Generally it is perfectly legal to take pictures of anyone or anything in a public place and recently the police in many areas have had additional guidance issued to them about how they should operate when they come across a photographer at work out on the streets. Several photography trade bodies & publications also issued copies of the guidelines for journalistic photographers to carry with them
But there are some places where photography is banned these include locations that are subject to the Official Secrets Acts 1911-1939 as Ministry of Defence Prohibited Places, they have signs on them with the rather quaint wording
"Prohibited place within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act. Loitering, photography, sketching forbidden."
and in fact Google Streetview fell foul of these restrictions and had to remove images of many MOD and MI5 locations from its service but I'm not aware of anyone being pounced on for getting out a sketch pad
I do hope I don't get a knock on the door (or worse) for publishing this image from a now defunct military establishment somewhere in England
2 comments:
I've signed the official secrets act for a job I did for ------- back in ---- they take it very seriously, we shot 120 film and even had to give them the paper wrapping after processing the film, everything was logged and accounted for and was taken away. It's all very strange being watched by security the whole job, polaroids were taken and the chemical peel offs, which you can get an image off, I imagine it all went up in smoke, they even took the unexposed polaroid out of the polaroid film backs when we finished up. I could probably sketch what I saw, even now, but I don't think it would be a good idea.
I have a client that is situated in a building across from a BNFL building, every time we do some shots of my clients building, the phones start ringing with questions from BNFL's security people. Even if we've warned them before hand.
I think the resent incidents of photographers being picked up by the police for photographing in a public place has just been heavy handed tactics by badly advised officers. I would imagine a terrorist isn't going to be pointing a Hasselblad or top of the range Canon or Nikon at a building to get an image of it, when they can use small compacts and camera phones, that way they'll look far more unobtrusive. The 'oh, a big camera=terrorist' idea is stupid.
In 2009 on a FlyBe flight to Guernsey from Birmingham, I was videoing out of the window (most people were on this flight). A rather keen trolly dolly with her loudest voice demanded I put the camera away. I could hear sniggers from close by passengers. With my blood pressure at this point = High, I decided to challenge her and ask for an explanation. Her reply: "there are sensitive military installations down there".
After severe snorting on and off the plane, I got an apology from the company explaining she was originally from British Airways where they have different training. At the time I was extremely sarcastic to her suggesting that I had not brought the hubble space telescope on board. A sniggerathon was starting at this point. I should have charged the 100 odd passengers on board an entertainment fee.
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