So there I was in Newhaven today, at sunset, setting up to take a HDRI photo of a nice and grungy scrap metal works from across the river. The light was difficult and the ground uneven and awkward to level the tripod. Anyway, after much ado, I took my first shot. And then the inevitable happened...
"What are you doing?", asked a tall, gangly and spotty 13-14 year old, with a younger tyke tagging along on his (too small) BMX.
"Taking a photograph", says I, "what do you think I'm doing?"
"Why?" (with obvious suspicion).
"Because it's a nice shot", I said, "and what's it got to do with you anyway?"
OK I might have been rude but my hackles were rising and my radar was spinning. Gawd help us if even kids can get the "terrorist paranoia" now. Didn't something happen like this in Germany around 1935?
It happens here now! I can hear the words from that platform at the Reichstag all those years ago.."Il commen", "Il commen!" - forgive the german spelling if it's off.
I think I'll nip up to the Isle of Skye now, it must be more peaceful there...sigh!
Part of the problem is that there are actually very few "responsible" adults around in these situations: more than likely the parents are likely to be very young themselves and just as feral as the kids that you're trying hard not to photograph. Personally, when I do "street" I just avoid all situations with kids in - it's so much easier.
I hate to think what the photographic legacy of this paranoia will be - there won't be any more street photography for fear of privacy issues at best or being beaten up, at worst.
I do quite a lot of commissioned photography around social housing projects where I inevitably get youngsters asking 'why are you taking photos?'. I don't find there's often suspicion behind the question but a hope that they'll be in the paper and have bragging rights over their mates. Since I'm usually working for use in annual reports or brochures they're quite often disappointed, but nowadays I won't usually photograph minors at all without making sure a responsible adult knows who I am and what I'm doing. There is just too much fear of predatory paedophiles to be careless about this. Photographers should always behave as they would want someone to behave toward them and their children.
It is downright dangerous to do otherwise, and this is nothing new. 30 years ago I'd just taken a street photo of half a dozen kids playing in dirt under the Westway, when a brick hit me in the back of the neck, followed by the rest of the shithouse who tried to seize my camera. I was pretty annoyed by this assult, there was no way he was getting my camera, and he was taken aback by getting punched in the face - not what he expected from the pervert he'd decided I must be. A heated conversation ensued : he was certain that the only possible reason anyone would photograph children, other than for family snaps, was for perverse sexual reasons. They weren't even his kids, he didn't know them, he was - in his mind - being a good citizen by protecting them. Throw bricks, ask questions later...
I've since heard of other similar instances, including a pro photographer who took his wife and kids for a day out at the beach and was set upon by 2 drunk men and a woman for photographing his own daughter on the beach. More idiot vigilantism. Or the two Sun-reading oafs who detained an urban landscape photographer because of kids who were distant dots in his composition, until bemused police turned up.
Many people just do not understand photography and photographers, and we have to bear that in mind and act accordingly. Yes, in an ideal world they should, but until then we have to try and hellp ourselves. We live among people who can't tell the difference between a paedophile and a paediatrician. Be careful out there!
Photorights admin
I've been there too, 'they' use camera phones to video/photo all sorts of stuff, but when someone's taking a shot they can't see/understand some genuinely want to know why, with others its part of their intimidation of adults routine.
The empowerment of children to intimidate adults is growing, the stasi would have loved so many eager 'empowered' children willing to do their work, as a number in this country now seem to do.
Whilst out photographing (and cooking) at an archery session at the weekend we responsible adults observed a car with 2 people in watching the young people with us shooting arrows (in full waterproofs due to the weather), when challenged they left the private property we were on, but the telling comment was one 12 year old boy in the group sreaming 'chase the f***ing peado's off' repeatedly, if you were a photographer in a public place photographing a building/art work/your own children and he'd done that as he thinks that is a. perfectly acceptable and b. anyone with a camera is 'suss', what would the likely reaction of the public arround you be???
And that what he's been taught at school! (Cams Hill School, Fareham from what his father, one of the other responsible adults on site, told me).
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