Hospital photography

tipsymcstaggers

Hi, i just have a question which i hope someone here can answer. I was photographing the exterior of a hospital over the weekend. This building was a former workhouse and i was capturing a general view of the building so no individuals featured in it. A member of staff then approached me, asked for identification and demanded that I stop taking pictures as I am on hospital grounds and need permission first. These photos are for my own collection and will never be published. So my question is: would i need to contact the HSE to do so or approach the manager within individual hospitals? Has anyone ever come across this situation before?

CabanSail

The problem is that there are confidentialty issues with Hospitals. We have been told that if we see someone we know in the Hospital & talk to them, then you are not allowed to go home & say "I saw Joe at work today" as that is a breach. Joe may not want other people to know he has been in Hospital.

The Hospital Admin only have your word that nobody in the images is able to be recognised. You can approach the Hospital Admin & see if they would grant permission, you could be lucky.

Perfect fit

plus its probably classified as private property as most gov buildings etc would be

Tallon

Jesus Cabinsail, I hope Joe is ok

But yeah, Ask the admin for permission. It is private property after all

Tactical

If you were taking photographs from within or on private property then the staff were within their rights to ask questions. It wouldn't matter if for private or commercial use, their property their rights.

It would be courteous to ask permission forst.

Perhaps if asking the same venue in the future it might be an idea to let them know what the purpose is and state that you had been stopped and questioned before but that you hadn't realised permission was needed, it may go some way to greasing the wheels. They may look for public liability insurance too, I'm not 100% certain about this but since you'd be on their property they may want you to indemnify them from any potential claim from an accident or other occurance.

From public property there is little enough to prevent you taking photographs. Naturally common sense would apply.

Firetrap

I noticed signs in a hospital recently that photography in it was forbidden. Perhaps that applies to outdoors as well

PCPhoto

Firetrap wrote: »

I noticed signs in a hospital recently that photography in it was forbidden. Perhaps that applies to outdoors as well

so that explains why we havent seen a pic of patients on trolleys in a while !!

theres no problem taking pics of the hospital from outside the grounds .... lets put it this way - anyone can take a pic of your home .... but they cant take a pic of the rooms inside your home unless you say its ok and allow them in. (ok... wideangle lens against the window if curtains are open could get an inside view of rooms)

AnimalRights

PCPhoto wrote: »

so that explains why we havent seen a pic of patients on trolleys in a while !!

:cool:

tipsymcstaggers

i was photographing just the front view of the hospital from the main entrance, just spotted the building and stopped the car. i will thread more carefully in the future, and control the spontaneous drive-by shooting

cheers to all for the replies

Tactical

If you're shooting from "public property" then you're pretty much free to shoot what you want once you apply common sense.

Cabaal

Thing is if your standing outside the pirvate property taking pictures then its legal is it not?