London 2009
Subtitled “no narrative needed”! Heh heh
(The background to this little exercise in slideshows is here!)
Photography is not a crime!
Given that the UK is claimed to be one of the most surveilled countrys compared to other industrialised Western states, with upwards of 4.2m CCTV cameras (about one for every 14 people!) and almost certainly increasing daily, its quite bizarre that there should be such paranoia about folk innocently taking photographs in public places.
Yet there is. A paranoia, moreover, deliberately fostered by State agencies and the Police. (See this post)
What’s even more worrying is when the Police actively obstruct Press photographers, photojournalists and the like, from performing their legitimate and legal function of documenting newsworthy events.
And not just actively obstruct them, but treat them as though they are criminals or even terrorists!
Well, the British Journal of Photography has now decided to help in the fight back against this ridiculous and, it has to be said, sinister situation with the launch of its “Not a crime” campaign.
In their words…
Increasing concerns about terrorism, paedophilia, health and safety, personal privacy and plain old paranoia about pretty much anything Her Majesty’s subjects get up to has resulted in a deep mistrust of photographers.
Police routinely invoke anti-terror legislation to prevent photographers from carrying out their work, and photojournalists are constantly filmed at public gatherings and their details kept on an ever-growing database. Tourists, particularly foreign tourists, are also targeted by police, as was the case with an Austrian father and son recently who made the mistake of photographing a building of an extremely sensitive nature—Walthamstow bus station.
Put simply, Britain has become a no-photo zone, and so if you fail to comply, you may find yourself liable to attack, arrest or harassment. Recognising that Britain is not the only country where such a draconian anti-photographer culture is developing, the British Journal of Photography is beginning an international visual campaign to raise awareness.Over the next year we hope to gather thousands of self-portraits of photographers – professional and amateur – from around the world, each holding up a white card with the words, “Not a crime” or “I am not a terrorist”.
Check it out now, before its too late and you have to forever mothball your cameras or risk incarceration.
P.S.: The banner heading this post is downloadable in two different sizes from the “Not a crime” campaign website. I’ve also created a new dedicated set on Flickr that I may well add to periodically!
This article’s also been posted on my photography blog
CCTV surveillance of British citizens
OK, so its a bit late in the day but I’m finally catching up with this issue.
Unaccountably its something I’d not really engaged with – dunno why. Until now, that is. Over the past coupla months there’ve been a spate of articles in the press about this form of intrusive surveillance (mostly against, I’m pleased to note) and, perhaps more than anything else, these have brought the issue to the forefront of my consciousness.
So, as a preliminary skirmish with the topic I decided to do a bit of my own off-the-cuff research. Rather than post the details of that here (together with accompanying pics) I decided to create a dedicated page on the main site.
Check it out: “Say Cheese”…
Fortress London
Fortress London from Make Blogs Not War
21st Century London is under seige. Moreover, Londoners who live and work there appear to be totally oblivious to the fact.
Stepping off the train at Kings Cross, the first sight that greated me, once again, was a pod of two video cameras. This trip I didn’t even try to count the number of CCTV cameras I saw while I was in the city…
…However, there is a much more dangerous, covert battle going on, again, most are oblivious to this. The night before I travelled to London, I saw the film Equilibrium.
“In a futuristic world, a strict regime has eliminated war by suppressing emotions: books, art and music are strictly forbidden and feeling is a crime punishable by death.”
Disembodied voices barked propaganda at the population over loud speakers, giving orders, telling people what to think and do.
Yet on the London Underground this is exactly the environment the travelling public are subjected to every day. Years ago, these announcements used ot be few and far between, but only last week they seemed to be occuring every two or three minutes. Oyster card (so you can be traced throughout your journey) instructions, security instructions, line closures telling people to use other modes of transport to get to certain areas. All of these announcements were instructional. People told what to do. They were not offering advice or providing information for the public benefit. There is a very big difference between the two…
Rightfully we should be concerned about new legislation that encroaches on our freedoms, but the foregoing post that I came across on another blog (read the full post on Make Blogs Not War) serves as a timely reminder of the far more insidious (and potentially more pernicious) encroachments that occur on an almost daily basis.
Insidious because they pass unnoticed, creeping into our lives below the level of our conscious observation, and before too long we accept them simply because “that’s the way things are”… without pausing to question how a given situation has come about, much less whether or not it should be challenged.
Pernicious because, again unnoticed, they gradually shape our behaviour, our thought-patterns, our whole mindset – without our even realizing it!
And all too often they ride on the back of some attractively-packaged “new development” that really only offers superficial and largely superfluous “benefits” or “advantages”. (A question I find myself asking ever more frequently when confronted by such enticements is “whom does this really serve?”)
The world I live in now is vastly different (and I would certainly not say “better” in any real sense, though there are some minor improvements) from that which I occupied as a child.
Sure, I can point to certain major national and international events that have wrought changes, as too various advances in science and technology.
But so many of the changes have happened in small steps, in little ways, such that I frequently find myself asking “how did this come to be?”
And any extrapolation or projection I care to make seems to conjure a picture of a society that I really don’t care to be a part of. Just as well really that I’m in the latter half of my life, but what sort of world are our kids going to inherit?
