Private View

Private view (ing) is defined by MS Encarta as " preview of a film or an exhibition that is only open to invited guests."

In today's very global and very public communication arena, men and women, private and public personages and corporations have to contend with the issue of privacy. In hundreds and thousand cases, the floodgates to people's privacy had been forced open.

To avoid costly lawsuits, especially from among the "sue-loving" North Americans, social networking sites try to enforce "rules of the game" and etiquette. This includes verifying whether one has permission to post a picture of another individual; a lot of times, it happens when putting up group pictures, say, of weddings, outings, or big events.

Tons and tons of websites and blogs contain countless photographs which are easily downloadable by any one. Camera cellphones simply snap people and places without the permission of the one being photographed. And then, there's the innocent capturing of tourists into one's camera or video, when you just want to film a landmark. Take the Eiffel Tower - you can't seem to find a view or angle of it without heads and bodies bobbing up and down your camera; or maybe, try to snap a photo inside any Greenbelt, and you'd know what I mean.

Which brings me to my point: Edit.

In one episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond," Ray suggested editing the wedding video of brother Robert and sis-in-law Amy, in order to splice the scene where mother Marie tried to stop the wedding.

Edit. Yes. Books, magazines and films get to be edited before publication and showing.

This same technique should be applied to websites and blogs. The author must be vigilant to preserve the privacy of others. Just recently, for instance, I had to edit a picture which I posted in this blog. It (Statue of the Navigators, Lisbon) prominently showed people in the background - people I did'nt even know; they were "accidental tourists" in my photos. So, right away, I pulled the picture and cropped out the "tourists" fast, lest I be questioned or be held liable for it. The beauty of blogs, you can edit even after you published a post.

In one organization, where I worked a couple of years ago, we even had to ask students and clients for a "release form," before publishing their photos in the website, annual report or the newsletter. Some people won't sign; they just want private viewing of their images.