You do not need permission to take pics if you are:
-Downloading them to print out
-Downloading them to keep on your computer
You do need permission to take pics if you are:
-Planning to reupload these pictures to your own server
-Planning to make a fan page about me :o
-Planning to send these to people via instant messageing, email, ect
Things you will not do:
-Pretend you made them
-Edit the pictures and reupload them (this includes changeing size, I will allow changeing formats, but not size, or cropping)
-Hot link the images (aka link directly to the picture from this site).
You can email me to get permission formally. Ill give you what kind of copyright you need to put on your page then.
Read the copyright statements before doing either of these, if you can't understand them, it means, "don't take stuff that belongs to other people without permission or they'll get you in trouble"

I've had to refuse most of the requests to use images lately for many reasons, but most of them because they are going on 'archive' or 'collection' sites.