Taking photos in London
Discussion
Having been inspired by some great locations in Hustle last night I want to go to the City and get some photos of the great architecture there, however am I likey to be hassled by the Old Bill (or the plastic police) if I wander round with a camera taking photos of buildings etc? I would probably go a few times to get night, early morning and day shots.
I know that a terrorist group is hardly likely to recce a target with an SLR and a tripod in the middle of the day but I want to be aware of my rights in case a jumped up traffic warden tries to confiscate my memory card.
All advice (including locations) welcome.
I know that a terrorist group is hardly likely to recce a target with an SLR and a tripod in the middle of the day but I want to be aware of my rights in case a jumped up traffic warden tries to confiscate my memory card.
All advice (including locations) welcome.
My Advice?
Be careful:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pho...
Be careful:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pho...
Independant said:
Photographers criminalised as police 'abuse' anti-terror laws
Fury as stop-and-search powers are used to block and confiscate legal pictures
By Jonathan Brown
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Reuben Powell is an unlikely terrorist. A white, middle-aged, middle-class artist, he has been photographing and drawing life around the capital's Elephant & Castle for 25 years.
With a studio near the 1960s shopping centre at the heart of this area in south London, he is a familiar figure and is regularly seen snapping and sketching the people and buildings around his home – currently the site of Europe's largest regeneration project. But to the police officers who arrested him last week his photographing of the old HMSO print works close to the local police station posed an unacceptable security risk.
"The car skidded to a halt like something out of Starsky & Hutch and this officer jumped out very dramatically and said 'what are you doing?' I told him I was photographing the building and he said he was going to search me under the Anti-Terrorism Act," he recalled.
For Powell, this brush with the law resulted in five hours in a cell after police seized the lock-blade knife he uses to sharpen his pencils. His release only came after the intervention of the local MP, Simon Hughes, but not before he was handcuffed and his genetic material stored permanently on the DNA database.
But Powell's experience is far from uncommon. Every week photographers wielding their cameras in public find themselves on the receiving end of warnings either by police, who stop them under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, or from over-eager officials who believe that photography in a public area is somehow against the law.
Groups from journalists to trainspotters have found themselves on the receiving end of this unwanted attention, with many photographers now fearing that their job or hobby could be under threat.
So serious has the situation become that the MP and keen photographer Austin Mitchell, chairman of the Parliamentary All-Party Photography Group, tabled an early day motion last March deploring the "officious interference or unjustified suspicion" facing camera enthusiasts around public buildings, where they are increasingly told that it is against the law to photograph public servants at all – especially police officers or community support officers – or that members of the public cannot be photographed without their written permission. The Labour MP is now calling for a photography code for officers so that snappers can continue going about their rightful business.
Yet, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers, the law is straightforward. "Police officers may not prevent someone from taking a photograph in public unless they suspect criminal or terrorist intent. Their powers are strictly regulated by law and once an image has been recorded, the police have no power to delete or confiscate it without a court order. This applies equally to members of the media seeking to record images, who do not need a permit to photograph or film in public places," a spokeswoman said.
But still the harassment goes on. Philip Haigh, the business editor of Rail magazine, said the bullying of enthusiasts on railway platforms has become an unwelcome fact of life in Britain. "It is a problem that doesn't ever seem to go away. We get complaints from railway photographers all the time that they are told to stop what they are doing, mainly by railway staff but also by the police. It usually results in an apologetic letter from a rail company," he said.
In the summer, armed police swooped on a group of trainspotters known as the Steam Boys as they waited with high-powered photographic equipment to capture a 1950s engine called The Great Marquess as it crossed the Forth Bridge near Gordon Brown's constituency home in Fife.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has also taken up the cause, highlighting the case last month of the photographer Jess Hurd, whose camera was taken from her when she was detained for 45 minutes under Section 44 while documenting a traveller wedding in London's Docklands. Last week police were filmed obstructing photographers covering a protest at the Greek embassy in London. Scotland Yard promised to investigate.
Jeremy Dear, the general secretary of the NUJ, said: "It's time the police realised that taking photographs doesn't automatically mean you're a terrorist. Every month the NUJ finds itself dealing with yet more cases of officers infringing journalistic freedoms and, very often, exceeding their legal powers.
"Even the police's own guidance makes it clear that there's nothing in the Terrorism Act that can be used to prohibit the taking of photos in a public place. The authorities have got to do more to ensure that those people charged with upholding the law don't keep on contravening it by trampling over well-established civil liberties."
Fury as stop-and-search powers are used to block and confiscate legal pictures
By Jonathan Brown
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Reuben Powell is an unlikely terrorist. A white, middle-aged, middle-class artist, he has been photographing and drawing life around the capital's Elephant & Castle for 25 years.
With a studio near the 1960s shopping centre at the heart of this area in south London, he is a familiar figure and is regularly seen snapping and sketching the people and buildings around his home – currently the site of Europe's largest regeneration project. But to the police officers who arrested him last week his photographing of the old HMSO print works close to the local police station posed an unacceptable security risk.
"The car skidded to a halt like something out of Starsky & Hutch and this officer jumped out very dramatically and said 'what are you doing?' I told him I was photographing the building and he said he was going to search me under the Anti-Terrorism Act," he recalled.
For Powell, this brush with the law resulted in five hours in a cell after police seized the lock-blade knife he uses to sharpen his pencils. His release only came after the intervention of the local MP, Simon Hughes, but not before he was handcuffed and his genetic material stored permanently on the DNA database.
But Powell's experience is far from uncommon. Every week photographers wielding their cameras in public find themselves on the receiving end of warnings either by police, who stop them under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, or from over-eager officials who believe that photography in a public area is somehow against the law.
Groups from journalists to trainspotters have found themselves on the receiving end of this unwanted attention, with many photographers now fearing that their job or hobby could be under threat.
So serious has the situation become that the MP and keen photographer Austin Mitchell, chairman of the Parliamentary All-Party Photography Group, tabled an early day motion last March deploring the "officious interference or unjustified suspicion" facing camera enthusiasts around public buildings, where they are increasingly told that it is against the law to photograph public servants at all – especially police officers or community support officers – or that members of the public cannot be photographed without their written permission. The Labour MP is now calling for a photography code for officers so that snappers can continue going about their rightful business.
Yet, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers, the law is straightforward. "Police officers may not prevent someone from taking a photograph in public unless they suspect criminal or terrorist intent. Their powers are strictly regulated by law and once an image has been recorded, the police have no power to delete or confiscate it without a court order. This applies equally to members of the media seeking to record images, who do not need a permit to photograph or film in public places," a spokeswoman said.
But still the harassment goes on. Philip Haigh, the business editor of Rail magazine, said the bullying of enthusiasts on railway platforms has become an unwelcome fact of life in Britain. "It is a problem that doesn't ever seem to go away. We get complaints from railway photographers all the time that they are told to stop what they are doing, mainly by railway staff but also by the police. It usually results in an apologetic letter from a rail company," he said.
In the summer, armed police swooped on a group of trainspotters known as the Steam Boys as they waited with high-powered photographic equipment to capture a 1950s engine called The Great Marquess as it crossed the Forth Bridge near Gordon Brown's constituency home in Fife.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has also taken up the cause, highlighting the case last month of the photographer Jess Hurd, whose camera was taken from her when she was detained for 45 minutes under Section 44 while documenting a traveller wedding in London's Docklands. Last week police were filmed obstructing photographers covering a protest at the Greek embassy in London. Scotland Yard promised to investigate.
Jeremy Dear, the general secretary of the NUJ, said: "It's time the police realised that taking photographs doesn't automatically mean you're a terrorist. Every month the NUJ finds itself dealing with yet more cases of officers infringing journalistic freedoms and, very often, exceeding their legal powers.
"Even the police's own guidance makes it clear that there's nothing in the Terrorism Act that can be used to prohibit the taking of photos in a public place. The authorities have got to do more to ensure that those people charged with upholding the law don't keep on contravening it by trampling over well-established civil liberties."
Thanks for the advice guys. Was thinking about going early evening after work, maybe about 20:00 ish down by the river.
mrmr96 - that was exactly the the reason I posted this as kind of this seems to be happening more and more, especially in London. At least I am a bit more aware of my rights should I get talked to by the Police. I'll just have to remember to keep it calm and civil if I do.
I think I'll go down during the day next week and see how I get on, hopefully I will get a nice sunny day but I'm not holding my breath...
mrmr96 - that was exactly the the reason I posted this as kind of this seems to be happening more and more, especially in London. At least I am a bit more aware of my rights should I get talked to by the Police. I'll just have to remember to keep it calm and civil if I do.
I think I'll go down during the day next week and see how I get on, hopefully I will get a nice sunny day but I'm not holding my breath...
Only time I've ever been spoken to while taking photo's around London was in Canary Wharf and even then it was just a brief chat about whether the photo's were for personal of commercial use (personal, obviously) and then I was left alone. I did once have a copper stand and watch me from the other side of the road for a while when I was taking photo's in the city but he never came and spoke to me.
You'll be fine.
You'll be fine.
Strictly speaking you should get the permission of the local police when you are photographing buildings in London. I did so and they assured me that I would probably be regarded as a tourist (with the obvious exception of M15 and the like). The South Bank is private property so you would need to get permission from owners of buildings (?). This is the only place that I have been stopped (admittedly I was aware of the restriction). For Canary Wharf you can get a day pass from the press office at 1 Canada Square. Ring in advance and collect on the day. This is for photographs for personal, non-commercial use.
As someone else has said, at night security guards get a bit twitchy, so make sure you don't leave your letter of authorisation at home as I did once.
As someone else has said, at night security guards get a bit twitchy, so make sure you don't leave your letter of authorisation at home as I did once.
EmmaP said:
Strictly speaking you should get the permission of the local police when you are photographing buildings in London. I did so and they assured me that I would probably be regarded as a tourist (with the obvious exception of M15 and the like). The South Bank is private property so you would need to get permission from owners of buildings (?). This is the only place that I have been stopped (admittedly I was aware of the restriction). For Canary Wharf you can get a day pass from the press office at 1 Canada Square. Ring in advance and collect on the day. This is for photographs for personal, non-commercial use.
As someone else has said, at night security guards get a bit twitchy, so make sure you don't leave your letter of authorisation at home as I did once.
Excellent advice, thanks.As someone else has said, at night security guards get a bit twitchy, so make sure you don't leave your letter of authorisation at home as I did once.
Just spoken to the press office @ Canary Wharf and they said that if the photos are for personal use then I don't need a pass. Excellent, off to look at the weather forecast for next week!
Edited by Tycho on Friday 9th January 10:22
nick_bbb said:
Tycho said:
Just spoken to the press office @ Canary Wharf and they said that if the photos are for personal use then I don't need a pass.
Will you be using a tripod? If so the security won't believe you. Edited by Tycho on Friday 9th January 10:22
I culled this piece of advice form this forum a while back - the idea being that when the Anti-Terrorist Squad (Stockwell Division) come charging at you guns blazing, you can stop them in their tracks and be invited back for tea and buns amid profuse apologies 
'You are reminded that under UK law, there are no restrictions on taking photographs in a public place or on photography of individuals, whether they are adults or minors. There is no right to privacy in a public place, although photographers are of course subject to the usual libel laws in the same way as any other citizen and should observe them. Equipment or film may not be confiscated, or images deleted by any person or officer unless a warrant for such action is issued. Any attempt without a warrant is considered assault under UK law.'
If it doesn't work, what kind of flowers do you like?
ETA: Having said that, I was set up with a tripod in Regent Street for half an hour and nobody batted an eyelid.
'You are reminded that under UK law, there are no restrictions on taking photographs in a public place or on photography of individuals, whether they are adults or minors. There is no right to privacy in a public place, although photographers are of course subject to the usual libel laws in the same way as any other citizen and should observe them. Equipment or film may not be confiscated, or images deleted by any person or officer unless a warrant for such action is issued. Any attempt without a warrant is considered assault under UK law.'
If it doesn't work, what kind of flowers do you like?
ETA: Having said that, I was set up with a tripod in Regent Street for half an hour and nobody batted an eyelid.
Edited by Simpo Two on Friday 9th January 10:51
Whilst the rest of your advice is sound Emma, I have to ask about this bit:
EmmaP said:
Strictly speaking you should get the permission of the local police when you are photographing buildings in London.
On what basis do you have to ask the Police permission to do something that is perfectly legal?Simpo Two said:
I culled this piece of advice form this forum a while back - the idea being that when the Anti-Terrorist Squad (Stockwell Division) come charging at you guns blazing, you can stop them in their tracks and be invited back for tea and buns amid profuse apologies
'You are reminded that under UK law, there are no restrictions on taking photographs in a public place or on photography of individuals, whether they are adults or minors. There is no right to privacy in a public place, although photographers are of course subject to the usual libel laws in the same way as any other citizen and should observe them. Equipment or film may not be confiscated, or images deleted by any person or officer unless a warrant for such action is issued. Any attempt without a warrant is considered assault under UK law.'
If it doesn't work, what kind of flowers do you like?
'You are reminded that under UK law, there are no restrictions on taking photographs in a public place or on photography of individuals, whether they are adults or minors. There is no right to privacy in a public place, although photographers are of course subject to the usual libel laws in the same way as any other citizen and should observe them. Equipment or film may not be confiscated, or images deleted by any person or officer unless a warrant for such action is issued. Any attempt without a warrant is considered assault under UK law.'
If it doesn't work, what kind of flowers do you like?
nick_bbb said:
Some of Hustle was shot at Canary Wharf, you will get hassle there as it's all private land. City should be a bit more reasonable.
I've taken hundreds of photos around Canary Wharf and only been approached once by a plastic who told me a need a permit to photograph on the estate (probably because I had a kitbag, tripod etc) and I can get one from the security office. But the place is crawling with tourists these days taking photos so I don't think they are really that bothered unless you are going to use the pictures for commercial reasons_dobbo_ said:
Whilst the rest of your advice is sound Emma, I have to ask about this bit:
I think I must have read it in my book on photography law or somewhere. Prior to doing photographs for my portfolio in London I did some research. It may have been more pertinent to film making what I read. It was so long ago I cannot remember. I know that if you are on the public foot path or road it is fine. I think there is strict security around some buildings. I think it is always best to seek advice first. I'd have hated to take a week off for my trip to get turned away. EmmaP said:
Strictly speaking you should get the permission of the local police when you are photographing buildings in London.
On what basis do you have to ask the Police permission to do something that is perfectly legal?Back in August myself, the other half and my wee brother were all over London snapping pics, all 3 of us armed with SLR's along with me carrying the rucksack with assorted lenses and tripod on my back - not one single negative look, even had a copper ask to see the pic I took of the other half balancing on a pole in front of the egg, and their response was "wow, that's really cool looking"...yes there are plenty of jobsworths around but the old gentle approach usually works better than barking back as soon as you're provoked 
Just remember that they can't confiscate the cam or delete any images without a warrant and that usually stops things quite quickly, but it has also led to spending a few hours down at the local nick while the plodder tries to verify the info given to him
Just remember that they can't confiscate the cam or delete any images without a warrant and that usually stops things quite quickly, but it has also led to spending a few hours down at the local nick while the plodder tries to verify the info given to him
Excellent topic, and couldn't have been muched better timed. I'm off to London in February, staying in Southwark. Perfect as, amongst other things, I want to take photos of Tower bridge, HMS Belfast (is it still there, lol) and The London Eye. What should I be aware of any 'obstructions' or unwritten 'laws' when photographing these landmarks? Oh, I will be using a tripod.
Anything else around there (near there) worth taking pictures of (not a Londoner and haven't been for decades).
Is there a document on the net that's worth having on your person, that explains what's allowed under law, to help you should such conflict occur? I would be interested in having one, for sure.
Many thanks, for this topic and the posts - great info provided so far.
Scott
Anything else around there (near there) worth taking pictures of (not a Londoner and haven't been for decades).
Is there a document on the net that's worth having on your person, that explains what's allowed under law, to help you should such conflict occur? I would be interested in having one, for sure.
Many thanks, for this topic and the posts - great info provided so far.
Scott
General point about anywhere that might just be private property that you know you might want to photograph.
Have done it several times for photo-competitions mentioned on particular topics, i.e. Wetlands Centre, zoos, but works for cathedrals and other places/grounds too. Haven't tried, but you might find it works for shopping malls or something too.
Find website and contact details - often very easy/two minutes search.
Email Press Office or similar, asking "what permits do I require for still photography (for commercial use/NOT for commercial use) in the area..." indicate vaguely on a scale of whether you are a tourist or expecting to take along three van-loads of kit and two bus-loads of models. Try a touristy line like [Yank] "Gee, I'm over visiting your lovely capital and I seen you on the movies and well heck wouldn't it be nice to have a photo..." [/Yank] if it's that sort of attraction, as appropriate - flattery DOES work!
See what reply you get - often it's a "you won't need anything for non-commercial purposes" type. Sometimes it's buy a pass on entering (you know, a couple of quid on top of entry to some attraction).
Whatever answer you get, print out e-mail and have it with you ready to say: "Miss So-and-so says it's alright... here...". It's like taking an umbrella - if you've got it with you you'll never need it.
Have done it several times for photo-competitions mentioned on particular topics, i.e. Wetlands Centre, zoos, but works for cathedrals and other places/grounds too. Haven't tried, but you might find it works for shopping malls or something too.
Find website and contact details - often very easy/two minutes search.
Email Press Office or similar, asking "what permits do I require for still photography (for commercial use/NOT for commercial use) in the area..." indicate vaguely on a scale of whether you are a tourist or expecting to take along three van-loads of kit and two bus-loads of models. Try a touristy line like [Yank] "Gee, I'm over visiting your lovely capital and I seen you on the movies and well heck wouldn't it be nice to have a photo..." [/Yank] if it's that sort of attraction, as appropriate - flattery DOES work!
See what reply you get - often it's a "you won't need anything for non-commercial purposes" type. Sometimes it's buy a pass on entering (you know, a couple of quid on top of entry to some attraction).
Whatever answer you get, print out e-mail and have it with you ready to say: "Miss So-and-so says it's alright... here...". It's like taking an umbrella - if you've got it with you you'll never need it.
beano500 said:
Whatever answer you get, print out e-mail and have it with you ready to say: "Miss So-and-so says it's alright... here...".
Ah yes, that takes me back to video days - always get a senior name to drop. Naturally the tatooed Neanderthal who approaches you will know nothing of the arrangement (information is NEVER passed down from management to security), but it usually contents them sufficiently to go off and drag their knuckles elsewhere. Smiling and saying slowly 'F r i e n d' can help too.Edited by Simpo Two on Friday 9th January 14:08
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