Recently I launched my blog, which explores local oddities and out-of-the-way corners here in L.A. My sig here includes a link to it, although I don’t display my sig on the majority of my posts.
The next post I’m planning to do is on a narrow one block street near one of the studios. The street’s named for one of the people whose names used to be on that studio, and as far as I know it’s unique in all of the West Side, if not the whole city. Most of it is lined with very, very small houses built mostly in the early 1920s. Unlike most houses of that size in recent years, which tend to minimally and cheaply constructed, most of these are attractive with large front windows and other finishing touches that are normally seen only on much larger and more expensive houses. In addition, it’s obvious that when the houses were built, a conscious decision was made to instill as much variety as possible, again different from most housing tracts. Within this short block of small houses, you’ll see a Mediterranean-Spanish home near a typical 1920’s bungalow with a tiny porch and bay windows, which itself is next to a 1950’s clunker of a house with the small crank windows that were typical of the time.
So I’d like to have pictures of a few of the houses in my blog post, to illustrate their variety. But because these are mostly single family houses, I’m thinking I should respect the privacy of those who live there by not identifying the actual street or its location (beyond what I said above). What do people here think about this? Should I reveal the street’s name in my blog post, or should I use a false name and be very vague about its location? Or should I skip this post altoghether?
I’m not seeing a privacy issue here. It’s a public street. Anyone can drive or walk down it and observe the outside of the houses. It sounds like your post would be commentary on such observations. For that matter, your post could be some sort of advocacy for or against classifying the area as worthy of historic preservation efforts. Sounds like fair game to me.
I’m leaning that way, although if I don’t disguise the street, I might at least ensure that there are no visible addresses, license plates, or, especially, people. If someone is shown entering or leaving their house I think that would be rather intrusive.
I’d try and avoid photographing people, but I do that anyway with strangers, because it annoys me when people take my photo without asking - but other than that, I see no reason to anonymise it in any way - it’s a street, you like the houses, you’re not writing about the people who live there, I can’t see that anyone would complain.
Sturdy common sense. I did some more shooting today, and am fully planning to blur out a couple of license plates I inadvertently picked up. I didn’t photograph any people; but if I do that inadvertently and still want to publish the picture, I always ask the person if it’s OK with them.
My concern about the issue is colored by the fact that I’ve been reading about the reaction of many Germans to Google Street View. It appears that a number of extremely vociferous German citizens are in a huge uproar about Street View. OTOH, it appears that this group is a small minority, judging by this article in the Christian Science Monitor. If the information in the article is accurate, it appears that the anti-Google group over there is the German equivalent of our “chattering classes.” In fact this is probably a good subject for a separate GD thread. I know we have a number of German Dopers and it would be interesting to hear what they have to say about this.
If you like Street View and can read German, don’t read the forums of Der Spiegel; some of the comments will set your hair on fire.