (Privately owned) you could ask.

I once asked in a grocery store and was told no. So I just take pictures and nobody seems to care. Small camera, stealth.

Thanks Betty guess I would look out of place with a big Nikon.😀

[Betty LaRue]

1 hour ago, Marvin McAbee said:

Thanks Betty guess I would look out of place with a big Nikon.😀

I use the Sony RX mk3. It’s easier for a woman because we can have them just inside of the top of our purse. Out, snap, in. 10 seconds.
If someone’s back is to me....snap snap snap. 

Vegetables don’t seem to care, nor goods on a shelf or clothing rack.

I just about drove an eye doctor crazy, once. She was examining my sister’s eyes in a dim room. I took pictures of it with my Sony. But the little red focus light reflected off things. She’d glance around puzzled. She never saw me with a camera. It was all I could do to keep from giggling.
Those images took a lot of selective noise reduction and careful handling, but they passed. I think those were with the original Sony, perhaps.

It was dimmer in here than it looks.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Betty LaRue

[Robert Ginn]

I find making images in stores to be easy - The older I get!   So far during the California lock-down I've done some hundreds and NO store has been a problem here in the US - BUT two or three people have been unhappy with me having them in the shot - So I tell them sorry!!!   Then I come back later - I got this from the 40 years on the streets working for newspapers, of which 15 was in Los Angeles...   I've only been hit twice - both times by females who I have no idea why...?   I use full sized Nikons.

[ReeRay]

I live in a tourist city so people photographing all and everything including in stores is a given. Even when the store shows a "no photography" sign it's generally considered as meaning "be discreet". The theme stores e.g. Terminal 21 actually have a floor mark showing the best place for photos! 

 

Like others I use my Sony RX1001V and never a problem. 

[Steve F]

9 hours ago, ReeRay said:

I live in a tourist city so people photographing all and everything including in stores is a given. Even when the store shows a "no photography" sign it's generally considered as meaning "be discreet". The theme stores e.g. Terminal 21 actually have a floor mark showing the best place for photos! 

 

Like others I use my Sony RX1001V and never a problem. 

That's what gets me about a lot of towns. People get so worked up about photos being taken, and I think, if we were anywhere touristy like London or Oxford, no one would bat an eyelid. Basingstoke is not at all touristy btw! I'm very careful about doing any sort of street photography and generally don't ever make strangers the main subjects of my photos.

[Harry Harrison]

11 minutes ago, Steve F said:

Basingstoke is not at all touristy btw!

Now you tell me, we've booked up 3 weeks in August!

[geogphotos]

12 hours ago, Robert Ginn said:

I find making images in stores to be easy - The older I get!   So far during the California lock-down I've done some hundreds and NO store has been a problem here in the US - BUT two or three people have been unhappy with me having them in the shot - So I tell them sorry!!!   Then I come back later - I got this from the 40 years on the streets working for newspapers, of which 15 was in Los Angeles...   I've only been hit twice - both times by females who I have no idea why...?   I use full sized Nikons.

 

 

Good to know that you are alive and kicking. I was asking after you the other day.😁

[Steve F]

2 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Now you tell me, we've booked up 3 weeks in August!

Lmao! That was more for our American cousins.

 

Actually, when I first got a job here, I had to look it up on a map because I'd never heard of it. It's just famously mentioned by Arthur Dent in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

 

Arthur Dent: Are you trying to tell me that we just stuck out our thumbs and some green bug-eyed monster stuck his head out and said: 'Hi fellas, hop right in. I can take you as far as the Basingstoke roundabout'?

 

And in 1981, in the sitcom Only Fools And Horses, it's revealed that the character Rodney Trotter was expelled from Art College in Basingstoke for smoking cannabis.

 

 

[Harry Harrison]

6 minutes ago, Steve F said:

Actually, when I first got a job here, I had to look it up on a map because I'd never heard of it. It's just famously mentioned by Arthur Dent in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

 

Arthur Dent: Are you trying to tell me that we just stuck out our thumbs and some green bug-eyed monster stuck his head out and said: 'Hi fellas, hop right in. I can take you as far as the Basingstoke roundabout'?

 

And in 1981, in the sitcom Only Fools And Horses, it's revealed that the character Rodney Trotter was expelled from Art College in Basingstoke for smoking cannabis.

Excellent, actually I only know it from dropping my wife and her mother off at the bus station, a good link to the Portsmouth ferry (remember them).

[sooth]

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Edited October 19, 2023 by sooth

[Cal]

On 21/05/2020 at 13:04, Steve F said:

That's what gets me about a lot of towns. People get so worked up about photos being taken, and I think, if we were anywhere touristy like London or Oxford, no one would bat an eyelid. Basingstoke is not at all touristy btw! I'm very careful about doing any sort of street photography and generally don't ever make strangers the main subjects of my photos.

 

 

I guess you might already know this, but a tip I learned a while back when photographing around people (whether or not they are necessarily the subject) is to take your shot, hesitate a moment, take the camera away from your face and then quite obviously gaze past them at something in the distance. On the odd occasion someone has paid attention, that has always thrown them off.

 

 

 

On 23/05/2020 at 03:22, sooth said:

usually when you ask people for permission, there are three answers.  yes, no, and why?  why is typically the worse answer because it can turn into 20 questions.  if you have an assignment, or reason to be there, it can be easier to have some phone number of some photo editor which they will call up.  that being said shooting in nyc is a pain in the a...  because of the people who just randomly come up to you and ask what you are doing, or like a few weeks ago, some random passerby on the street walked by and randomly told me that i needed permission to photograph in a public place. i'm thinking "um.. do I know you? thanks but no thanks for the unsolicited advice".   Then there are the paranoid store owners if you are shooting outside from across the street who run out dodging traffic just to confront and ask what you are doing as if i'm a city inspector. j f christ???  and then the middle fingers because people see a camera on the street and these self important dopes thank it's about them. sorry if i sound angry but i'm tired of dealing with people esp the east coast and nyc; i'm just here minding my own business, do I not look like an asian tourist?

 

 

 

 

I spent a week in NYC with a camera glued to my face and didn't receive any kind of attention. Took photos down in the subway too, no-one batted an eyelid. Much to the (not so) amusement of my companion I opted to travel to Brooklyn one night after sundown to take photos of the skyline and bridge in the darkness. It was pitch black, bloody freezing and he was convinced we were going to be murdered to death. In retrospect it probably wasn't the most risk averse thing I've ever done, but I got some keepers for life, didn't get stabbed or robbed and again no person batted an eyelid at the camera on my face. Maybe I was lucky or you were unlucky?!

[Betty LaRue]

Sometimes when I go shopping with one of my daughters, I take pictures of them browsing. Nobody will say a thing to me. During the process, I can get merchandise images.