Street Photographers test freedom to shoot in London

The most amusing of those "security" numpties must surely be the idiot who babbled nonsense about "covert surveillance" to the photographer who was using a 5x4 Linhof view camera on a tripod.

The second most amusing comment was the "building manager" who seemed to have the quaint idea that one needed some sort of permission to photograph a building with the intent of selling the images commercially.

The UK Police handled that really well. They seemed to follow the law precisely. It was really only security guards challenging, and really, you cannot blame them. I don't think there was anything new or astonishing in this.
I also liked that one of the building managers offered to help them take better photos - brilliant!
Everything worked out fine. No one was killed in the filming of this movie :)

I work as a photographer, taking photos of office buildings and their surroundings for use on letting or sales brochures and websites. My work is mainly in and around London and the M25 region.

In 20 years I reckon I have been questioned or stopped no more than 10 - 20 times by curious individuals.

With the security climate that is prevalent, I can understand why the police and security individuals have issues with people pointing cameras at them and I have found a reasonable explanation allays their fears, while not having to get their permission.

I think the rule must be, be polite, be reasonable and be prepared to see their point of view, while making it clear that you have a legal right to be where you are, doing what you are doing, (assuming you are), and that the photos in your camera are your intellectual property, and if they are taken away, damaged or destroyed, this would be criminal damage or theft.

How you handle the situation will dictate how it ends.

I thought this was an excellent illustration of the security paranoia combined with lack of common sense that applies in much of the UK. The attitude of the two smartly grey-suited security guards virtually amounted to harassment!
The laws on this subject vary from country to country and I wonder whether employers ensure that their security people understand the local rules, especially when so many security staff seem not to originate within the UK.

First part of my carrier I lived and worked in a communist country. The paranoia about photography was humongous. but there security guide got the authority to arrest you. Fortunately in democracies the picture is different.
I just cant understand why can't those security "pit bulls" learn that it is different to take a picture and publish a picture and secondly those buildings are already on the Internet.

this is not at all new. in 1972 when visiting and photographing in london (remember film?) i was taking a photo of some shop, men's wear or something similar, across a street and the guard, some officious type, came across and told me that i had no right to photograph the shop because it had the royal crest above the door. something to do with being a supplier to the royal family. i was not duly impressed and continued my activity and still have the photographs and the negatives in sterling black and white.

You've all been duped as this was all fake, probably shot in some movie stage! At various points, shadows of buildings were clearly visible in the video, which implies the sun was out! That is actually illegal in London. I know this because I've been to the place several times. Much ado about nothing indeed..

VERY IMPORTANT VERY IMPORTANT VERY IMPORTANT

VERY IMPORTANT VERY IMPORTANT VERY IMPORTANT

VERY IMPORTANT VERY IMPORTANT VERY IMPORTANT

Please excuse may bad english.

Here I see a very good bussines opportunity for you (London photographers).

Because all security people are stupid, crazy ignorants & almost illiterate dummies, it would be a very good idea to
ORGANIZE A PHOTO-COURSE

for them. In one or two hours (50€/hour) somebody should explaine them what small pocket & a littgle bigger bridge cameras are capable of. So DSLR is not a spy camera in any case.

Please do it as fast as possible, because I intend to come in London to take a few houndred serious street-photos & I do not want to have problems with those idots.

Best regards

The fim highlights problems which seem to be particularly acute in the City of London area. On a typical day you will see hundreds of people taking photographs outside public buildings such as the British Museum, St Paul's Cathedral, Palace of Westminster etc. When there are so many photographers it becomes absurd to assume that they are taking photographs with a sinister agenda.
In the City of London, where there are fewer tourists about, the security guards, driven by a mixture of paraonoia and self importance, often seem to think that anyone who photographs their building must be doing so for a sinister reason. In reality their business premises are probably a less desirable terrorist target than the well known and well photographed public builldings.
In fact some photographers are interested in architechture (hence the use of 5x4 cameras and tripods) and some are interested in people, which accounts for the photography that takes place.

Oddly enough, here in North America on the classic t.v. channel METV last evening a Twilite Zone Episode called "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street Episode." played and sums up the irrational, paranoia and lunacy of people when they allow their minds to run amok suspecting anyone who looks and or does something different than the norm around them.

We have to learn to stop thinking like this. Photography in public is not likely anything to be worried about and/or to think is subversive etc. Yes, bad things can and do happen in life but most paranoia is purely irrationally based.

Do any of you overtly worry about the drivers in cars next to you? No, not likely. But driving is one of the most dangerous things we each do daily. Photographers are not likely criminals nor criminally minded nor looking to subvert society. LIGHTEN UP! and let/expect police and other security do real policing work. Life should be more enjoyed not live in paranoid fear.

One can almost figure out what world we'd be living in if freedom of speech and free expression was compromised. It's not a trivial thing to fight for. Great work.

Really great video there. Thanks goes out to all the people involved in making and producing this work. Thanks to dp as well for making this a front page article.

The reason for my gratitude is confidence I get being a street photographer in Norway. Recenly there have been incidents involving photographers like me and the police, where the former were accused of braking laws. Fortunatly local regulations allow street photographers to work just as the photographers did in this video.

It is our responsibility to educate ourselves about our own rights.

Very interesting stuff. Times have changed into crazy times of hysteria. A lonely backpack or even a bag with unknown content can lead to big police activity (could be a bomb).

Same with street photographing and anything else that could ... maybe ... perhaps ... be suspicious... in any considerable way.

Regards
Nic

A worthwhile video. I've often wondered about the law on such things, now it's clear to me.
If an individual objects to being filmed/photographed, it's common courtesy under most circumstances to stop. Buildings don't have feelings (as far as I'm aware), so why worry about photographing them.
There's enough surveillance on sensitive buildings to log people photographing the building, so when people are photographing for innocent reasons, no worries. If the building got bombed later, the CCTV footage of the photographer would show someone with no terrorist connections who has nothing to hide, as was the case with these 6 photographers.

This is an excellent video, reminding us all of the basic rights of photographers - and the public generally - to do things that are safe, even curious, in public spaces. Kudos to these photographers and videographers for the courage and persistence to put this together - and thanks for sharing. I would recommend the same idea be done in major cities in the US, Turkey, Spain, Egypt, Taiwan, China, Japan, Malaysia and other places around the world. It would be the "Public Photo Project", aided if need be by the ACLU (civil liberties groups) and similar organizations, protecting the legal rights of the public.

I don't get it - why didn't the photographers just produce a copy of the letter that was referenced at the beginning of the video to each security officer? That would have made the situations much easier to rectify. I get the point of the video, but if photographers want to spread the news about the actual law that they are quoting, they should be a little more helpful instead of inviting a debate on what is public property and what can be filmed.

This is a slightly silly way to go about things BUT the message is clear.

Know your rights and stand your ground.

There are way too many jobs worth idiots working for not only security but also community support officers and the police that think THEY ARE the law and the are quite happy to invent laws that don't exist.

Keep it polite and reason the law, they will usually walk away once they realise you know your rights.

Thank God I live in Australia :D

Kind of disappointed in this. I only watched the first few minutes of the video and the only street photography I saw was when a little girl sitting on a concrete bollard snapped a pic of the so called street photographer.

You don't use a tripod for street, and you don't use a zoom either. This is NOT street photography just because it was taken on the street. These people are using tripods and zooms to shoot BUILDINGS, not people.YOU ARE ASKING TO BE HARASSED when you conduct yourself in that manner in public. Your rights only go so far as not to infringe on another person. IF someone tells you to stop photographing them, YOU STOP! Period. In The USA, it is Illegal to shoot certain buildings and bridges. Laws have already been passed regarding this and are not subject to debate, it is a done deal.

This video and actions like this by wanna be street photographersgive street photography a bad name and makes it that much harder for the rest of us to pursue the genre.

This is news???

No wonder the rag when out of business over there recently.

Sounds to me like six people with cameras (not photographers) out looking for trouble . . .

And it seems they found it!

Typically when you are trying to stir the pot . . . the pot will get stirred!

When the security guys call the police, why don't the police simply tell them (over the phone) that it isn't against the law to photograph anything in public, instead of turning up and wasting everyone's time - and my taxes?
MikeVal

This is just fantastic, IMO. Security guards are low wage folks with kids, etc. just trying to find a wage they can live on, and they do what their managers tell them. What's very encouraging is the police response. Versus what was going on a year or so ago, this is wonderful news. Thanks for posting this DPR!

Lets face it....if you are a terrorist wanting to photograph a building are you going to set up a tripod??

Good to read that after problems in 2008 and 2009 the Met has gotten their act together.

Once again we see a failure to distingusih between taking photographs in public and *publishing* them. One guard reasonably asked why the photographs were being taken but then raised the commercial aspect.

The second factor that was ignored was the nature of public space. Nowadays it seems that public parks and other open spaces are not "public" - here only the margin between private and public (pavement/sidewalk) was nitpickingly discussed.

As for the guy who said we've got confidential stuff in there, made me wonder why it wasn't covered up!

Anyway - excellent out come - the police appear to know what they are doing!

Hurrah!

Like many of these exposés, the ignorance of normal well meaning people is being preyed upon. Simply reminding people, in polite terms, what you believe the law allows in any spot in the world is usually enough to diffuse a potential situation. Security people and the like are not lawyers, simply people doing as they are told and or their job.

The too-ing and fro-ing over the public/private parts of the footpath, shows a condescending behaviour that is beneath contempt. The evasive manner of the street photographers, clearly to illustrate their superior understanding of things was and is indefensible. Not at all the sort of odd chaps one would ask around for a meal. :D

Thanks for a very important video. Unlike some other commenters, I think the "security" guards went far beyond their rights. To claim some sort of authority (God-given or what?) and trying to scare off people engaged in perfectly legal activities should be, and I believe is, a legal offence. There is no reason to be forgiving to that kind of behaviour.
Good work from the side of the authentic police officials. Proffessional!

That was funny, partially funny!
One comment though, at least two of the photographers should had been of arab descent or looking that way - to see how would had they been treated.

I think that all those security people in the film were well aware of the law but rely on the fact that the people they speak to about photography in a public place and other matters may not be.

The more publicity we can get on this subject the better. Well done to the London Street Photography Festival.

I am so glad someone took the matter to the public! I have been gently invited not to take pics. I was shooting at the Angel metal statue in Angel, London, two months ago. I did not want to argue, so I left (the scene wasn't very good anyhow). But I did feel very upset. I thought London and the UK are becoming CRAZY.

Interesting. However I too believe we would have seen a different outcome if the security guys and the police had been unaware of the video guys. My experiences here in Germany are that you can shoot almost anywhere even with a larger cam. The only thing that would alert security would be a tripod in a train station or at the airport. For underground stations here in Frankfurt, you can get a free permit for non-commercial shots without any trouble.