Walking around and taking stunning photos of people, places, and things is a classic and rich vein of image material for canvas prints online and your other photography and interior design projects. Whether you live in an urban area or the countryside, there are likely an infinite number of amazing subjects right outside your door or on your daily commute, many of which would make stunning pieces of wall art if you apply just a modicum of direction and effort to them.
However, you’ll occasionally encounter someone who doesn’t want them or their property photographed, or who accuses you of breaking the law or behaving suspiciously because you’re wandering about snapping photos. Even when you explain your plans to use the photos as art prints in your home they still warn you that next time they’ll call the police or something equally dire. And many amateur photographers don’t know their rights, offhand, and thus have no response. Here’s a quick thumbnail guide to your rights when taking photos out in public.
No Publicity Rights
In general, there are no ‛publicity rights’ or ‛personality rights’ in Australia. That means that if you’re taking someone’s photo in a public area (i.e., not private property) they cannot demand that you delete photos or not take their picture. It is, of course, polite to acquiesce if asked to stop taking pictures, but there’s no legal compulsion. As long as your photos are not used for commercial purposes (and creating canvas prints online is fine as long as you’re not selling them) then you don’t need any sort of model release.
Canvas Prints Online from Public Spaces OK
It’s also generally legal to take photos of anything or anyone that you can see from a public area. For example, walking down a public street and snapping a photo of someone on their terrace is totally fine, even if they are annoyed. As long as you can see them from a public area, they have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
However, if you must violate private property in order to get your photos, then you are breaking the law – in their private homes, people do have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Art and Sculpture and Canvas Prints
Again, in general, if there is a piece of art on public display you are generally within your rights to take a photo of it. However, museums and local authorities are able to pass their own laws and regulations. If there is a posted warning against photography, you should generally abide by it. But street art or installations in a public area are usually okay to photograph for your own personal use – and photos on canvas for your interior design is a perfectly legitimate use of these images.
The law is much more complicated than this, of course, and you should check local laws before making any assumptions. But in general this guide should be applicable for your amateur photo adventuring. And once you’ve got some epic shots of public areas, send them to us and we’ll turn them into epic wall art for your home!
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