Official ROPECRAFT photography will only be allowed by photographers who have been selected by the event beforehand. They have been vetted for a history of discretion and responsibility in regards to consent and privacy concerns.
Attendees who wish to be photographed by official ROPECRAFT photographers will fill out a photography liability waiver during sign-in and will receive a special ribbon on their name badge to indicate that they consent to have photos taken of their activities during the event.
It does NOT give consent for any other photographs!
These photographers are staff of the event selected for their skill and judgement. Attendees are encouraged to approach photographers if they have something going on that they wish to have photographed with the understanding that the photographers are under no obligation to take photos.
Only specifically designated staff (such as official ROPECRAFT photographers) may record video or sound.
An example of a kink activity with similar guidelines would be something like a single-tail or fire play scene:
Absolutely no official photos will be kept in which a person who does not have a clearly visible name badge with photo consent ribbon in the shot (or from another shot taken during that scene).
After the photographer has edited the photos and made sure that only photos of attendees who have consented to professional photography are displayed, they will be sent to ROPECRAFT for posting to a password-protected area of www.ROPECRAFT.net, at a resolution no lower than 800×600. Individuals in backgrounds may either be independently verified to photo friendly and/or be blurred to hide their identity. In either situation, upon request of the individual the photo will be removed from the website (this policy effective beginning with Chicago 2018 ROPECRAFT).
Individuals in a photo may download and utilize the photos for personal purposes; they may not remove any watermark the photographer has added. If an individual wishes to contact a photographer for a higher resolution photo, additional processing work, or an un-watermarked photo, contact information will be provided for all official photographers; photographers may charge attendees to fulfill these requests at their discretion.
Attendees are expected to use common courtesy and leave any area that they might disrupt if they must take or make a phone call or text. Cell phones or tablets may be used for text note taking but video or sound recording by attendees is prohibited. We encourage the use of notebooks and hand-written note-taking.
Please limit your personal photographic equipment in general event spaces to cell phones – not larger cameras or tablets. The only people carrying cameras around in any space besides the one designated photo room should be ROPECRAFT photographers. If we are wondering “is that a cell phone or a camera?” then it’s too big and you will be asked to take it out of the general event space.
Attendees who are not official photographers for the event are not permitted to take unsolicited photos. If a staff member is alerted to an attendee taking such photos, they may contact security and request that the attendee review the photo gallery on their phone with them. If any photos or videos of ROPECRAFT staff or attendees are present, they will be required to delete them and then be subject to the below consent violation guidelines.
Intentionally photographing an individual or group without their express consent will be considered as cause for removal from the event, at the organizer’s discretion.
When you sign the photography waiver, you do provide the rights for us to use the photos taken of you during the event for marketing purposes. However, we understand that people change their mind, and so we make sure we have explicit consent first:
1. Before we use any photo, we will make sure that we have enthusiastic and informed consent from everyone in the image. That means we’ll tell them where it will appear and how it will be used. If we can’t contact them, we won’t use it. A simple “no” is all it takes; no reasons have to be given for why they don’t want it used.
2. Please email photos@ropecraft.net about pictures you do NOT want to have used. You can reference them by image number on the site, please, because “I’m that hot kinkster in the rope on the frame” won’t be enough to help us identify you. You can also request that they be removed entirely from the attendee gallery.
3. Also email photos@ropecraft.net about pictures you DO want to have used. These will be passed on to our Assistant Director also runs our instagram account, and like we said, enthusiastic consent is sexy. You can also let her know if you’re ok with any of your photos being used.
Any photo that falls in that gray area between 2 and 3 will not be used. Period. Attendees will still have access to the photos on the site via their password, and we can’t control where those images go or are used – but we encourage attendees to be considerate of other attendees and continue to treat photography like any other kink: only engaged in with the full consent of everyone involved.
