Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Here's a quote from Helmut Newton: "any photographer who says he's not a voyeur is either stupid or a liar."

We all like to watch (like Chance the Gardener), albeit through a lens. Voyeur doesn't have to have a sexual connotation, but it often does.

He is wearing protection so it's legal!

The difference between using your nocti vs the 80-200 in your shot would be going from voyeur to pervert

Not what you think:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike-tan/3727278635/" title="Not what you think by mike.tan, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2444/3727278635_87ebda1c17.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt="Not what you think"></a>

This section might apply

It IS encouragement of it... if not already criminal. People should NOT be photographed unknowingly through the windows of their homes. Would YOU want to be photographed without consent in your own home?

If the answer is yes, then perhaps you can post your address and the next TPMG event can be to take photos through your bedroom and bathroom windows at unspecified times.. fun, eh?

Watch we may, but I'd prefer to watch people in public spaces..

No, this thread is not criminal and it's not encouragment of criminal activity. Would I want to be photographed like this? depends on the scenario, would have no problem if magnum photographer hang out on my street and took a photo similar posted in the link earlier but generally speaking I would prefer not to.
My address is on my website so feel free if you like to. Moral and criminal is where you get confused.

Just because a Magnum photographer does it doesn't necessarily make it right.

That's a non-answer to the wrong question. And feelings and suppositions aren't answers either.

I agree, however being wrong does it make it criminal? I think not.

Neighbour's dog shitting on my grass is wrong but it's not criminal, me making hot dogs out of this dog would be criminal but not necesserily wrong (ok peta - it's a joke, I love dogs and hot dogs

dogs, let's just stick to the photoes, yo

Not in some countries

the only difference between a criminal offense or not is if you get caught

all joking aside...shooting through someone's window is an invasion of privacy, i'm sure there's some law or something for that whether its sexual or not

and isn't it reasons like this that give photographers a bad name?

An invasion of privacy, yes. Illegal, I am not so sure. As I said earlier, it is my belief (but I am no lawyer or certain of this fact) that it is perectly legal to shoot inside someone's house so long as you are shooting from public property. Whether or not this is immoral or not depends one ones own value system. Most people probably adopt a situational system of ethics (rather than a deontological system).

If simply shooting inside a window from public spaces was illegal then I'd be going to jail for this photo...

There's many condo windows in that shot. So I believe the law doesn't want shot like this clogging the courts.

There's a difference between shooting a picture that has windows in it and shooting through a window where the clear focal point is the activity inside. Even if you zoomed to 100% you obviously wouldn't see anything going on in any of the windows in the photo you posted and clearly your intent wasn't to photograph people in their homes, where as with the first picture that was the obvious intent.

^ that's a good one

sort of a triptych, taken in Barcelona while gawking one of the incessant weddings going on at the chapel around the corner from our apartment.

Surprised nobody posted this...

http://ambientlight.ca/laws.php#Criminal_Activities

I would have if I had remembered where to find it...

HAHAH i love the story that it's telling. she learnt her lesson

Show me where the line is drawn.
My point was about what is legal or not and not what my moral position is. Prosecutors don't want to have to prove intent or show where the line is drawn. For that reason the law looks solely where the shooter is, on or off public property. That is the legal perspective.

I posted (look at first page) the law that defines criminal voyeurism and the line is not drawn by where the shooter is but by what the shooter is viewing, recording and distributing. In your photo there's nothing to suggest recording for sexual purposes. Trespassing on private property laws are another thing.

Good - thanks for clearing that up. I was afraid I was going to be dragged in to a ethics debate with deontologists!!
But I do see the law is somewhat different in Canada than it is in the States.

One day the technology of digital capture will be such that my photo WILL be able to be blown up to reveal details behind the windows.

Like the image of Vancouver Yaletown skyline here?

http://tpmg.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11652&highlight=

Zoom in and find out.

Below is sort of a voyeur site. Please vote for my photo (give it a thumbs up)- it's the July 23rd photo called "Wrong Way Kid"

Thanks!!!

http://pwnedoncamera.com/

nice capture, Henry. That site reminds me of the classic Hollywood grab of Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield:

Is Sophia checking out Jayne?

Thanks Jonah.

Ryan, I think it's Jayne checking out Sophia, no?