[more from yesterday]

“Mitchell said that last year he was challenged when taking a picture of the view while visiting the Leeds-Liverpool canal by a lock-keeper who wanted to know why he was taking photographs.”

A reasonable, though unreasonable question, which I’d be inclined to answer, in that part of my imagination that wears a Davy Crockett hat, with something needlessly scathing. The question is what can lead someone in a position of such innocuousness (canals slip somewhere into the cardigan pocket of the mythology of industrial Britain next to brass bands, the Great Western Railway and cribboards built in to the tables in old men’s boozers) to start taking themselves quite so seriously. Though the lock-keeper in question may have misunderstood some unsinkable memo floated down from headquarters on postcard sales or anti-terrorism, a social climate in which MP photographers are the object of suspicion is itself worthy of suspicion. Still more serious, of course, are allegations about police, PCSO, street wardens and private security guards. In publicly visible places which aren’t the control room of Sellafield, or the MI6 canteen, police and PCSOs have reportedly (see for example this short film) prevented professionals and amateurs from using cameras, demanded to know reasons for filming, even seized cameras to remove photos from memory in a solid state take on that great malicious 35mm unwinding shot beloved of directors of the Rockford Files era. Ludicrously, private security guards (in no legal position to do anything much) have attempted the same.

[Obvious disclaimer- If you really want to know, ask someone who knows]
The legal position in the UK is (as almost always in our headscratching tangle of law and precedent) unclear, but there is good reason to believe that photography in a public place is usually within the law.

According to this guide to street photographers’ rights and Urban 75’s useful guide, it is almost always legal to photograph people without permission, to photograph buildings, to photograph police officers, to photograph the wording on a ‘No photographs’ sign. This also goes for anywhere where people cannot have a reasonable expectation of privacy – there’d be some question in schools, offices, hospitals. The issue is also slightly complicated by the increasing privatisation of public space. Shared space owned or managed by private bodies, such as shopping centres where councils bamboozled by planning gain have handed over rights-of-way, provides opportunities for claiming trespass. In privately owned shared spaces, trespass occurs if a person refuses to leave when asked to do so by a representative of the owner or operator. It is still legal to take photos, though in attempting to do so, any scuffle, physical contact or damage to surroundings may transform into the criminal offences of assault and aggravated trespass. Commercial interests may be to blame for the drive towards photography restrictions here, with companies attempting to assert absolute control over their public image. Everywhere, too, would-be authorities will blame that inscrutable inflatable: security, or perhaps its big brother – National Security.
In the same way that the National Interest surprisingly often overlaps with the interests of the rich and powerful, so National Security miraculously overlaps with the desire of those in positions of power for more security of person and property, less scrutiny, and a good deal more forelock-tugging from those who sometimes blunder into impudence. It’s relatively easy for an apologist to justify a ban on photography around government buildings, perhaps airports, military bases, infrastructure on security grounds. Quite by chance, these also happen to be likely locations for investigative journalism and demonstrations (for which reports of photography restrictions also exist).

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