Yesterday, I was taking some pictures of my wife and two boys in our local mall. Afterwards, I turned around and took some wide-angle shots of the mall interior itself. I'm huge on historical photography. I'll take pictures of seemingly nothing, just because I know that in 20-30 years, they will be retro.


At any rate, the mall security guard came over and started hassling me about taking pictures, saying it was against mall policy, that it's a security risk, and that the tenants get upset about it. He asked me to delete the pictures. Being that my wife and mother-in-law were with me, I didn't want to cause too much of a stink, so I deleted the wide-angle shots, but refused to delete the ones of my wife and children, which he was OK with.


What were my rights, and has anyone else encountered this? I am sensitive to not just taking a picture of random people when they walk by...I tried to do it when there was nobody in front of me. I really was just interested in the interior of the mall. I'm sure a mall qualifies as private property, but to me, I should not have had to delete any of my pictures, and if I would have been alone, I would have resisted to the nth degree.