TWiP #258 – Grand Theft Photo

A little annoying to hear Steve propagate the two common myths about London – that it is not photo friendly and that everywhere is covered by CCTV – but surprisingly pleased to hear Fred at least question the former.

There used to be a photography project web site here in London where each week a street was picked for people to photograph.  Sadly it is closed down now, but the streets chosen, though mostly being centrally located, were often away from tourist areas.  Sometimes they were residential, some were back alleys.

In the several years I took part, visiting around 50 locations per year with my Canon DSLR, I was stopped by the police four times.  One of those was because the Church of Scientology called them to complain about me being near on of their sites.  Another was because without thinking I was shooting the entrance to MI5!  On both occasions they checked my details and allowed me to continue.  On no occasion was I actually prevented from shooting, although the support officers who stopped me near London Bridge railway station were somewhat unfriendly.  On a couple of other occasions I was told to move by private security guards when on private property.

There is a big difference between being stopped just to check what you are doing, which is annoying, and being stopped and being told you cannot take photographs.  I have a couple more experiences of the former, but never experienced the latter in a public place.  I would be highly surprised if there was any major western city in which my experience was not typical at best.

As to the CCTV claim, the often cited statistic of ’14 people to every security camera’ has long been shown to be unreliable – It was based on 41% of business in two London shopping streets have camera, so assuming the same percentage applied to all London businesses, adding a guess for the number of public cameras, then assumed this sample represented the entire country.  Subsequent research suggest the reality to several times smaller than that claim.

There is also the erroneous belief that the statistics on CCTV cameras only apply to public places.  Even the flawed survey above included those in office blocks.  Part of the reason why these myths persist is that there is no actual record of how many cameras are used as the majority are privately operated, inside shops and offices or covering car parks etc.  Many, probably almost all in the case of small business like local shops, do not keep their footage but record over it, if saved at all.  And many cameras are not monitored.  The idea of people watching your every move when you go out in public, or of records being kept to retrace your steps, is a complete fantasy.

I hope Fred enjoys his time here and has the same mostly trouble-free time as I do.

Love the show …. but ( here it comes)…….Sara seems to have the guys saying ” like” way to much. “Like” stop it please. You guys are all fully grown photogs and don’t need to be speaking as though you are valley girls. Otherwise keep photo faith and fun alive.

I don’t know if it’s just me but on the mobile version of this site has some code that shows? Like this: the recordings via Google Hangouts.

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Thank you so much to go back to audio only! The quality is way mucho better!