I read your blog on and off and follow your photowalk updates. I’ve also seen a complaint or two from you post-photowalk-Sunday about “how people treat photographers”. My comment is relevant to that: how many people are in a group of photowalkers? I’ve got the impression that it is 10/15+. Would you like 15 photographers come on to your street/outside your house and start clicking pictures at random? What sort of sensitisation (if any) do you give the folks who come on these tours? Before the question of sensitisation, a more fundamental question: Is it RIGHT for 15 cameras to be in one place (especially populated areas – for instance the slums on Harris Road where people’s lives and effects are all on the pavement for all to see, the “inner lanes” of Vepery, wherever) looking around and clicking at whatever they want to click?

I don’t have a very clear answer.
Oh wait, I do have a clear answer for one question. The usual strength of the photowalk is a high 30s. On a few walks, I’ve had 45 people and more walking the route.

As for the rest, what follows is a meandering take on photography, photowalks and privacy. Please to treat it as such, and with pinches of salt.

Can 15 photographers with cameras assemble at one place? Why not? A photographer has as much right as the rest of us to be at a place and do what he/she wants to do. And as far as I know, there’s nothing in our laws/constitution that prevents photographers (and other professionals/non-professionals) meeting people of a similar bent of mind. The right to move freely within the country is granted us all, including the lowly photographer. If News channels can poke cameras and microphones at random people exiting a cinema hall or take sweeping panoramic shots of slums, why not amateur photographers? Indeed, why not anybody else?

This is something I’ve argued with policemen and museum curators and sundry officials. If there is no clearly-stated ban on photography, then I, and 45 other people I bring with me, are free to take photos of anything and everything. Bear in mind – this ban needs to be at private/semi private spaces. Roads are public space as are pavements, local markets, buses, bridges etc. You cannot ban photography in a public space.

I cannot state this enough. YES! PHOTOGRAPHERS CAN BE AT ANY PLACE THEY WANT TO BE, SHOOT ANYTHING THEY WANT TO, AS LONG AS THERE IS NO CLEAR BAN AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHY.

The question about 10-15 photographers outside my street, shooting my house – come on! What do you expect me to answer? Of course I will not mind it. I don’t care what these 10-15 people photograph as long as they don’t come into my house without my permission. The street outside my house is public space. My house is my own private space. I might invite these 15 folks in and that is up to me. (Personally, I’d be thrilled if people landed on my doorstep asking me if they could photograph me/my house.) Again, photography in public spaces is not for any single individual/body of individuals to control. The government might try and impose such a ban, but it will be at the expense of curtailing free speech/expression and free movement.

The question about sensitisation. What is sensitisation? The folks who come to the photowalk – barring a few occasional exceptions – are all Indians, residents of Madras. They know that abject poverty exists, and that people live/work/play/eat/defecate on streets. They are all, I think, mature individuals with taste, education and sensitivity. I don’t think it is necessary for me to teach them not to take photos that would impinge somebody else’s privacy. (What level of privacy do people living on streets have is another question and one I am not going to go into here.)

Personally, I haven’t yet taken a photo of people on the streets unless they specifically asked me to. I don’t shoot people sleeping/eating on the streets, nor do I make a big fuss about such a situation. If there exists a good photo op in such a situation I specifically ask these people if I can take a photo. Go through my photostream on flickr and tell me if I have invaded the privacy of folks in any photo.

The problem with a photowalk is that it is still a novel thing in India, especially Chennai. And there is an age-old distrust+curiosity about the camera. Hence people react to it, sometimes, adversely. I cannot, and do not want to, do anything about it.

The Chennai Photowalks so far have been driven by one overpowering aim – to document the city’s heritage and beauty. That is the only sensitisation I choose to give the walkers. And that, in my not-so-humble opinion, is ALL the sensitisation I need to give.

Saturday, 23rd May 2009, at 3:30 PM
—
Hello all. Two photowalks again this month.

The first one’s this Sunday – sorry for the short notice, but I’ve been busy. Over at the flickr group, quite a few have asked for a Trisulam hill PhotoWalk, so that’s what we are going to do. But, a small twist.

We will all assemble at Guindy Railway Station, Sunday 17th May 2009 at 7 AM. We wait for the first train (tickets in hand, of course) towards Tambaram. We board the train, alight at Trisulam station and walk up the hill to the Trisulanathar temple.

I hope to wrap up the walk in 4 hours, but it’s going to be a hot, hard, tiring walk up the hill, so carry lots of water with you.

—
The second walk is on the Saturday, 23rd May 2009. A route I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and Vatsan asked for ages ago. A walk down Pudupet’s Harris Road. We will begin the walk at Casino Theatre, just off Mount Road, and walk down Harris road to meet Pantheon Road. The distance is about 2 kms, but loads of photo-ops. Sundays, Pudupet is closed, hence the walk is on a Saturday morning, and a little late because they don’t open till 10.
—
So, here’s the byte sized recap.

Walk 1
Sunday 17th May 2009 – Guindy Railway Station – Trisulam Station and Trisulam hill, Trisulanathar temple – 7 AM

Walk 2
Saturday 22rd May 2009 – Mount Road/Casino Theatre – Pudupet Harris Road – Pantheon Road, Egmore – 9:30 AM

See you all there.

(more…)

Walk #1.
What I call the Chennai Photowalk Classic
On the 19th of April 2009, at 6:30 AM, we all assemble at Mylapore’s Kapaleeswara Temple. Walk a bit in the back streets of Mylapore, and then board the MRTS line to Fort St. George. We then explore Fort St. George like it has never been explored before (in the month of April, that is). For those of you who’ve not been to the fort earlier (WHAT! HOW DARE THOU CALL YOURSELF A PHOTOWALKER?), there are a lot of high points to hit. The Fort Museum, Clive’s House, St. Mary’s Church, the Secretariat building (which one’s not allowed to photograph) and the many things there. Then one can just walk around the fort and soak in the atmosphere. Of which there’re many bushels.

Walk #2
Bowing to public pressure, I present the Chennai PhotoWalk in the The Chennai Central Jail.
This walk’s on the 26th April 2009, at 8 AM.

So there we go. Quick recap
Walk #1 – Mylapore to Fort St. George. 19th April 2009 at 6:30 AM
Walk #2 – Chennai Central Jain. 26th April 2009 at 8 AM

Meanwhile, around the world, people are getting their twanties (twitter-panties) in a twist about privacy and data collection.

But.
But. How do you buy anything (search is that – buying information) without giving away some kind of information about you? Can you even trade – online or offline – without the seller knowing who you are? Even the smallest store you shop in will know something about you – even if it is just your preference for coffee and what brand of coffee you favour.

It makes sense, and is infinitely better for you as a customer, if the store keeper collected and used information about you. What kind of coffee you like, how many kilos of sugar you buy in a month, do you like your rice packed in plastic bags or paper. And so on. And so forth. In addition to this, if the store keeper knows you well, he will extend credit, undertake additional services for you (such as customizing your shopping bag, or door delivery, or a little extra coffee every 4 months.) and enhance your shopping experience.

On the other hand, if the shopkeeper doesn’t collect such data about you, or (in this instance) forgets all such data the minute you walk out of the shop, imagine what happens. The next time you go there, the shop keeper stares blankly at you, doesn’t recall what is so special about you, doesn’t stock the things you buy or cares not what the customers in his shop are buying, has too many confusing choices in just coffee, and so on.

When you pay for your purchases at a shop – any shop – you are indirectly telling the shop keeper/the world about your social status. If you pay by cash, or pay with your credit card, or pay using clam shells from Tunisia, the shop keeper can and will judge your status. And will store that little tid-bit of information for future use. A store/chain of stores that doesn’t collect information about its customers will not survive long enough. This is true of almost every business.

Why are search engines then expected to be different?
Correct me if I am wrong…is it because, gasp, search engines are online? You know, shops are real buildings – brick and mortar and smelly aisles. But a search engine is nowhere and everywhere. How do you ensure that the search engine is safe?
The same way you ensure the store is safe. By leaving the storekeeper to take any and all actions he sees fit to keep himself in business.

What about other services online? Should your email collect information about you? Should the sites you visit track you? Should the forums you inhabit, the chatrooms you infest, the groups you form, the blogs you flame and the videos you watch all collect potentially sensitive information about you and your computer?

You bet.

If they didn’t, you’d never be able to use them repeatedly. A few months ago, I downloaded and installed Firefox 3 Beta (build 2, I think). It was a fantastic browser, and still is. The problem with that particular build was it couldn’t save my sessions. So each time I fired up my browser, I had to go through hell to login to each and every site that I create content on – this blog, flickr, youtube, twitter, gmail, facebook, blogger, google groups and more – just to keep up with what my friends were doing.

In the offline world, that would be the equivalent of telling your local storekeeper your name, your father’s name, your family history and your street address everytime you walked into his store. And that is just to begin transacting.

So, all right, login information needs to be collected. What about “sensitive” information like your IP address, your browser, your OS’s build and your monitor’s resolution? What justifies a website/service is collecting that information?

What justifies your bank in asking for your monthly income to give you a loan? What justifies the government in asking for your caste to give you a birth certificate? What justifies your employer in asking for your previous experience and a reference to your character? What justifies your bank in asking for an address proof when you open a new account? What justifies the Passport office in demanding an address proof?

Because, information about you is essential to safeguard you. If the services mentioned about didn’t ask for those rather sensitive information, it would be very easy to impersonate someone, anyone, and let the victim pay for a crime he/she didn’t commit.

Once this information is collected, it becomes authentication. Only the person who matches the information given earlier will be allowed access to that particular service. And when there’s a mismatch, a conflict, it becomes easy for both parties to sort out the issue with the information already collected.

If you don’t mind giving ICICI Bank your passport number, you have no cause to complain when websites collect information about you. Of course, the analogy is over-simplified. I even grant you that the second comparison is flawed. But the basic argument remains true – if business don’t collect information about you – the customer – they will not and cannot stay in business for long.

If Spencer’s Daily didn’t collect information about what each customer purchases and monitors such information (for instance, why is Bru selling more in Saligramam and Sunrise selling more in Sowcarpet, why is instant coffee selling more in North India whereas tea bags do not sell enough in Chennai), they’d never be able get their inventory right and it would be far too easy for a competitor to take away their market share.

If my blog (via Sitemeter and Google Analytics) didn’t collect information about my reader, I’d have been writing drivel that would make even Shivam Vij curl his nose up in disgust. (See, I know a lot of my readers like it when I go after SV. Even if SV doesn’t lke it.) If Google didn’t collect information about your monitor’s size and resolution and your IP, search engines even today would be clunky, slow and overloaded with links to a 1000 useless directories.

If the websites didn’t collect information about you, you’d still be stuck with black text and white backgrounds and pathetic animated gifs and BLINK tags. If companies didn’t know their customers, they’d be selling acidic soap and lobbying governments to protect them from foreign competition. If websites don’t know you, and the things you do online, they’d never help you find the things you want to find.

And, oh, finally, Caveat Emptor.
It’s a pity the world has forgotten that beautiful phrase.

(Apologies for blindly using the masculine pronoun to refer to keepers of shops. It is both convenient, and in my experience, true. Almost every shop (not supermarket chains) I’ve shopped in were run by men. See, I the buyer, know something about the seller too. I’ve collected data!)

(Apologies too (and two) for tense slips, grammatical flaws and inconsistent sentence structures. Also apologies for invoking Shivam Vij in this post. It was done only to illustrate a point and not to slander/libel Shivam Vij. I concede that I’ve misrepresented him, and turned him into a caricature. In my defense, I’d like to state that caricatures are usually based on some truth.)

Update: Ravikiran made the same point, in a lot fewer words, and with a very simple, fitting analogy on the Satin mailing list. He made this point on 12th March. I didn’t read the post because a) 12th March was (and is) my birthday and I was doing other things then and b) the volume on Satin is staggering and to keep track of all discussions there is a task beyond my current capacity.
I just finished reading that particular thread on Satin. There are some points raised, which you can read if you are on Satin. If you aren’t, you should read this post from top.

[via Hariprasad]

[via Scamp]