Full text:
“That this house is concerned to encourage the spread and enjoyment of photography as the most genuine and accessible people’s art; deplores the apparent increase in the number of reported incidents in which police, Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) or wardens attempt to stop street photography, and order the deletion of photographs or the confiscation of cards, cameras or film on various specious grounds such as claims that some public buildings are strategic or sensitive, that children and adults can only be photographed with their written permission, that photographs of police and PCSOs are illegal, or that photographs may be used by terrorists; points out that photography in public places and streets is not only enjoyable but perfectly legal; regrets all such efforts to stop, discourage or inhibit amateur photographers taking pictures in public places, many of which are in any case festooned with closed circuit television cameras; and urges the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers to agree on a photography code for the information of officers on the ground, setting out the public’s right to photograph public places thus allowing photographers to enjoy their hobby without officious interference or unjustified suspicion.”
Mitchell is chair of the House of Common’s amateur photography group. You can write to your own MP in support of the Motion via Write To Them.
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4 Comments
I support you 100% how is is it someone can take a photographs with a mobile and no one comments. use a n SLR and they pounce on you.
Why not arrange a photographers march on Parliament ?
unless we are a Orwellian state (Nazi). We will some find out if the thought police are alive and kicking?!
Yes. There are still plenty of lone SOCPA protests going on in Parliament Square, I gather. That might do it. ;)
Welcome to TPP, Michael.
It’s hard to separate the rights of professional and amateur photography in the context of today’s vastly developed means of distribution. There are a number of intersecting issues involved in all of this: i) artistic freedom/personal liberty; ii) the rights of individuals who have been photographed; iii) the abuse of photographic liberty (professional and amateur); iv) the state’s increasingly intrusive security agenda; v) officialdom’s traditions of a default ‘no’; vi) fear and insecurity in the context of uncontrollable distribution; vii) increased state and corporate surveillance and the counterbalancing individual rights both should determine; viii) privacy; ix) corporate/institutional copyright… The list goes on. It would be good to open up the debate – it’s important territory and it certainly concerns us at Amber/Side Gallery (Newcastle upon Tyne). Happy to organise an event at the gallery if it helps at all.
Graeme, that’s a really good idea.
Let’s do it. Where do we start? I don’t mind speaking, introducing speakers, whatever. There are huge and important issues here.
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