Excellent Telegraph article
Posted on: Sat, 08/16/2008 - 20:31
Excellent Telegraph article
This Sunday Telegraph feature 'Has our increasingly paranoid society declared war on the humble 'weekend snapper'?' gives a good overview of the anti-photography jobsworth stupidity engulfing UK. As the title suggests, this deals with incidents involving amateurs, not pro's, but is probably the best overview publlished so far.
I have had two bouts of questioning, including home visits by the police for photographing empty landscapes in rural Scotland with a compact. Nowhere is safe from this idiocy.
I don't quite agree that I am a "sad anorak" but the article simply confirms the situation that appears to be spreading across the country.
Some places like Quebec and France (I cant comment on Fizzle's experience) have already introduced legal bans on photography in public although how thoroughly this is policed seems uncertain. In Quebec anyone appearing in a photo that has been published can sue for damages.
With the case of Murray v Big Pictures (UK) Ltd going through the Courts (see elsewhere on this site) there could soon be a right of privacy even in public which could sound the death knell to street photography.
I had not heard that Austin Mitchell MP was planning a demonstration ( if that is the right word) but that is certainly a step in the right direction.
I regularly take photos in public as street photography is my interest. If it ever becomes unlawful I may be resigned to taking photographs of sunsets and empty landscapes.
It's all a case of perspective isn't it! Thousands of Japanese photographers take photos of "sensitive" buildings every day and the police smile politely at them.
Someone with a half-decent camera takes a similar shot and is hounded! I agree, is this the sort of society I want? I'd rather take my chances like we did in the blitz, frankly. The terrorists have won haven't they - instilling fear in everybody including the Police and the plastics that support them?
And yet, I think France has had more Basque bombings than we have had in London recently. I am allowed to go into the Orangerie museum by the Louvre, to the Monet exhibition, and take as many panoramas of his water lillies as I want. I am allowed to go to the Orsay museum opposite the Louvre and take a nice RAW image of the Bridge at Argenteuill, take it home, process it with Adobe's Lightroom, have it blown up into a huge poster, frame it and put it on my wall. Let alone take loads of photos with architectural details. And with people and youngsters in the shots.
And a very nice policeman comes up to me and sees what I'm doing and says to me don't forget to go up the back stairs and take some photos of the tiling and stonework, which shows off the French Artisan to his best advantage!
As I say, it's all a question of perspective, and from where I'm sitting, I don't want the British one, thank you very much!
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