Rally for Concerned Photographers is a protest by Australian photographers in Sydney this Sunday. Nick Rains explains the big deal:

It’s about it being a criminal offence to sell a photo you have taken of all sorts of places like Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, Bondi Beach, any National Park and so on. Even if you are an enthusiast who happens down the track to have the opportunity to get an image published, or even win a prize in a competition.

This affects both pros and amateurs alike, not to mention it making it very difficult for a pro to do any sort of travel or street photography with out being pestered by council employees or having people assume you are a pedophile.

And another thing, it’s really tedious for camera buffs with half decent cameras to be assumed to be pros when out following their hobby. This means they get approached all the time by over zealous officials and have to defend their rights to go about their lawful pursuits.

As with the Photographer Not a Terrorist campaign in the UK, the less one distinguishes between “amateurs” and “professionals” the better.

I was just going to post a link to yet another example of the Keystone cops, oops British police, pouncing on another suspected terrorist reconnaissance mission – a Guardian reporter taking photos of the Gherkin building in the City of London:

When I arrived at the Gherkin at 11am yesterday I was stopped by a security guard as I walked around the side of the building. When he told me I had strayed on to private land, I returned to the pavement, but declined his repeated requests to show him the images on my camera.

Back on the pavement, a second security guard informed me that under “anti-terrorism” I was permitted to photograph or film the top end of the building, but the lower half, which included the reception area, fire exits and security cameras, was off-bounds.

And so the boys in blue were summoned…. I don’t doubt the Guardian’s report for one second, but in the interests of balance, last weekend I was taking photos of the very same building, and I didn’t get stopped. It was a nice morning and I was in no hurry, took the pictures I wanted, and then wandered on, and I didn’t sense the security guards’ bovine eyes on my back. As an overweight middle-aged white bloke, beardless in all but surname, standing around and looking intently at my surroundings, and carrying a dangerously-big camera, surely I should have generated suspicion? I could have been a nice big tick mark on the day’s quota of successful anti-terrorist action….

It’s the inconsistency, the random stupidity that really irritates. Why the hell should I have been going for a lawful Sunday morning stroll expecting a confrontation with brain dead security or box ticking cops who don’t know the law they’re so eager to enforce? January 23rd’s demo can’t come soon enough.

Update: this week’s successful counter-terrorist swoops:

• wedding photographer
• Italian art student

Recently in Rome I used my tripod almost everywhere, not inside museums though, and never had a single hint of a problem. But from my Tripodophobia posts you’ll see I’ve had a number of clashes in London with “security guards” who think they can obstruct or prevent people taking pictures, especially if they have a big camera or – sure sign of a bomb-toting religious fanatic – a tripod. Sure, Muslim nuts scout out their targets with big Nikons and Canons round their necks and spend half an hour in the same spot waiting for the right light…. Actually, maybe they do do the latter during the Haj.

It’s as crazy as the congestion charging proposals (rant below). So sign the photography petition to No 10 Downing Street:

There are a number of moves promoting the requirement of ‘ID’ cards to allow photographers to operate in a public place. It is a fundamental right of a UK citizen to use a camera in a public place, indeed there is no right to privacy when in a public place. These moves have developed from paranoia and only promote suspicion towards genuine people following their hobby or profession.

Rant alert. City centres excepted, the recent congestion charging idea was plain daft. Congestion’s self regulating – you avoid busy times or just put up with it, don’t you? Who cares about congestion as such? Pollution’s another issue, of course. Certainly there’s no need to spend money on new IT systems – Labour’s again proposing a Tory market-driven solution that diverts money into big IT consultancies. Whack up fuel tax and people won’t drive as much.

This story is worth reading all the way through:

A London underground station was evacuated and part of a main east-west line closed in a security alert on Thursday, three weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 people on the transport network, police said. (Reuters)

This Reuters story was written while the police were detaining me in Southwark tube station and the bomb squad was checking my rucksack. When they were through, the two explosive specialists walked out of the tube station smiling and commenting: “Nice laptop.” The officers offered apologies on behalf of the Metropolitan police. Then they arrested me.

This is getting ridiculous – this afternoon I was asked to give written permission after I was filmed eating.

I was in central London and had sat down to review the images I’d just taken of a performance by these Japanese musicians, Okinawa Eisa. Two English women in kimonos were offering noodles – they were promoting a stall nearby – and they had just reached me when a 6 strong film crew appeared and I was on one a number of people filmed.

The crew quickly moved on, but one stayed behind and explained they were from BBC2 and asked if I would sign their consent form. Apparently they now do this whenever they film anyone, just in case. Ludicrous! It was hardly as though they had filmed me covertly and I’m sure the footage shows I could have got up and moved away had I not wanted to be filmed.

Maybe the next time a security guard hassles me, I’ll ask them if they have my consent for recording me on their CCTV?

This site’s semi-official title is “nutter behind the camera”. Here’s why….

In today’s Amateur Photographer a letter told how a Birmingham security guard stopped the letter-writer photographing on suspicion of being a terrorist. Having also been smeared as a potential terrorist, when I had my camera on a tripod near the London Eye, I’d like to share a few countermeasures.

Make sure you ask directly if they are actually saying that you are a terrorist. They’re already backing off, aren’t they? And if you were a terrorist, ask the guard if he seriously thinks you would carry such an obvious camera and tripod and all your other paraphernalia. If he thinks so, just tap your nose and wink “you never know, do you?”. Ask if coffee table books with full page photos, even architectural designs, are available in their shop? If you’re brave (I’m over 6 foot tall) don’t forget to enquire about procedures for vetting security guards, and see if he has heard of recent cases where journalists infiltrated airline security, and inside job robberies at high value couriers. Then see if he knows of any similar cases involving photographers. No? And see if he knows if the police ever ask photographers for pictures of incidents. They do, you know, all the time.

Even if the rent-a-uniforms do not play the terrorism card, keep up your questioning and keep them on the back foot. A good starter is to ask who they are? After all, they could be tour guides, and you’ve read in the Sun or the News of the World how many people are into wearing uniform. Or tell them you’re also into photographing uniform fetishists and try to find out if it’s their thing. Make them unsure if you’re harmless or weird and deviant. Ask exactly why they want to stop you engaging in a perfectly-legal activity, why they imagine your tripod indicates you are photographing commercially, and who you can complain to. Don’t fail to point it out if you are a customer of whatever they are protecting or if you indirectly pay their wages through your taxes.

But above all remember that, your goal is not to waste their time – they aren’t going anywhere. What you are trying to do is to make them think and make them feel awkward and so uncomfortable they lose their will to confront you and, more importantly, any future photographer….

Another great approach is to explain in mindblowing detail exactly what you’re doing. Enthuse. If lead in lines fail to excite, tell them all about your camera, raw formats, jpeg compression, white balance…. I recommend in-camera sharpening versus Photoshop CS2′s Smart Sharpen and third party tools. Of course, occasionally this can work both ways. For instance, I’ve recently been interrupted twice while shooting digital infrared and in each case explained the technique means exposures so long that I needed a tripod. One guard withdrew long before the first mention of nanometres, while the other was so impressed with the results that he hung around for a few minutes and didn’t bother me at all.

If they don’t ask you to leave, you don’t have to go. If they do, you’ll have to – but never let them feel any sense of victory. Even a pyrrhic one. Make sure they never again dare approach a nutter with a camera.

(Adapted from my letter subsequently published in AP)

London’s new City Hall is one of the city’s more photogenic recent developments. If you don’t know it, the Norman Foster-designed building stands alone on the riverside and is surrounded by an open paved space laid out in swirls echoing the building’s strange shape. The area is completely open to the public.

Early Sunday morning – so early no-one else was about – I was at City Hall with my camera and tripod. As I had already got the pictures I wanted, and the sun was now causing flare with the 14mm Sigma wide-angle, so I was going to move on, but first I just wanted to try some alternative compositions and had the camera in my hand and the tripod over to one side. A security guard passed me and stopped about 25 metres away, and as I had the feeling he was watching me I decided to put the camera on the tripod.

Within seconds he came over and asked (politely) if I had a permit to photograph with a tripod. I told him very firmly but politely that I had not, and saw absolutely no reason why he should expect me to. After being told I supposedly needed such a permit to use a tripod, I tanked him for the information and let him know this restriction was ridiculous and I would ignore him and continue taking pictures.

We discussed it for over 10 minutes during which time he agreed there was no security issue and that no-one was liable to trip over my tripod. I continued taking pictures and, to reinforce my point, moved position two or three times. He tagged along, and radioed his supervisor, repeating my assurance that I was photographing as a hobby and that my council and income taxes helped pay for the building (maybe I should have added that I also voted for the current mayor). Eventually he was told I could continue using the tripod to photograph City Hall, but not the office blocks on the same development.

Frankly, if I want to photograph those buildings with a tripod, I will do so. If I don’t require a permit to walk right up to them or photograph there, then I won’t accept being told what type of camera equipment I can use, tripod or not, film or digital!

So go there if you’re in London and freely take your tripod. We’ve 1000 years of fighting for liberties great and small. Frankly, I also like a good argument – my next stop this morning was Speakers Corner.