From Andy at photographers.co.uk

City of London Police Prove they Still haven’t got the Memo

Yesterday, I read a piece by Jane Fae Ozimek, which I have summed up here. Jane wrote that on Monday, a professional photographer was looking for a location on London Wall appropriate to a portrait of one of the architects responsible for the City’s changing skyline.

He went to One Aldermanbury Square, where the security guard asserted that the photographer could not take photos of the building. The photographer pointed out that the security guard was wrong. The police were called.

Apparently, four officers arrived, followed by a police van with flashing lights. He was detained, he claims, under Section 44(2) of the Terrorism Act 2000.

This controversial law permits police to stop any individual for the purpose of preventing terrorism. While police officers acting under this section do not require reasonable grounds for a search, they may do so where there are grounds for suspecting the photography is linked to terrorist activity. That said, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has in recent months made it clear that photographers are not fair game for random stop and search.

In a strongly worded statement, Chief Constable Andy Trotter, chairman of ACPO’s media advisory group stated:

“Everyone … has a right to take photographs and film in public places. Taking photographs … is not normally cause for suspicion and there are no powers prohibiting the taking of photographs, film or digital images in a public place.”

This message appears not to have been passed on to City of London Police. Despite the photographer explaining that he was taking photos as part of his job, the police were not satisfied. Allegedly, he was then restrained forcibly by another officer, while the first officer went through his pockets, removing his camera and mobile phone. The photographer described how the officers were cheered by his discomfiture, both mental and physical.

He claims: “the police officer went through my pannier, flipping through personal notebooks, gingerly peeking in a plastic bag that contained a towel and swimmers, still wet from my earlier swim. He located my wallet, and pulled out my drivers licence with obvious glee.”

At the end of the search, the police departed, having failed to return his mobile phone to him. The Terrorism Act does entitle a PC to seize any item which “he reasonably suspects is intended to be used in connection with terrorism”. If the PC genuinely believed the photographer to be carrying the tools of terror on him, it was clearly perverse to leave him free to carry out the rest of his mission, photographing buildings around the City of London.

The writer of this piece, Jane Fae Ozimek, asked the City of London Police to comment on this incident – specifically asking them for their views on the removal of the phone. An official spokeswoman told us:

“A man was spoken to by officers yesterday after police were called by security personnel. He was later searched under terrorism powers.”

What about the phone? No comment.

What about suggestions that the City of London continues to abuse powers long after other forces have stopped? She added:

“We continue to work to make sure the city remains a safe place to work and visit.”

Unless, added Jane, your work includes taking photographs, in which case the safety of neither yourself nor your property can be guaranteed.

You can read the original piece here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/11/police_photographers_terrorism_act/

LIDF 2010 aims to explore the differences between photography and film-making as well as considering how they converge. Professionals from the film, photography and radio industries will all join panels and lead workshops and participatory events. There are two documentary photography workshops, a photographic treasure hunt around Bloomsbury and a visual exploration of Hackney and NE London. Among the exhibitions is Toby Smith’s ‘Madagascar: Bois de Rose’ and we wish him every success. Smith has been documenting illegal deforestation in Madagascar, within UNESCO-protected rainforests. Part of the LIDF, the exhibition runs from 17 to 26 April 2010 in Barbican Mezzanine, Silk Street, London. Admission is free.

For more information about the LIDF visit http://www.lidf.co.uk/

Hi, Polly here. I thought it might be useful to have these examples of how we work up somewhere – so I’m popping them into our blog…

Client: LECG

Sector: Global Expert Services and Consulting Company - http://www.lecg.com

Brief: Portraits for Graduate Recruitment Brochure

“We like the way Matt puts everyone at ease - he really gets the best out of people”. We needed images for our new graduate recruitment brochure and we wanted to get across that LECG is a fun working environment - without being too wild and whacky! Matt now comes in every six months or so to photograph new recruits and he and his assistant create a great selection of images for us to choose from.”

Amy Kilbane, European Marketing Manager, LECG

LECG is a global expert services and consulting firm, with approximately 800 experts and professionals in 31 offices around the world. LECG is recognized worldwide for deploying leading academic, governmental and consulting experts on significant engagements in the public and private sectors.

LECG call on us to ensure their imagery upholds the look and feel of their brand. We provide corporate portraits of their ever-expanding team of consulting professionals. On this occasion LECG had a specific brochure in mind for graduate recruitment, we took a relaxed shot of each person as well as a more formal
portrait, allowing 10 minutes for each person, and shot everyone on location at LECG’s London offices.

Client: GRASS ROOTS EVENTCOM LTD

Sector: Events and Communications Company - http://www.grassrootseventcom.uk.com/

Brief: Grass Roots EventCom Recognition VIP Weekend

“We work with a lot of photographers on client events and needed someone to capture images for our own employee recognition VIP weekend trip. A colleague recommended Matt for this job. We needed a photographer who could just get on with it and capture scene setting shots and social shots as well as interiors and exteriors - basically everything and everyone without getting in the way! I’m happy to say that we got great shots and Matt and his team were really helpful. I have recommended Matt to other colleagues now too.”

Lindsay Hammersley, Marketing Manager, Grass Roots EventCom Ltd

Grass Roots EventCom Ltd provides expertise in events and communication. As part of a 12-month recognition scheme, the ultimate achievers were rewarded with a VIP weekend in London. They asked Matt to capture the event - from limo arrivals, dining in top venues, interactive cookery demonstrations and theatre visits to iconic London imagery from the top of a London bus!

We are proud that when this major events company had their own event they came to us for the images.

Client: WFCA for Budgens

Sector: Advertising - http://www.wfca.co.uk/advertising-agency/

Brief: Independent Retailer Recruitment

“I’ve got a rather nice brief for a Budgens photo project and I thought of you!”

Jo Cornford, Budgens Account Director for WFCA

WFCA is a complete service agency and for that past two years have been a Campaign top 30 agency and a Sunday Times Fast Track 100 business. WFCA’s client, Budgens, has local stores that are a viable alternative to the superstore.

Independent retailers, working in partnership with Budgens, own many local Budgens stores. They care deeply about the quality, provenance and value of the food they sell and the communities, which they serve. Budgens and WFCA are working hard to convey this message.

Updating their existing image library plays an important role in their communications - they wanted to capture the spirit of shopping at Budgens as it is today. They need natural lifestyle shots - of the stores and, of course, the people.

It’s an ongoing project (Budgens has over 227 stores!) and we continue to shoot on location all over the UK using Budgens staff, friends, family and a few models.

Jo Cornford explains further:

“We asked Matt to carry out this project because we know we will get the high standard of imagery that we need. Matt’s ability to put people at their ease and capture natural lifestyle shots is exactly what we require.”

Client: PAN Advertising

Sector: Advertising - http://www.pancomms.com

Brief: Christmas Card

“We had worked with Matt Wain Photogrpahy before, so when we were looking for a one-stop solution for our Christmas shoot they were the natural choice. Matts’ personable nature, good humour and his ability
to get the most out of people, was a massive help in guaranteeing a painless shoot for what, potentially, could have been a creative and logistical nightmare!”

Roy Robertson, Creative Services Director, PAN Advertising

PAN Advertising is a full-service healthcare advertising and communications agency. PAN came up with the concept of a hospital scene for their Christmas card and our brief was to produce a funny image based on this concept using every single member of Pan’s 35-strong staff. PAN also wanted us to orchestrate the whole shoot so that all they had to do was turn up on the day. We did just that: we sourced the location, the props and wardrobe. On the day, we shot the image in 7 sections, which were then digitally combined to produce the final shot.

And the end result went down a storm!

Client: Carillion

Sector: Construction - http://www.carillionplc.com

Brief: Document an 80-metre bridge lift

Carillion’s challenge was to lift into place four, eighty-metre steel beams to complete a bridge for the A27 road upgrade in East Sussex, when the main rail line could only be shut for five hours – from 1 ‘til 5 in the morning. Over successive nights Carillion achieved their objective.

Tanja Clark, Business Development Manager for Carillion comments:

“Working with Matt is always a pleasure. He has that special something, that rare ability, to capture a sunny moment in an otherwise dull and dreary day – or night!”

Matt documented the lift and captured a fabulous shot that won an honourary mention in the Lucie awards this year. He explains:

“I really love this shot, it reminds me of those 1950’s American Steam railway photographs by O Winston. (www.linkmuseum.org)”

Client: Hendon Prep School

Sector: Education - http://www.cognitaschools.co.uk

Brief: School prospectus and Web literature

“Now that I am going through the pictures again after having had a break, I like them even more than when you first took them. I am one happy customer! I nearly didn’t call because I thought I’d never be able to afford you!”

Leah Brown, Marketing Manager, Hendon Prep School

Hendon Prep School was planning a new prospectus and looking for a range of shots that captured the personality of the school and its pupils. As well as featuring in the prospectus the shots would also be used on their website and across a broad range of promotional literature.

With his trademark natural approach, Matt’s reportage-style images are moments captured - a day in the life of the school, from the serious business of learning to the youthful energy displayed on the sports field.

Matt achieved all they needed in one day and teachers and pupils had a goodtime alike. We will always do our level best to work to a budget and will not let a tight budget get in the way of a good result.

With Matt off to the US this week, I’m already looking forward to the images he’ll bring back.

This has led my non-creative brain to ponder where visually creative people generally find their inspiration. Is it from things they see – or do they draw on their other senses too, or other things entirely –

and does it matter?

Some people believe that different colours represent different emotions and that any “mood” created through music, poems, literature etc

can be translated visually and would influence photographical expressions. I wonder if this is only if the photographer is aware of the theory – or if it still works on a subconscious level if not.

I imagine that past visual experiences probably come to mind when creating an image. And many photographers seem to quote ‘life’ as their inspiration. Pretty indisputable I guess – Wilde’s “life imitates art far more than art imitates life” springs to mind.

Many arty types are synesthetes to some degree and can cross-reference their senses – sadly the colour orange doesn’t sound like anything to me!

One photographer noted that for her, smells are truly inspiring in her work. Another chap declares that he is inspired by ‘nothing’, which seems crazy before he goes on to explain that he meditates before going out to capture nature photographs and by clearing his mind he notices more and reacts more spontaneously.

This same person still finds that music goes round in his mind – this seems to affect us all, maybe some of us just don’t use it for anything!

On a limb here – I think Matt’s inspiration often comes from just being somewhere and soaking it up - getting to know the place or the people he’s with.

I was reading about a photographer recently (Alan Babbit) who has Parkinson’s and found he had ‘lost his muse’ when he was diagnosed. He went on to have a “Eureka!” moment and from then said he used his ‘shakes’ to explore a new and different approach to his art.

So perhaps it doesn’t matter how they are inspired, just as long as they are.

Title: Photographers converge on new Scotland Yard
Feature: Daily News
Date: 16 February 2009

More than 300 photographers gathered in front of New Scotland Yard on Monday 16 February to protest a new Counter-Terrorism Act that potentially makes it a crime to take photo of police officers and armed forces. BJP’s Olivier Laurent and Marina Scukina were there to report.

Answering the National Union of Journalist’s call, in association with BJP, hundreds of photographers, both amateurs and professionals, converged on New Scotland Yard on Monday in defiance of Section 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, which targets anyone who take pictures of police officers and armed forces likely to be used by terrorists.

The media event, which lasted more than one hour, saw the NUJ team up with writer Mark Thomas, along with Chris Atkins, who is behind the documentary Taking Liberties, and freelance photographer Marc Vallée to protest the new rule. While the Home Office has maintained that the new law will not threaten photographers, it is feared that police officers could abuse Section 76 to prevent photographers from taking pictures in public places, just as Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is currently being abused in certain cases, according to representative organisations.

The Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, which became law on Monday, amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer.

The new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the 2000 Act, will target anyone who ‘elicits or attempts to elicit information about (members of armed forces)… which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’. A person found guilty of this offence could be liable to imprisonment for up to 10 years, and to a fine. 

Ed Stearns, the chief press officer for the Metropolitan Police, met with the photographers in front of the New Scotland Yard building and reiterated that ‘the Metropolitan Police has continued to train our officers on public photography and we will continue to do so.’ He added that photographers could use proper channels to report any abuses and that the police will continue to meet with organisations such as the NUJ to discuss the issue.

However, Vallée explained that the majority of photographers present at the event had previously been the victims of unnecessary checks by police officers and that the situation was getting out of hand. He questioned whether police officers were, in fact, trained on photography rights.

The event, which lasted more than one hour, also attracted media attention with representatives of the BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Associated Press and Getty Images present to cover it. BJP and other photography magazines, such as Amateur Photographer, were also represented after they called for readers to attend.

‘We had a fantastic turnout,’ said Thomas, who was himself the target of stop-and-search abuse in September 2007 [see 1854.eu for more details]. He added that he was impressed to see so many people challenge the new law from day one, as ‘all of us are in peril’.

For more pictures of the event, visit BJP’s blog at 1854.eu.

Interview with Carole Naggar, New York, March 29, 2000.

Why did you start the Migrations project?

The Migrations project is the continuation of my previous project Workers. It is the second chapter of the same story. While I was shooting Workers over six or seven years, I saw that we were inside a total transformation of the ways of production. With the end of the first industrial revolution and the arrival of the new technology–intelligent machines–on the line of production, with the new organization of factors of production, I saw that human beings and their traditional, sedentary way of life were also beginning to transform.

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Today, Photojournalist Don McCullin’s work still secures the response that it so greatly received back in the 1960’s and 70’s. McCullin worked for The Observer, The Sunday Times and other commissioning magazines, who sent him on assignments, photographically reporting the stories that led from the ensuing wars around the world. McCullin used his camera as a witness to its surroundings: a tool that hoped could influence action. McCullin said “I knew things were wrong. That’s why I photographed them… I wanted to take pictures for the immediate consumption, to correct whatever wrongs they’re depicting.”

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Andreas Gursky makes large-scale, colour photographs distinctive for their incisive and critical look at the effect of capitalism and globalisation on contemporary life.

Gursky studied under Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie in the early 1980s and first adopted a style and method closely following Becher’s systematic approach to photography, creating small, black-and-white prints. In the early 1980s, however, he broke from this tradition, using colour film and spontaneous observation to make a series of images of people at leisure, such as hikers, swimmers and skiers, depicted as tiny protagonists in a vast landscape.

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