Re-photo

The response from the PM’s office to a recent petition on the restrictions on photography was of course bland in the extreme, but the petition itself was perhaps an over-reaction to a measure which perhaps clarified rather than intensified the existing  restrictions on photography. When the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 came into effect I attended and recorded on the demonstration by photographers outside New Scotland Yard. Since then I’ve also mentioned the Home Office circular Photography and Counter-Terrorism Legislation which gave police  some generally welcome advice to police about how they should be using the legislation. A description of two sections of the legislation is in each case followed by something the circular designates as Important,  that they do “not prohibit the taking of photographs, film or digital images  … and members of the public and the press should not be prevented from doing so“. 

It was perhaps a shame that in relation to Section 58 – the photography of police etc – the note concerning the statutory defence of reasonable excuse read:

Important:Legitimate journalistic activity (such as covering a demonstration for a newspaper) is likely to constitute such an excuse. Similarly an innocent tourist or other sight-seer taking a photograph of a police officer is likely to have a reasonable excuse.

Although of course the note should not be taken as excluding other activities from having reasonable excuse, it does seem unduly limited. The circular should have stressed more the need for their to be a reasonable presumption that the photographs would be “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism” and that it would not cover photography of police carrying out normal activities such as the policing of demonstrations, directing traffic or giving directions to tourists. Or even less normal activities such as beating up demonstrators and damaging property.

Most of the problems that we have with police on the street (and anyone who photographs on the street and claims to never have problems must surely be in police employ) have to do not with the law but with police who like to make their own laws or fail to know or respect the law. Certainly a few police do have it in for photographers,  but perhaps rather more fail to appreciate the problems that we face. And of course the police often have plenty of problems at some of the events that we photograph, even if some of them are of their own (or their superior officers) making. It can be instructive to read some of the blogs written by police.

But photographers are definitely finding the job harder, not just because of police, but also because more and more public areas are now controlled by security guards.  Increasingly parts of our cities that are spaces open to the public have been privatised, and if you raise a camera to your eye or erect a tripod you are likely to find your view blocked by a large man telling you that you cannot take pictures. And if you are on private land – such as that of Canary Wharf Estates – although it’s very much public, with underground and DLR stations, buses, shops and more where the public are free to pass and spend their money, you have no right to take photographs.

(Security guards do often appear to be trained to be hostile to photographers.  Over the years I’ve carried out an education programme, telling them what the law is and asking them to contact their supervisor to check, or to phone for the police.  But if the land you are standing on is private, you don’t have a leg to stand on, though I’m a fast worker and have often taken the picture I want before they get to me.)

A couple of weeks ago, the I’m a Photographer not a Terrorist! campaign organised a flash-mob protest at Canary Wharf and around a hundred photographers including many of London’s better editorial photographers turned up on the dot of 3pm to defy the ban and take pictures. Security men watched from a distance but otherwise ignored the protest.

So we photographed ourselves (above) and the other photographers, talked to a few members of the public about the issue and then went for a pint, before I went home to post the story to Indymedia and Demotix. You can read more about it and see pictures of some of the more attractive participants on My London Diary.

In 1975 the perhaps aptly named Gary Gross, who had been taking pictures for Teri Shields, made a series of images of her 10 year old daughter. Teri had been managing her daughter Brooke’s career as a model more or less since her birth (she first appeared in an advert aged 11 months) and Gross had photographed for her regularly. This particular series of pictures was made for a project of his with Playboy Press, The Woman in the Child, which set out to explore the femininity of young girls, and Teri signed a comprehensive model release in return for a fee of $450.

It’s a set of images that has several times caused controversy. In 1981 Brooke tried to buy back the negatives from the photographer and then took a million dollar lawsuit against him. But the contract signed by her mother stood the test, even after a lengthy appeal. Her lawyers then tried to get the pictures banned as a violation of her privacy, but the court threw this out, probably taking into consideration what the StyleList blog describes as her “sordid history of being sexualized as a child. There was her portrayal of a 12-year-old prostitute in 1978’s “Pretty Baby,” the nude scenes of a 14-year-old Shields in “The Blue Lagoon,” and the notorious “What comes between me and my Calvins?” Calvin Klein ads a year later.”

In throwing out the case – which more or less ruined Gross, despite his victory – the court stated “these photographs are not sexually suggestive, provocative or pornographic, nor do they imply sexual promiscuity. They are pictures of a prepubescent girl posing innocently in her bath”, but it’s a verdict that many, apparently including the ‘Vice’ at the Metropolitan Police, disagree with.

Richard Prince is not one of my favourite photographers, largely because in my opinion he is not a photographer at all, but an artist who uses – and often abuses – photographers, failing in a number of cases either to give them proper attribution or a decent share of the loot. But in this case he appears in the end to have done the decent thing so far as Gross was concerned in getting his agreement for the use of one of these images in his piece ‘Spiritual America’, which appeared in what David Deitcher described in a 2004 feature in Artforum as “a now all-but-forgotten exhibition: works by Sarah Charlesworth, Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Allan McCollum, and Richard Prince; opening on the evening of February 1, 1984, at a place called Spiritual America, 5 Rivington Street, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.”

In his surprisingly readable and informative piece (neither truly native to Artforum) he reminds us that the title of the work is also a lift – from Alfred Stieglitz who gave the title in 1923 to an image of the rear flank of a gelded harness horse, an image and titling that impressed Prince greatly. You can also read about the image in a 1993 feature by Carol Squiers and Brian Wallis from Art in America, Is Richard Prince a Feminist (which includes an interview withPrince) which says that there was yet another legal controversy, this time over Prince’s plans to publish a limited edition of 1000 copies of ‘his’ image at $999, undercutting a planned 1000 copy edition of the picture by a poster company and Gross by a dollar a print. Apparently an acceptable settlement was reached.

According to the Guardian, Tate Modern had taken legal advice before deciding to put Prince’s version on display as a part of their Pop Life exhibition which opened on 1 Oct. But it opened without ‘SpiritualAmerica’  as the Met, having read about the forthcoming show in Scotland Yard’s copy of the Daily Mail, raided the gallery and persuaded them to remove the picture from the show. The catalogue in which it was listed has also been withdrawn. (The Daily Mail story has since been updated on-line to reflect the vice squad’s action.)

In writing this piece, I’ve been careful – for legal reasons – to not to link to sites which contain the full controversial image. If you want to see it, it has been published here many times in books and magazines and Google will enable you to find it in a couple of clicks, along with other images of Brooke taken by Gross, although the main site on which they were apparently housed is unobtainable, probably because of the intense demand fuelled by the story.  It does seem yet another occasion on which our law is making an ass of itself.