Photographers agree to blur firearms officers faces

Now this is what really annoys me, who has given the photographers, agencies and newspapers the authority to agree to this, this should have gone trough the unions for a decision if any.

So now we have “The police will be issuing guidelines to picture desks across all London papers soon.” but thousands of press photographers won’t get that guideline, so it should be down to the editors decision on what is needed in privacy as they are the ones in control if a picture is too horrific it is the editors decision not the photographer. What about other forces don’t they have firearms officers? Do the guidelines apply?

We just don’t have time to vet and consider if the image is offensive to readers or we may have breached some hidden point of privacy in an individual we would have to start asking them this right at the beginning in which case the pictures change dramatically from the candid approach that says its real and not set up or posed.

It is also interesting to note that Nigel Howard an Evening Standard Photographer said “there could still a problem when “citizen journalists” take
pictures of crime scenes using mobile phones, but he admitted there was
little either side could do about it.”

No there is little you can do about it and you don’t have the right to speak for them either Howard!

Now its all very well them saying one dads kid got jibbed at school but that can happen for anyone who appearers in the paper, what about parents committing sucide, or being a hippy a pagan, a priest, all of which is enough for a kid to get teased at school, thats waht school is like…sadley

Photographers agree to blur firearms officers’ faces – Press Gazette

A group of Fleet Street photographers has agreed to greater cooperation with firearms police officers with the Metropolitan Police, including pixelating faces to hide the marksmen’s identities.

About 12 newspaper, agency and freelance photographers met senior officers from CO19, the Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Firearms Command, yesterday in a bid to foster better relations between police and press. Read More>>

Innocent photographer or terrorist?

Just found this on the BBC website if you are into photography you can go and sign the petition but asking for the PM to clarify the laws is not a good idea in my opinion. It is open invitation to put laws into place when they are not needed.

Its paranoia that if you have a camera you are a terrorist or up to no good and a culture of fear has been built up deliberately. There is no law saying you are allowed to take pictures in a public place, there is no law saying you can’t either; its considered a right

British police force vows to act on photographers’ anti-terror fears

Three weeks ago I reported that Photographers were under attack and more recently found a video of a film maker getting grief in London and the NUJ calling for ‘Press Freedom Protest’

Well at least the Met look like they are going to reverse there stance over people photographing in London. Maybe they realise photography is quite a natural lifestyle thing to do and we may not be terrorist’s after all.

However if the Met Police are going to play this as “we weren’t aware of the issues of photographers” frankly they can get stuffed, the NUJ have been complaining to the Met for more years than I can remember over abuse to press photographers and reminding them of photographers rights. (see the ‘Resources for the Photographer’ box on the sidebar for downloadable photographer rights guides)

I have to say I have grave concerns over policing in this country when I got stopped and searched at the end of last year for “subject in possession of long lens Nikon camera” (it was in fact only a 24-120 mm zoom and in fact my G9 has a greater focal length range) even when I have a UK press Card. My concern is that an amateur photographer, unaware of their rights may not have faired so well, and could have even ended up being arrested!

I appreciate and understand the police and government  have fears over terrorism, but who is actually calling the shots here? It’s clearly not a government initiative and terrorism, which is a concern to us all has to be kept in perspective like the BBC has pointed out here it is not a new threat to the UK and during the troubles with the IRA we had far more attacks and loss of life than 7/7. Cameras were around then too, and probably used for surveillance by the IRA but it wasn’t deemed necessary to accuse the citizens of being terrorists. It makes little sense to me to restrict the law abiding citizens to a point they are the prisoners and there rights taken way from them.

Well that enough of my rant, Amateur Photographer has a piece on them with links to the MP’s Launching a petition in the House of Commons and more…

Press Freedom Protest! New Scotland Yard!

This is not the sort of headline you or I would expect to see in a democratic, civilised western country, but increasingly press photographers and amateur  photographers are becoming targeted more and more. recently the Met launched an add campaign that makes photographers look like a terrorist suspect. On a personal level I am getting stopped more and more even though I have a UK Press Card (not shown)

Restrictions on the right to protest have gone hand in hand with attacks on those of us who cover protests.  In recent months there have been attacks on photographers, people have had equipment seized and access has been denied. Police officers routinely stand in front of photographers, hold a hand in front of lenses, preventing decent shots being taken by deadline.

Our lawful right to do our job is increasingly under threat.

To highlight such attacks on the freedom of the media, NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear will stage a lone protest outside New Scotland Yard:

Date: Friday 28th March 2008.
Time: 2-3pm.
Place: New Scotland Yard, London, S1.

Map:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=New+Scotland+Yard,+London,+S1&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wl

Whilst the law puts restrictions on how many protesters and the nature of any protest, photographers have a right to cover protests – lawful or otherwise.

Yet that right is all too often being denied.

Show your support for the right to photograph protests free from threats or intimidation.

Join the ‘press pack’ at 2pm!

Don’t forget your UK Press Card! – Maybe wear it with pride! or buy one of these protest T-shirts from Editorial Photographers UK (EPUK) that says “Thousands of coppers stop photographers each day – What if one of them seems odd” and “State control – if you see it report it” Yes put me down for a   t-shirt

Photographers Under Attack!

THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE TAKE PHOTOS EVERY DAY.

WHAT IF ONE OF THEM SEEMS ODD? 

Terrorists use surveillance to help plan attacks, taking photos and making notes about security measures like the location of CCTV cameras. If you see someone doing that, we need to know. Let experienced officers decide what action to take.

The Metropolitan Police website

Well that was the strap line on the back cover of the London paper today and I predict a lot of stories coming out of it about photographers just trying to enjoy their hobbies, but now being constantly stopped by police, especially in a tourist hotspot like London.

Type in CCTV on Flickr (15,439 results) and see how many images you get or try the same on an image search Google (3,130,000 results) hmmm…

I doubt very much terrorists are going to be using Nikon D3 or Canon MkIII ds to do this kind of target research but more likely to use an average Joe tourist type of camera, the problem is the non-photographing public have no way of knowing one from the other and G9 users, best take care as it is such a discrete styled camera, even their add shows a compact camera as well as mobile phones, however with the mobile phone its how many they have that makes them suspicious, not the phone itself.

My personal feelings on this is that it makes me feel like a second rate citizen, like I have been accused of doing something wrong when I haven’t and my human rights have been infringed, heck I have even photographed CCTV cameras in the past, for aesthetics and as a statement about the times we live in and issues we face.

Check out the resources for the photographer in the sidebar and download and print the UK Photographers Rights PDF

I get "published"! (Sorta)

Ricky Montalvo from Blog001 has an interesting tale on how his picture taken on a Canon G9 gets published in the Montreal’s ‘The Observer’

It appears that a Montreal newspaper “The Observers” ran with an image I took with my new Canon G9 which they found on a Flickr group.  The photo was part of a group within Flickr, where users can submit pictures depicting their “feelings” on Flickr (which is a part of Yahoo!) merging with Microsoft.  So, I decided to submit the image you see above.  I got an email via Flickr mail from the people at the Observer asking for permission, which I gave and they followed the Creative Commons attributes I set. 

Photographer finds Flickr pics sold on iStockphoto | Underexposed – CNET News.com

 

Photographer finds Flickr pics sold on iStockphoto

Posted by Stephen Shankland

A Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir self-portrait

(Credit: Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir)

Update 4:15 p.m. PST: I added a comment from Guðleifsdóttir and corrected that the earlier incident involved selling eight individual photos.

An Icelandic photographer has for a second time encountered the ugly side of Internet photo sharing, finding photos she published at Yahoo’s Flickr site being sold by somebody else through the iStockphoto Web site.

Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir, a professional photographer, found a picture she took of three frolicking horses on iStockphoto, a “microstock” site that licenses images for relatively low prices.

“I mean for crying out loud, out of 31 images this particular user has on his ‘portfolio,’ 25 of them are mine, and at least 3 are of me,” she said in the caption for a screenshot of the iStockphoto page.

iStockphoto, a division of Getty Images, removed the photo and the user, named “vulcanacar.”

Whale – Canon and Greenpeace

Dave Walsh (great website and blog) a canon using photographer and press officer for Greenpeace and is floating around in the Southern Ocean and Dave started thinking: Whalers shoot whales. So do photographers… Canon sponsor the endangered species “Wildlife as Canon sees it” advert in National Geographic… the CEO of Canon in Japan is also the head of the biggest business association in Japan…So then my Greenpeace colleagues got hold of it, and it developed… we wrote to Canon in Japan, asking them to sign this statement.Canon replied on 22 January 2008, claiming to recognise “the importance of protecting endangered wildlife.” However, their letter concluded, “scientific opinion about research whaling varies… we will not sign the statement you have sent us.”Well, we thought that this was a bit weak… so we ask… So why shoot a whale with a harpoon when you can use a Canon?The Japanese whaling fleet is after 935 minke whales and 50 endangered fin whales. To date, we’ve been chasing the whaling ship Nisshin Maru for 13 days now – and it hasn’t killed any whales in that time.Tokyo, Japan — Here at Greenpeace, we support shooting whales… with cameras. But we’re surprised to learn that Canon, the world’s number one digital camera producer, isn’t willing to condemn using harpoons — despite their high-profile advertising and sponsorship programs dedicated to wildlife and endangered species.We wrote to Canon headquarters in Japan asking their CEO to speak out against Japan’s whaling program. But Canon declined to take a stand against the killing of thousands of whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Is this really wildlife as Canon sees it?Around the world, Canon cameras shoot whales on whale-watching expeditions but in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, many whales are shot instead with exploding harpoons. Thousands of whales, including endangered fin whales, have been killed here under the guise of “scientific research” ever since the global moratorium on whaling came into force in 1986. Whale meat from the hunt is sold to a tiny minority of Japanese people who eat whale meat — the rest is turned into dog food or added to the stockpile of around 4,000 tonnes of unsold meat.  Whales can be studied without killing them: the cloak of “science” merely allows a few Japanese bureaucrats to maintain an unprofitable whale meat industry at the expense of Japanese taxpayers. Yet this scandal continues because there is not enough domestic pressure in Japan to end it.Read more on Greenpeace website

Police seize photographers film

An amateur photographer has told how police seized his film as he was out taking snaps in a Hull shopping centre.

Steve Carroll, of Kent, was visiting relatives in Hull in December when he decided to do some “street photography” in the city’s Prospect Centre.

Shoppers reported him to the police, who took his film because he seemed to be operating in “a covert manner”.

Mr Carroll lodged a complaint against Humberside Police but an investigation concluded its officers acted correctly.

Officers have common law powers of seizure, a force spokeswoman said.

More on BBC

Banned from owning a camera

A paedophile who took pictures of a boy being abused and distributed them round the world has been banned from owning anything capable of taking photographs.

More information on the BBC