My terrorism act
The snap-happy readers of Amateur Photographer magazine keep being mistaken for security risks. James Sturcke sees if he can get apprehended
Friday April 28, 2006
I never guessed when I bought my camera last summer, a few days after the July 7 bombings in London, that I might come to be seen as a terrorist threat.
It was July 29, 7.38am (the metadata stored in digital images records these things) and I was walking through the City of London on the way to the Guardian offices, in Clerkenwell. There is a lovely view of St Paul's cathedral from Newgate, so I stopped to take a few pictures. I was crouched down on the pavement, trying to get a good angle, when I became aware that two men in fluorescent jackets were leaning over me.
"What are you taking pictures of?" one demanded. I paused to consider whether this was a trick question before replying that I was snapping St Paul's cathedral.
"Oh, that's all right. It's just that on our cameras it looked like you were taking pictures of the stock exchange," he explained.
The stock exchange, it turned out, filled the side of Paternoster Square where I was standing and, yes, the building, or at least the protruding security cameras, had snuck into my photos. It also emerged that my vantage point was not in fact a public pavement, but private land, and so the owner could impose conditions on people entering the property, including a ban on photos.
I have not been the only photographer acting "suspiciously". In November, Roy Jhuboo told Amateur Photographer magazine how a squad of officers arrived in two police vans and swooped on him while he was taking pictures of Canary Wharf in the London Docklands.
In the next issue of the magazine, Adrian Stretton recounted how anti-terrorist officers had stopped him outside Canary Wharf tube station, under the Terrorism Act 2000, after he tried to take photos of the same building.
There were other cases outside London. Austin Mitchell, the MP for Great Grimsby and a keen photographer, had photos on his digital camera deleted by officers policing the Labour party conference in Brighton. In Nottingham, the professional photographer Alan Lodge was arrested after taking pictures of an armed police officer. The topic has filled Amateur Photographer's letters pages.
So, 10 months after the London bombings, Guardian Unlimited set out to see whether people photographing the capital's landmarks continues to give authorities the jitters.
Canary Wharf was the obvious place to begin. I emerged from the Docklands Light Railway in the morning and began snapping in the centre of Cabot Square. Most people were rushing to work, so I thought that a man lingering near the fountain, adopting a peculiar, arse-over-head posture, trying to cram the water feature and Europe's tallest building into the viewfinder, would catch the attention of any watchers.
Nothing doing. I next started taking photos of the maps showing the layout of the buildings - surely that would be seen as suspicious?
Still no discernible reaction from security. Perhaps I had stumbled into a gap in their camera surveillance network? I moved close to where a man was operating a traffic barrier and took photos of a sign warning I was entering private property and detailing conditions of access. I took up position around 25 metres from the barrier man. He continued to scribble on his clipboard. Another security man, in dark blue coat and peaked hat, walked my way. I looked into his blue eyes as he came close. He avoided my stare and kept going.
I changed tack yet again. I attached my 70-200mm zoom lens to my camera: it has a white casing, so surely it would stand out - perhaps even look a little sinister. I zoomed in on the detail of the buildings. By now I was standing outside the tube station, exactly where the innocent Mr Stretton had been stopped.
Three guards, accompanied by two labradors, started in my direction. I snapped them as they came closer. This was surely the moment when I would need to pull out my copy of Photographers' Rights, a document compiled by a law lecturer at Heriot-Watt University. They walked straight past me and into the gardens overlying the tube station. Perhaps the dog had better things to do.
Enough was enough - time to move on. I took the Jubilee line to London Bridge, where more than a dozen CCTV cameras were put up last year. Suspicious snapping might lead to something here.
Sure enough, within a few minutes, two men with walkie-talkies appeared at my side.
"Hello, what are you taking pictures of?" one asked, in an eastern European accent.
"I'm taking photos of those cameras," I said.
"Oh, that's all right. They saw you in [the] cameras ... and thought you were taking images of our building." He gestured towards the hulking black and metal structure of 6 More Street.
"Can I not take photos of your building?" I asked.
"They say it's a terrorist threat, and the pavement you're standing on is private property."
"What about if I cross the road?"
"That's fine," he responded.
"And I can take pictures of your building from over there?"
"Yes."
And that is what I duly did. Buoyed by the attention, I set off along the South Bank towards the London Eye. Much of the riverbank was out of bounds but, now that I was firmly in a tourist area, security guards paid me scant attention. I slinked into the bag-checking zone at the London Eye and took some shots. A security heavy shifted his position to get a better look at me - I took the hint and moved on.
The picture changed across the river at the houses of parliament. Gone were the private security guards gripping walkie-talkies, and in their place were police, many of them armed, wearing bulletproof vests. This appeared no place to be reckless, but shoving a zoom lens through the railings to get shots of the statues and carvings on the exterior of the parliament building elicited no reaction.
I noted two black fences, around six metres high. Behind them was a lawnmower. Was that the final defence? I took a quick picture of a car boot being searched. No one rushed over and there was no mention of the Terrorism Act.
The police outside Downing Street were also armed. One let me take his photo, and then it was on to Trafalgar Square. London authorities were reported last year to be considering putting posters up around the square warning parents of the dangers of paedophile photographers. Nelson's column is under scaffolding for refurbishment, so most people posed in front of the fountains. Standing near the National Gallery, I used the zoom lens to focus on the ducks below. A security guy hovered at my shoulder, before moving on. A few photos later, and I concluded my experiment.
Perhaps I simply did not look dodgy enough? Should I have dressed up as a sheik?
I recounted my findings to Chris Cheesman, the news editor at Amateur Photographer. He confirmed that he had had fewer reports in recent months of the "atmosphere of panic" that the MP Austin Mitchell described last year. He said the magazine was still campaigning for the Home Office to outline the rights of photographers in public places: he envisages some sort of document that enthusiasts could carry around to show to overzealous security personnel. Metropolitan police and press photographers have recently been discussing a similar document.
"I think they've moved to cracking down on cyclists," Mr Cheesman said. "I was stopped last week for riding on the pavement on the South Bank."
You've been warned.
