Being somewhat bored last night, I decided to whisk beth out for a night of fun. Unfortunately she thought that meant dinner and some wine, when in fact I wanted to go and test the limits of the Holga in night time exposures.
One place immediately came to mind…Grangemouth Refinery. It’s ethereal mix of lights, flames and strange structures evoked images of the classic Bladerunner (although I can’t shoot film for sh*t so they photos would evoke bugger all!).
So off we went, without a care in the world, driving down the main road that cuts the refinery in two, looking for a spot to take some long exposures, thinking that the worst that could happen would be getting told to bugger off by security guards. We find a place which is pretty close to the structures and I rest the Holga on the fence and take a few 30-40 second exposures. I had no real idea how they would turn out, I was just planning on finding out if they were over or under exposed and then coming back another day to adjust.
After 5 or so minutes, sure enough, the security guard comes up, and politely tells me that I’m not meant to be taking photos without prior permission (they said it used to be fine!), and that they have to now inform the police due to terrorism laws. He was really nice and told us we weren’t in any trouble, it’s just something they have to do these days.
Along come the police, who assure us again we aren’t in trouble but they need to take all our details, search us, search our car and do background checks on us (and the car). After all that is over, he says the police fill in some forms and send them down to the Met in London who then enter me into a database to cross check with other similar reports to make sure I haven’t been taking photos of other sites! Wohoo I’m on the terror watch list!
Bit of a pain, especially as I wasn’t too ‘up’ on my rights (I wasn’t trespassing), but to be honest, it’s easier to just cooperate (is that how 1984 starts…?).
The photos came out ‘ok’, wish I could have another stab!
here’s some useful links if you want to read up on photographers rights:
BBC Article: Innocent Photographer or Terrorist?
And here’s what came out of the holga (there were more, but they were shakey-cam central!).
Comments
Please tell me you were wearing your singlespeed worlds jersey!
ha! Interpol will be after me for extradition to Napa!
for people that have no idea what we are talking about, I got let off after DUI’ing on a bicycle in America in the summer!
http://www.goatkarma.com/viewblog.php?id=12
good luck to you next time you try to get through airport security
Blimey – this is a bit of a monumental over-reaction.
Is this really the way we want our tax money spent in the fight against terrorism? Is the UK made safer by the actions of the security guards and the Police?
It is shocking how quickly 1984 has turned from a work of fiction into what seems to be society’s blueprint for behaviour.
(ranting averted)
Great pictures though. Shame you got such harrassment taking them.
Hi,
I had the same experience the other night doing night photography, in Tooting South London (quite a large number of Muslims live there). I’m a white shaved head guy.
Anyway, i was doing night shots then walking home with my camera mounted on the tripod, and walked past a parked police van.
Next thing I know its pulled up next to me, 3 coppers got out and ’surrounded’ me, and started rapid-firing questions about what i was doing. i tried to explain about night photography and long exposures. they said they needed to check i wasn’t a terrorist taking photos of targets.
i did think about saying if i was a terrorist taking pics of targets i probably wouldn’t be doing it on a £20 plastic camera at night, but thought better of it!!!
thanks for the links on rights, will read up on that.
J
Hi James thanks for the comment. It definitely does seem to be getting worse, as I hear more and more about this from different people(and around the web like here). It seems there is just no standard procedure, or if there is, not every member of the police know what it is.
Incidentally, another case of it happening, this time to an MP:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/4144210/Tory-MP-stopped-and-searched-by-police-for-taking-photos-of-cycle-path.html
Who, interestingly, actually SUPPORTS stop and searching photographers for no reason, even though it isn’t illegal to take photographs in public.
Time to emigrate!
And the saga continues!
Soon it could be illegal to take a photo of a police officer!
http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=836646
B. E. A. Utiful.
Need to do some long expos myself now.
[...] Andrew is now on the terror watchlist for taking some photos [...]