Photography Without Borders

Just like renegade street art that places art beyond the usual boundaries, I find the concept of forbidden photography compelling.

Check out strictly no photography which is a photo-sharing site for photographs taken where you are not allowed to take them. From the inside of the Kremlin to Kensington palace, from art galleries to war zones. Here you can see everything you've ever wanted to see that you're not supposed to. There are pictures that range from the ordinary to the profound. Whatever the content or the quality though we think that each one stands as a little piece of art in itself, as a little expression of personal liberty.

I remember once taking a photograph (complete with the flash) of a friend in the Houses of Parliment in London. There is a sign in the photo itself that says "No Photos" but what was even better, I captured the face of the guard peering at me from behind the wall as I took the photo. He threatened to expose the film but I was able to cry my way out of that.

One example from Stictly No Photography is a photo of the hanging monks of Oria. An order of monks that took care of the dead in the area. When they died, their bodies were boiled in oil (cloths and all) then hung in a nitch, in the basement of the local church next to the castle, in Oria Italy.