Camera phone etiquette

14. June, 2004

The whole civilized world should more or less know by now how to behave with a mobile phone and how to interact on the Internet in a mature manner. Camera phones, however, are new and exciting devices that make it possible to snap photos and share them with a large audience in a matter of seconds. Camera phones definitely are fun and useful devices, but are also potentially harmful if common sense is forgotten. To address this, it's time to introduce camera phone etiquette.

A camera phone is a mobile phone with a built-in digital camera. Most smartphones, advanced mobile phones that combine PDA and mobile phone functionality, are also camera phones. You can take digital photos on a camera phone and send them right away to an email address, to another camera phone, to a photo album on the Internet, or to a printer. The functionality and photo quality of a camera phone is not quite the same as with a digital camera, but it is possible to snap memorable photos on new camera phones, too.

Although tiny, portable cameras have been around for a long time and camera phones don't introduce new technical possibilities to the art of photography, they bring digital cameras to practically every pocket. Camera phones have been available in Japan and Korea for a longer time than in other parts of the world and people have invented a number of unexpected ways to use them. While camera phones are extremely popular in those countries for sharing pictures of friends and pets, Reiter's camera phone report documents a variety of other incidents, from corporate espionage to staircase voyeurism. There is no need to overreact because of misbehavior of a small minority, but these practical guidelines will help the vast majority of people to use their camera phones in a proper manner.

Camera phone etiquette

1. Respect other people's privacy. Use the camera discreetly; which means no pictures from locker rooms, toilets, baths, or similar establishments and situations.

2. Respect the rules of the place you are at. Don't use the camera where mobile phones or cameras are forbidden. If the camera in the phone is on, it means the mobile phone is also on, which causes the device to transmit radio signals. Airplanes, hospitals and other places which rely on the use of sensitive radio frequency equipment don't want interference from phones, nor do theaters want beeping phones disturbing their audience.

3. Save faces. If you want to snap and share photos of people whose faces are recognizable in the picture, you should get their permission. Some countries prohibit such activity by law, usually excluding celebrities and public figures. In some cultures, photographing of people is not approved at all.

4. Pictures tell stories. They certainly do, but only if the recipients can tell what the story is about. Make sure that the recipient of your photo understands it in the way you intended it to be. Photos taken on a camera phone tend to be small, somewhat fuzzy, and lighting conditions are often less than ideal. If you have the slightest doubt that your photo might be misunderstood, snap a better photo before sending it.

5. Consider other people's tolerance in receiving a large number of photos. The memory space on their phones and airtime minutes in their plans maybe limited. If you are really enthusiastic about your newly discovered photographic skills and are keen to share your pictures, there is an easy way to show your photos to the world. Create a moblog, a camera phone photo album on the Internet, and post as many photos as you like. Have a look at this review of moblog services for what's available on the Internet.

6. Behave responsibly for the type of content you send and to whom you send it. When you are subscribing to a mobile service plan, you are not anonymous on the network. The phone number not only identifies you to the network and to the recipient when you make a phone call, but it also identifies your emails, text messages and multimedia messages (MMS) sent from the phone.

7. Add a note and your name on photo messages. If the receiver is not in the inner circle of your friends, he or she may not have your phone number for matching it with your name in the phone's contact list. Also, the receiver isn't necessarily familiar with all the people in your picture, so adding a brief note with the photo is worth the effort.

8. Share useful photos. A change in a train schedule can be a nerve-wrecking experience to the whole neighborhood, unless a camera phone owner sends a photo of the new timetable to fellow commuters. Or perhaps you’ve found a nice piece of art, but want to feel confident that the folks back home like it, too. A photo and a request for votes will be appreciated.

9. Keep your hands off other people's camera phones. If you take a photo with someone else's camera phone without the owner's knowledge, and worse, decide to send the photo to someone in the phone's contact list, not only are you borrowing the camera phone owner's identity, but you could be messing around with his or her personal life as well.

10. Restrict incoming photo messages if you are flooded with them. Inform the sender that too much is too much. If that doesn’t help, changing the multimedia message (MMS) settings in your phone should help. Depending on the phone model, it is possible to leave the messages on the network operator's server (and view them later), or cut them off totally for a while and continue receiving photos later on.