JerryChicken wrote:...which even if he was including the kids in his photo, would not necessarily be an offence - if they were in a public street and just happened to be in shot when he was taking a photo of something else then thats perfectly legal no matter how paranoid the mother is.
The irony being that the mother and her kids were probably captured on 50 cctv cameras that day and would not think twice about crowd scene photos when they are on holiday on the beach, there is no automatic right to deny others to take photos of you in a public place, in fact there is no right at all.
I'm a photographer and I can tell you attitudes really have undergone a pretty radical shift over the last couple of decades. I remember several years ago I got into a blazing argument with a security guard whilst stood on a public pavement taking photos of the construction of a new hospital in St. Helens.
I'm there snapping away and next minute this guy comes flying out, arms waving about like a runway attendant, shouting "Stop! Stop!". I was completely baffled but he came at me in an extremely aggressive fashion. I demanded to know what his problem was and he said that if I didn't stop photographing immediately he'd confiscate my camera. I told him in no uncertain terms that if he tried I'd punch him in the face.
Who the f*** did this guy think he was? I pointed out that I was on a public footpath and unless the laws of this country had changed overnight he had no right to stop me. He then made a grab for my camera saying that he was authorised to prevent any attempts to photograph construction. I roughly shoved him out of the way, drew out my cellphone and made a show of dialing 999. I told him I was quite prepared to allow the police to sort this matter out and his attitude seemed to change somewhat.
An even more ludicrous situation occurred when I took the kids into town one day and parked at the top of the multi-storey. We were looking over the edge where it's possible to see for miles around and I decided to grab my gear out of the boot and take a few photos. A couple of minutes later a security guard appears out of nowhere demanding that I stop taking pictures immediately as well wanting to know who I was and what I was up to.
I didn't want to antagonise the guy so I put the camera down. I told him that I was just taking a few shots of the view and he said that photography was prohibited. He then went on to say that following 9/11 they were "under orders" to watch out for "suspicious looking" characters who may be scouting the area for
"TERRORIST ACTIVITIES".
I said to the guy,
"Do I look like the Taliban?" and
"Do you honestly believe Osama Bin Laden has identified ST. HELENS as one of his top strategic targets for Jihad?" To be fair, the guy saw the funny side of it. Like most security guards he really couldn't give a s*** whether I took a few photos but with all the CCTV cameras
WATCHING HIM he really had to be seen doing his job".
Silly stories such as these highlight a tremendous societal, cultural and political change which has taken place over the last few years and is now accelerating out of all proportion with not just the proliferation but the
miniaturisation of photo-imaging in everyday items such as mobile phones.
If you read the photography industry magazines and periodicals this issue is constantly a hot topic for debate. Fortunately my experiences have been pretty minor - more comical than serious. But other people have found themselves in some pretty hot water.
Take a trip down to one of the major sites where people are protesting against environmentally damaging activities such as fracking. The minute you produce a camera the police have you tagged for "special treatment". They're hassling you, demanding to know what your business is here, checking your car licence plate, jostling you with three or four guys getting in your face. It's pretty intimidating. And if you're unlucky enough to be around when they are conducting activities against the protestors you can expect to be treated as though you really were a hostile party. They'll confiscate your camera, or "accidentally" smash it on the pavement, or steal the memory card. If you are fortunate to get the card back you can guarantee it will be completely wiped.
It used to be that the press were treated as an independent group and largely left in peace to do their work. Not so today. If anything the press is viewed as a hostile faction and singled out for all kinds of hassle.
If it's bad in this country it's even worse abroad. Think of those people in Turkey or Greece who were arrested and imprisoned for espionage after they were caught taking pictures of aircraft taking off and leaving the local airport. Turns out they were nothing more threatening than plane-spotters.
In the US with the signing into law of The Patriot Act you can get into some very serious trouble indeed once you produce a camera. Citizens who've attempted to photograph cops beating up civilians have been threatened AT GUNPOINT.
As for the current trend of installing CCTV in every location other than public toilets - one really must wonder precisely whose interests they are meant to serve? I mean, we are TOLD CCTV makes us safer.
But it's always a source of amusement considering the dizzying number of events where CCTV mysteriously develops "technical issues". A good example would be the night CCTV dropped out for one hour at the
Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris where Princess Diana's Mercedes careered across two lanes, smashing into a concrete pillar - killing Dodi al-Fayed and Henri Paul immediately and Diana soon after.
CCTV seemed to be conducting a wildcat strike on the day of 9/11. It winked out entirely in several sections of the tube system on 7/7. On the day of the Nairobi Mall bombing the cameras were "under repair". CCTV wasn't working on the day of "Plebgate" - then it suddenly was!
Indeed, the police seem to exert a strange miasmic influence on closed-circuit microelectronics. Consider any number of complaints about mistreatment, abuse - or, far more seriously, deaths in police custody. A good example would be the case of Shaun Rigg who collapsed and died in the care of Brixton police in 2009. Repeated attempts by the bereaved family to gain access to CCTV footage have drawn a blank. As is the case in seemingly all these cases - it just stopped working for some strange reason.
Look for yourself next time there is some breaking news story and count the alarming number of occasions this technology, which we are told we simply cannot live without in a safe and civilised society, singularly fails to perform its task (and I've not even begun to talk about the myriad occasions when CCTV has worked - but the footage is denied the public). I'm sure you'll be surprised by your findings...
