Lots of chatter online lately about how the UK (my home country) and London in particular, are clamping down on photographers.

On the 8th Dec, The Guardian ran a story about a chuch photographer getting stopped under terrorism powers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/08/police-search-photographer-terrorism-powers

On the 9th Dec, The Independent wrote about Police searching a photographer using anti-terror laws:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-search-photographer-using-antiterrorism-laws-1836683.html

And at the end of last month, there was a BBC photographer who spoke on UK television about his run in with the law:

I’ve heard reports of friends who still live in London about how photographer is getting harder and harder in London, but it’s starting to make major news for the first time (at least, the first time I’ve heard it). I hate reading articles like this. Street photographer can be a wonderfully artistic, rewarding and noble pursuit… but given the latest trend it would not surprise me at all to see photography completely “banned” in large sections of London. Now, part of me understands the intent of those laws – but they’re v poorly thought through. There at a dozen different arguments showing why they’ll be either completely ineffective or pointless (e.g. you can’t stop digital cameras with 21x zooms, terrorists aren’t the ones using tripods and L lenses, etc etc).

As for me, in the couple of times I’ve been back to the UK since I left a few years back, I’ve not been stopped. I did take some of my favourite street photography there however. A couple of examples:

Trafalgar Square, London  2006. Nikon D200 + 18-200mm zoom

South Bank, London 2006. Nikon D200 + 18-200mm zoom

Outside the National Portrait Gallery, London  2006. Nikon D200 + 18-200mm zoom

Despite not getting stopped in London, I do have an amusing tale about how I managed to get pulled over by two army vehicles and a dozen soldiers with assault rifles while photographing in Singapore, but that’s for another time (to skip to the end though, I survived without any scars and also without any pictures).

Although I don’t live in London / UK anymore, I’ll be following with interest to see how this develops. It’ll also be interesting to hear from any photographers living there to see if the sorts of stories above are isolated incidents or becoming more frequent.

Of course, there is an additional twist of irony to all this in that despite the UK’s clampdown on street photography, it remains one of the most recorded countries in the world. It’s estimated that there are more than 4 million CCTV cameras in the UK, one for every dozen or so people (dubious maths apparently provide this number – but it’s mighty impressive nonetheless).