Snapping coppers

Updated 15 February (apologies for the slightly disjointed nature of this. Am writing it between wrestling sessions with the new puppy):

Yet another installment for the government's 'helping ourselves to your liberties' file:

The British Journal of Photography reports that from February 16, the thrill that is photographing coppers acting like arseholes will be taken from us by new laws 'that allow for the arrest - and imprisonment - of anyone who takes pictures of officers ‘likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’.'

The BJP continues:

'A person found guilty of this offence could be liable to imprisonment for up to 10 years, and to a fine.

The law is expected to increase the anti terrorism powers used today by police officers to stop photographers, including press photographers, from taking pictures in public places.

‘'Who is to say that police officers won’t abuse these powers,’ asks freelance photographer Justin Tallis. Tallis, a London based photographer, was covering the anti-BBC protest on Saturday 24 January when he was approached by a police officer.

Tallis had just taken a picture of the officer, who then asked to see the picture. The photographer refused, arguing that, as a press photographer, he had a right to take pictures of police officers.

According to Tallis, the officer then tried to take the camera away. Before giving up, the officer said that Tallis ’shouldn’t have taken that photo, you were intimidating me’.''

Pity that photos of police intimidating the rest of us will be erased from history in advance by these laws - that, you can be sure, is the point of this little initiative.

Slipped into law as an unassuming adjunct to last year's counter terrorism act amend to the terrorism act, these laws could see photographers banged up for ten years for catching a copper in an act that ought to get the copper a lot longer than that. Rodney King, anyone? How about the great war photos of Larry Burrows - one of a number of extraordinary and extraordinarily brave artists who helped change the American course in Vietnam with pictures that showed Americans at less than their best? (Members of the armed forces will also be out of bounds after 16 Feb).

And okay, Burrows was a great, but there could well be a Burrows out there who is stopped before even starting. Who knows what we'll miss? We only know what we've been able get thus far.

I work with an NUJ phtographer who has taken a great many photos of police - partly for the thrill, sure, but partly because the police are impossible to leave out of the photos that we take at the events we attend these days.

They turn up, at least in their hundreds and often in their thousands, to every protest, march, and political action that takes place in these fair isles. Their numbers are often out of proportion - I've thought on more than one occasion that there've been more coppers present than protestors - and they're greatly oppressive because of it. That in itself ought to be recorded by photographers, as they record this point in our history: we live in an age of terrific state paranoia, and we're surrounded by cops because of it.

That's the main reason why there are thousands of coppers in our photos, anyway. We rarely look for them - we've hardly ever gone out with the cameras with the sole intention of photographing the police. They look for us. They're always there.

On the few occasions that we have looked for the police, they have done their best to stop us taking their pictures.

Not that long ago, we were in Shoreditch on a weekend, and saw a bunch of coppers gathered around a black guy on the side of the street. His Mercedes was parked just in front of us, and the cops were in a circle around him on the footpath. They saw us with the camera.

One of them sprinted over and demanded to see the pictures we'd taken. 'You have to think about that guy's dignity,' he told us, indicating the black guy in the middle of the group of coppers. 'It's not fair for his dignity to take photos of him.'

I wanted to ask why - if they were so concerned about the guy's dignity - they were making such a public display of their frisking of him, but decided against it. The cop was threatening, and we knew that he'd try and confiscate the camera if we pushed it.

Anyway - we have hundreds of photos of policemen and women on this site. See here for just a few. And their pictures are all over the header on this site, as they have been for more than two years. I can hardly photoshop the buggers out now.

We've even got a photo of coppers taking a photo of my photographer photographing the coppers. Wonder if that'll count?