I've had very few experiences of being accosted for photographing in public
places, the most memorable being when I'd just taken a shot of a window
cleaner carrying his ladders in the centre of Walsall, Staffordshire. Two
men seized me by the shoulders, thrust CID warrant cards in my face and
asked me why I was taking pictures. "Why shouldn't I?" I asked. "We think
that burglaries round here are being planned with the aid of photographs of
buildings and we'd like to know what you're up to," said one of them. I told
them I worked for the Erdington Photographic Centre and that I was field
testing this pre-war Contax III for a potential customer who wanted to be
sure that it still worked okay. They wrote all that down and let me go (it
was all true, except that I was the potential customer), but I was a bit
uneasy about what could have happened if I hadn't worked for a camera shop
at the time.
More recently I was walking around the area where I grew up (not very far
from where I live now) and which has been almost entirely taken over by a
large Kashmiri population. I had just taken a picture with my problematic XA
of a new fish & chip shop when the Asian owner came running after me and
demanded to know why I'd done that. "There's no reason I know of why I
shouldn't," I replied. He became both threatening and apologetic at the same
time - "I know you're entitled to take photos in the street but all the same
I would like to know why you photographed my shop." To keep the peace and
off the top of my head I said "Okay, my family used to live around here and
I'm taking pictures of what it looks like now to show my mother, who can't
get around much." He was happy with that and went back to his shop.
Actually, my mother always hated that road and wouldn't care if all the
shops in it fell down!
The only other occasion I remember was when I was photographing a flower
display in a Birmingham park and a park keeper cycled up and asked "Are you
an amateur photographer?" "Yes." "Okay," and he cycled away again.
Regards,
Keith Berry (Birmingham, England)
keith_r.k.berry@xxxxxxxxxx
http://homepages.which.net/~k.berry
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