---
type: Tip
title: When people don't want to be filmed
description: Point the camera at yourself, don't delete and don't argue, greet them and keep walking — and where it's genuinely taboo, ask first rather than apologise after.
tags: [filming, etiquette, markets, respect, conflict-avoidance]
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
---

# When people don't want to be filmed

Distinct from [don't point the camera at private
moments](/tips/dont-film-private-moments.md), which is about what Harry chooses
not to shoot. This is about what he does when someone objects — which happens
constantly in some countries and almost never in others.

His method, assembled across several countries:

- **Turn the camera on yourself and say so.** Most objections come from people
  who assume they're in shot when they aren't.
- **Don't delete, and don't argue.** He declines both, politely.
- **Greet them, wish them a good day, and keep walking.** His phrase is kill
  them with kindness.
- **Go in with the energy you want back.** In a market where he expected
  hostility, his read was that people match whatever you bring.
- **Where it's genuinely taboo, ask first.**

## How Harry applies it

**Mercato, [Addis Ababa](/places/addis-ababa.md)**, is the hardest case in the
bundle: he is told to stop within thirty seconds of arriving and repeatedly
afterwards. Nobody threatens him. He points out that one man drew attention to
himself by objecting when he wasn't in shot at all, and the smile-and-move-on
approach works every time.

**The khat market in the same city** is where he gets the rule explained rather
than just enforced. A seller tells him the etiquette directly: ask before you
photograph, and don't photograph what you haven't bought. Harry apologises and
complies. He also notes that five football shirt shops in a row refused him,
and guesses — without asserting it — that it's because the shirts are
counterfeit.

**He does not always comply.** At a chicken market in [Delhi](/places/delhi.md)
he was told to delete his footage and refused, on the grounds that the man had
authority rather than a reason. And in [Amritsar](/places/amritsar.md),
plainclothes police stopped him and demanded to see what he had shot; he showed
them, spoke a little Hindi, and the stop ended with everyone smiling.

The distinction he draws in practice: a request gets courtesy, an order without
a reason gets politeness and nothing else.

## Demonstrated in

- [I Entered Ethiopia's War-Torn Rebel Zone 🇪🇹](/videos/m2C5dBQhHTk.md) —
  Mercato, and the camera-on-himself method.
- [Surviving Ethiopia's RAW Meat Sidequest 🇪🇹](/videos/zsSqvrJ5i0o.md) — the
  khat market, where a seller explains the etiquette instead of just refusing.
- [I got Kicked out of the Golden Temple for this 🇮🇳](/videos/MpZUcxh4q7g.md) —
  police demanding to see his footage, defused with a few words of Hindi.
- [Avoid Delhi! Come here instead 🇮🇳](/videos/1iQOE10EnHU.md) — the one time
  he refuses to delete.
- [I Visited Nigeria's Biggest City (Avoid These Men) 🇳🇬](/videos/JlXqwy1C6po.md) —
  the variant where the objection isn't sincere. Twice in
  [Lagos](/places/lagos.md) Harry is told he can't film by men who want paying
  for permission, once by a group claiming to be local-government officials who
  can't produce ID. His answer each time is that he is filming himself, said
  cheerfully and without stopping, and it defuses all of it.
- [Solo Entering the New Syria (After the Dictator Fell)](/videos/EhEjNmUEjfo.md) —
  the version worth copying from the other side of the camera. A
  [Damascus](/places/damascus.md) sweet seller refuses so warmly that Harry calls
  it the most respectful "don't film" he has ever been given, and buys from him
  anyway. In the same video he films none of the armed security in the city, on
  the grounds that he has just arrived and isn't going to put a camera in
  anyone's face.
- [I Visited Istanbul With No Plan 🇹🇷](/videos/TsmdmNws5Fo.md) — the version
  where Harry works out *why* and accepts it without arguing. Refused by a
  Grand Bazaar seller, his reading is that the stock is counterfeit and a camera
  creates a real problem for the man — and that some people simply don't want
  filming, which he says is normal and fine. He moves on and films someone who
  doesn't mind.
- [Attacked and Arrested in Cameroon's Deadly Protests 🇨🇲](/videos/4CO4s3cNvcA.md) —
  the sharpest version, because the reception flips mid-video. Everyone in
  [Douala](/places/douala.md) was fine with the camera until New Bell, where
  Harry says on camera that people aren't happy to see it and reads it correctly:
  they think he is a journalist. He names the change and stays anyway, and what
  follows is the argument for having left.
- [48 Hours with West Africa's Most Notorious Warlord 🇱🇷](/videos/MUrLV0JpPbg.md) —
  two confrontations in [Monrovia](/places/monrovia.md), handled the same way
  both times: stay calm, say plainly that the camera is pointed at himself and
  not at them, agree that it's a free country without pressing the point, and
  keep walking. Neither escalates. It is the most practical demonstration on this
  page because in both cases he is alone, visibly foreign, and in a place where
  standing still is the mistake.