Photographing Grave Yards

[CaymanPrintsDotCom]

Hello all,

First time poster here. Found you through Google after trying to find something about photo use law.

I have a business where my photography is being distributed throughout the Cayman Islands and we are starting to ship product in about 2 weeks so that is very exciting and very time consuming!

However.. I'm both an artist and an entrepreneur and I have, what I think, is a very good idea for another business revenue stream that has nothing to do with the Cayman Islands.

Without getting into too many specifics, I have a plan to do some really cool black and white photography of unique looking grave stones and statues (found in grave yards). After doing some research on this I've found that there is a market for it especially during certain festivals in Sept/October.

My legal question is this.. Most graveyards are open to the public, but they're private property. None that I've seen has any notices that photography is illegal on their premises' (meaning, commercial photography). So is it legal for me to go into a graveyard (accessible during open business hours of course) and snap some pictures of items in that graveyard, for the exclusive purpose of selling them commercially?

My plan is to digitallly alter any names that might appear on the stone so that I'm not selling someone's name over and over. However, I do want to do some podcasting on the site and it might say, "this picture was taken as such and such graveyard on such and such day, in such and such city, etc." So even though the picture itself might not make it obvious where it was taken, I'd like to be able to tell my customers where it was taken.

This idea came from a long running idea of wanting to photograph statues and unique grave stones, etc., for my own artistic amusement. But then I started this company in the Caymans and it's giving lots of other ideas for this sort of thing so I'm hoping to build my business.

I got this quote from one of you from another topic "Despite any posted restrictions it is also legal to take photos and use them for whatever purpose of places that are open to the general public and of any work of art on permanent display." To me, that says it all, but I wanted to at least throw this out there for anyone that might have some experience with this.

thank you!
Ron

[Photo-John]

Ron-
Welcome to the site. Glad you found us and glad to know that this forum is being indexed by Google. Please spread the word!

Your post caught my attention because I used to do a lot of cemetery photography. But I never thought about the legal issues involved. And since a cemetery is on private property, and each gravesite is private property, I would be a little concerned. I don't know what the laws are like in the Caymans, but in the US private property photography can be restricted. I've never heard of it happening in the case of gravestone photos, though. My humble guess is that as long as the work is considered "art," you're ok. If you try to use it to sell another product, I think you'd be in trouble. On the other hand, I bet the law is open to interpretation here and a lawsuit is possible. Have you considered speaking to a lawyer and or the cemetery management? That would be the safest thing to do. On the other hand, like I said, I've never heard of anyone having any problems with gravestone photos. And I certainly see plenty of them being sold as postcards, gift cards, and fine art prints.

If anyone else has any information on this, I'm very curious. I may actually be able to get some expert opinion on this in a week or so. But for right now I'm curious and realize that I am uninformed.

Great question - thanks for posting!

[zrfraser]

the way I was told is that if you were a psserby you could take a photo of something that is on private property as long as you were standing on public property and you didn't have to go out of your way to make the photo (using a super long telephoto, tripod, flash systems). If you wanted to do snapshot photography then I see nothing wrong, but as soon as you sell them things change. You would have to get the permission of the cemetary and the permission of the familes that own the plots since them in themselves are invidual tracts of land.

Z

[adina]

From what I've read, you need a signed agreement with the cemetary.

I'm curious as to how this differs from someone taking images to use as stock photos. My thought would be that the same rules apply.

[CaymanPrintsDotCom]

from what I've read then it would probably be ok to be driving by a cemetery, and take a shot from the road as long as I didn't have a papparazzi style lens? then I could sell that as public domain type shots?

I honestly can't see going in and speaking to someone that owns a cemetery and asking to profit off an entire yard full of people's losses and grief. But, gravestones are carved by hand and have a natural beauty to them that is art and there are a lot of people that appreciate that art. It's maccabre and what not..and not for everyone, but the same could be said for nudes or just about any other subject matter other than fluffy rabits and ponies.

So I'm trying to figure out a work-around so that I don't have to ask for permission. And I woudln't be slapping the images on other products to sell them.

But I do want to do some unique close ups. As many of you can undestand, most of the art is framing the shot correctly. Anyone can get lucky with f stops and iso settings. But it takes a real artist to frame the shot the way that you know will sell.

Please keep commenting.. seems to be some interest here.

[zrfraser]

Once you step in the cemetary you have to go by their rules. You also have to think that the tombstone is someones property and it is on someones property. Selling the prints is where the difficulty comes in to play. My photo teacher said that as long as you use a normal lens (50mm) and you are passing by someones house and you see something you may not have planned to see then from a legal point of view you can shoot all you want from the sidewalk, but from an ethical point of view it can different. I am not saying what you are planning to do is un ethical or immoral, because I too am interested in tombstones and how long they have been around.

I think that when you start bringing in professional lighting rigs and tripods that is where things get fuzzy, because cemtary's are open to the public, but are private property.

Lets keep working on this we are bound to figure something out.

Z

[CaymanPrintsDotCom]

Well, maybe I'll just call a cemetary out of the blue in the next day or so and hopefully get someone nice on the phone and just ask them.

Probably the only ethical and right thing to do. It will probably be a cemetary that I have no intention of actually using (just in case).

[zrfraser]

If you want I can email my photo teacher and ask him the same question and he could shine some light on it. We had a lesson on this in one of my classes, but this particular situation never came up. He has an enitre sheet of places to photograph where its legal and what other circumstances come to play. Just let me know

Z

[CaymanPrintsDotCom]

that would be great! Let me know what your teachers says!

I work at a college and we have an art dept here too.. good idea!

[Rocket_Scientist]

How is photgraphing a gravestone any different from the former practice of etching, or tracing, or "shading", or whatever it is called, where one places paper over the grave marker etchings and "colors" over the paper to get an image of the words? I do not know if people used to sell those, or not, but I believe some have been published in books.

[Photo-John]

How is photgraphing a gravestone any different from the former practice of etching, or tracing, or "shading", or whatever it is called, where one places paper over the grave marker etchings and "colors" over the paper to get an image of the words? I do not know if people used to sell those, or not, but I believe some have been published in books.

I think it's called a "rubbing." And that's a good question. Because that's a copy, just as a photo is. On the other hand, a photo can be done from a unique angle, with lighting and exposure to make it something really unique. A rubbing is more like a photocopy. But either one relies on the tombstone as part of its content. And rubbings are more a factual record whereas a photo is usually an artistic statement that uses the stone as a compositional and symbolic element.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. But it's an interesting addition to the discussion.

One thing I am noticing is that there appears to be a cultural "hands-off" attitude towards cemetery photography. As far as I can tell, no one pays any attention. Of course, it's still private property and an owner could choose to sue.

I started talking to a legal expert about this last night. He thinks it's an interesting discussion and will likely do a little research and post something in a couple of weeks, when he has time.

[readingr]

The rights of the photographer depends on what country your in when you take the photo.

A group of people produced these documents for the US.

http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf

and the UK
http://www.sirimo.co.uk/media/UKPhotographersRights.pdf

Im not a legal eagle so take these as is and always get legal advice if in doubt.

In France - well enough said - French law is a law unto itself so take care.

Roger

[CaymanPrintsDotCom]

Very interesting points.

I have in my artistic mind a series of really cool prints from graveyards.

And there doesn't have to be a huge mass market for it either. I think enough people that are into the occult or maccabre would buy them on one hand, then on the other hand, they'd make great conversation pieces on a wall for some people.

If I'm wrong then it's not going to cost me very much money to dabble in it to see if I get some response. If I'm right, then I've found a niche' market. The only reason that I'm sharing it here is because there are hundreds of cities all over the world that could benefit from this art form and I only care about shooting a handfull of them.

What it may come to is that I might not be able to give the exact location of where the photo was taken. If it did start to take off I'd certainly see an attorney for legal advice to find out whether or not I could start saying, "I took this at such and such cemetary on such and such road." That might, inadvertely (sp?) bring site seekers to differerent cemetaries which I could imagine, wouldn't go over well with the families, but local merchants that run restaurants and gas stations might like it.

I'm telling you folks.... there is a market in this :-)

Ron

[zrfraser]

I got a response from my phot teacher and he really didn't have anything to add. He wasn't sure, but he always told us to err on the safe side. He said he would call the cemetary and just ask. Whats the worse they could for asking? say no? Taking pictures wouldn't be the issue, its the selling, but then again the market is reasonably small, so would really find out. All the groundskeeper could do is tell you to stop taking pictures and escort you out. What you have already taken is yours. I will do more research and my teacher said he would as well, but he is leaving for a week, so we will see whan he gets back.

Z

[CaymanPrintsDotCom]

Thanks for checking on that. Keep me posted of any of your findings please :-)

[Sebastian]

On rubbing: When's the last time someone tried to sell a rubbing? The whole comparison to me seems silly.

The problem here is two-fold. One, you're on private property. Two, the gravestone itself belongs to yet another party, so you're dealing with private property ON private property.

I don't see this happening without being upfront about it. Contact the cemeteries, let them know your plans. Offer a small percentage of proceeds towards a fund to help low-income families afford burials, is something like that exists. You seem to be aware of the sensitivity of making money off of this, I think it would be disingenuous to do it without the blessing of the owners of the cemeteries or stones, preferably both.

[payn817]

Good idea Sebastian. I don't know about most places, but we have an ornate cemetery dating to around 1830, and is still used today, it's HUGE. Anyway, the city owns it, and is always seeking ways to raise funds for maintanence. It may not be the case there, but here I imagine one could contact the "foundation", and have a proposal that beneifts both sides. The families are proud of this cemetery, there are tours, and it is a popular tourist spot here, so it's possible a "fund raiser" would work.

Just as a side note, I have submitted cemetery photos to publishers, and always got the same response, they asked for a property release.

[JSPhoto]

I have done thousands of cemetery photos dealing with genealogy. There are some very specific rules reguarding photography in cemeteries.
#1: do not touch the headstones
#2: Rubbing is a huge no no, it damages the headstones
#3: do not disturb memorials, flowers or flags etc placed by family/friends

I don't sell the photos, but I do charge a fee to go to cemeteries to photograph headstones. When shooting I either use available light or use fill flash, but never use anything to bring out the writing better. I have never had any issues shooting in a cemetery, and in fact some operators know me by name I'm there so much. And who knew high gas prices would help business?

JS