After the UK Home Secretary’s recent statement green-lighting the harassment of photographers in public places, could it already be too late for us to reverse the attitudes of certain members of the law enforcement agencies and the general public?
At the bottom of this post are a few links to tales of photographic woe and more cases of people’s civil liberties being ignored as more often we are told “No Photos!”.
Should we continue to raise awareness with blogging, protesting and flash mobs?
Maybe we can do what this guy is doing..
Personally I think all of the above but also.. Prepare yourself for the worst. If the situation does start getting more and more difficult for photographers and video makers in public places, then at the very least I want to protect my media.
It used to be that I carried a crappy 16 meg memory card in my back pocket, just in case some over jealous policeman in a far off land tried to confiscate my data.
Now with some of the new technologies at our disposal we can safely stream our content either back to our laptops or straight to the web as we continue shooting.
I am not talking about the Pro range of Wifi kit available to sports photographers using top of the range Nikon and Canon cameras. I am talking about off the shelf consumer software and hardware like Qik.com for mobile streaming and the Eye-Fi card for rapid transmission of stills from almost any compact camera.
If these two methods of shifting data from your camera to the web are just the beginning, we are in for some exciting times.
I for one will continue to put both systems through their paces and do so while actively shooting footage and taking stills in any public place i find myself in.
If we don’t exercise our civil liberties, they will atrophy.
http://photorights.org/blog/42-days-and-hand-over-your-flash-card
http://maximumsorrow.com/writing/whyineverprintmyphotos.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/nyregion/29camera.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://trinyprada.wordpress.com
(Sorry Phreadz link no longer working)
..and something a little different.. Strictly no photography.
Love the Worthing piece. Really ironic about the 2m dude taking a still photo while the cops were harassing the guy with the megaphone. And…who was taking the video the whole time? Maybe with Qik/Kyte and a cellphone. I appreciate the terrorism thing. But this ain’t about that. Plus regular law enforcement (not special ops) are SO far out of date… just focus on real criminals. Full-time job. Lots of press today about threatened “freedoms” UK/US; also lots of counter-press about keeping freedoms free: Qik/Kyte, Eye-Fi, etc. Animal Farm is already upon us; however, no need to just sit and atrophy. Mobile is and can be used for advancing civil society: http://www.ushahidi.com — & many others saving peoples’ lives. Really.
Great post.
It points out 1) the stupidity of these kinds of restrictions and 2) the means we already have at our disposal to openly mock the idea that something like photography can be ‘controlled’.
It’s a slippery slope if we let this kind of idiocy stand. I’m a horrible photographer but I cherish the right to brandish a camera around.
I have seen this issue of photography police popping up on twitter a lot recently. People talking of experiences where it had happened. But it had never happened to me until tonight.
I went to Carluccio’s for a meal with my wife and decided to go and video some of the sparkling goodies on display. Within seconds I was literally pounced upon by two members of staff.
I was gobsmacked. And this felt like a well rehearsed and vindictive process.
Honestly, Carluccio, fuck you and your restaurants. I left your place feeling dirty. I was told the PR guys don’t allow it. Well tell them to get a life and get with the 20th century. No, wait…
http://chinposin.com/drop/project/carluccios-pr-policy/
I have, on occassion, have whipped out my mobile to voice record what is being said to me. I have also used the video function on my camera to record events. People really don’t like that, but I’ve got to protect myself.
Recently, here in Los Angeles, there have been 3 flash mob events with videographers/photographers. The latest was extremely well-organized on June 1st.
The thought of taking public photos has never appealed to me until now. It makes me want to go out and start taking photographs.
There are not many unsecured wifi signals around these days for the Eye-fi to use to geo-tag. In my experienace UK IP address location info is inaccurate anyway. Its still on my wish list!
As an update to my carluccio’s story, last night I forwarded a link to my blog post with the video to the MD of carluccio’s. He emailed me back this morning and said that it’s not acceptable to treat a customer this way and has spoken with the Bluewater team.
Very impressed by the speed of his response, it would be nice to think that this would cause a rethink of their supposed PR policy on cameras in their restaurants. This really is PR 0.2.
I like the idea, but if I’ve read the blub correctly the eye-fi stores images locally until you get back ‘home’, then uploads – so it’s still subject to confiscation…. qik.com is another matter, though.
I answered in a video recently that I have never been harassed for taking photographs although people in Knoxville have been harassed over photographing the John Duncan Federal Building. Can’t find the link which had a reference to your rights as a photographer. However, Chris Dalby’s comment above reminded me that I have been asked to not take pictures in a store once. Not even a real store but one of those tents they set up in the parking lots around Halloween to sell costumes. The owner explained to me that I might want to set up a competitive store and could be stealing her layout design and inventory ideas. I assured her that her type of business didn’t require that much thought and if I were to need photographs for that purpose, I’d be much more subtle about it.
In Tennessee, you can end up with a class A misdemeanor for taking someone’s picture and if you disseminated it (think Flickr) it becomes a Class E felony. Granted the letter of the law reads “It is an offense for a person to knowingly photograph, or cause to be photographed an individual, when the individual is in a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, without the prior effective consent of the individualÂ…” Just seems ripe for abuse. So, if you take someoneÂ’s picture in TN and put it on Flickr you could end up spending one to six years in prison and be fined up to $3000.
Btw, here’s a favorite photo of mine. Yes, I dorked with it in photoshop.
This is a touchy issue. I have had run-ins with police, security guards and members of the public who have threatened me physically. I think the government pretending that ‘bans on public photography’ will somehow assist in combating terrorism feeds an unthinking paranoia in society.
Thanks doc.
The terrorist don’t have to kill anyone to cause terror. When our governments create fear and cause paranoid, they are serving the terrorists.
Security guards and cameras. I don’t know what it is about them but they are a pain in the hole, I was trying to take a photo of a guy smoking at a Lung Cancer charity collection on the street outside a Primark shop, so I ducked into Primark camera on the ready, when this moron starts waving his arms and saying no photography. By the time I had my explanation done the smoker was onto the game and went. Ruined my photo opp. completely.
I have to get a decent point and push that is discreet, because my great big DSLR is just asking for trouble.
I got stopped by the police another time, but I already told you that one.