[waffles]

I have a story to go along with this.

One day I was shooting something for an organization with my school. There was a group of children that came in and did Martin Luther King, Jr. Day activities. So I was shooting mostly stuff with the people in the school organization helping out with stuff and a few with just the children. Little did I know that some of them were taken away from abusive parents and a picture of them getting out could help the parents find them.

So the person who brought these kids came over very nicely and asked to see what I had taken pictures of. She understood that I had no idea about these kids, but was very adamant in the fact that no pictures of these kids at all would be allowed to stay. Now I'm not a heartless person, and I really didn't want to put them in any danger. Not to mention I had plenty of stuff without them. So I erased them and that was the end of it. Was I obligated to do so in any way? Not at all. I would have been perfectly within my rights to tell her that she should have thought about that before bringing the kids out in public and she could just deal with it.

I understand that people might not want pictures of children out on the internet for people to see. But like almost everyone else here, I think that if you want a super secluded life you need to do it without entering any public places. Ever.

Protect your own children. Don't try to protect everyone else's.

And if you try to take or destroy my camera, I'm either going to get some really nice lenses or one of Canon's newest bodies out of it. And it would all be thanks to you not being civilized and trying to solve the situation in an adult manner.

I'm generally not going to take pictures of other people's children. And if I do and you don't like it, you can come ask me to stop and to erase what I have. But you better do it nicely, and I better have a picture of your kid on there and not some kid you saw out that you thought you needed to protect. Photographer's rights were created because of people like you and your wife.