3 days ago, something tragic happened.
Street photographer Elisa Tomaselli died. Her passing sent a shockwave through the street photography community that responded in turn with a flood of comments and reactions. This tragedy reminded all of us that behind the little avatars, comments and likes we interact with on our computers, phones and tablets there are actual, real live people.
The PHOS Street Photography Days festival started in November 2017 in Athens, Greece. Since then it has been hosted in Bucharest Romania in April of 2018 and in Athens again in November 2018. Now it is time for another Balkan capital to host Phos and that capital is Sofia.
So get ready for another 3-4 exciting days full of street photography exhibitions, talks, contests, photowalks and workshops! But when is PHOS Sofia taking place and where?
Dear Readers,
If you are a regular on this website, you might have noticed that it has been a while since I have personally reached out to you with a blog post. Since the beginning of the new year, I have only published a few Camera bags, that you have so generously shared with us and some Throwback Tuesday posts. The last few months have been very busy for me. I have had my hands full at work and at the same time my personal life became more demanding. As a result, I had to sacrifice time from Streethunters.net. Fortunately things are now back to normal, and I am once again ready to pour my energy and my passion into Street Photography.
The purpose of today’s post is to make an important announcement and to share with you what to expect from the Streethunters.net website and its Social Media channels in 2019.
Good news has arrived via the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) – at the 11th hour Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson vetoed a highly controversial bill introduced by the Arkansas Senate which would have all but banned street photography which featured any resident of Arkansas.
The Personal Rights Protection Act (SB79) sought to “Protect… the citizens of [Arkansas]… from exploitation” by effectively prohibiting the publication of any image of a resident of Arkansas taken without their permission. The bill was originally designed to stop the use of a citizen’s image being used to sell merchandise like t-shirts, but was so badly worded that it constituted an attack on the art form of street photography, opening street photographers up to potential lawsuits in the state of Arkansas. Full details of the issues in SB79 can be found in our previous article.
The 23 year old Bruce Springsteen sang a song about a girl named Mary from Arkansas when he was auditioning for his first record deal in 1973. The rest, as they say, is history…. But had he taken a street photo of Mary, Queen of Arkansas in the present day the story could have been a little different.
The Arkansas Senate has recently passed bill SB79, the ‘Personal Rights Protection Act’ and its implications for photographers taking photos of any resident of Arkansas are hugely ominous. The bill can be seen to be banning the publishing of street photography there outright.
