Remembering 7/7

People stand outside a TV shop on Edgware Road to watch the coverage of the London bombings, which happened only yards away. © Magnus Andersson

This morning, five years ago to this day, I was in a job interview for taking pictures for an estate agency (I didn't get) in zone 4, west London, when I got the first text message. 'Are you OK?'
I was embarrassed; I'd forgotten to turn the phone to silent during an important moment. Then another one. Then a call. By this stage I had my phone turned to 'silence'. And they kept coming. I couldn't understand this sudden interest from my friends, all at the same time. Then I told my interviewer that something seemed to have happened in central London, possibly something terrible. The interview was cut short when word from their office finally confirmed that there was an attack on London.

The entrance to Edgware Road station at midday. © Magnus Andersson

I got back to my flat in Wandsworth via train (they were still running at that point), grabbed my kit bag and jumped on the bicycle to central London. It was raining and it felt cold. I pushed as hard as I ever had on a bike. Got to Edgware Road station but alas it was midday before I got there, cordons were up for miles, the injured had been taken away already but I did what I could, being a humble photojournalism student.

During heavy rain, a police officer lets a member of the press inside the cordon on Edgware Road. © Magnus Andersson

Only one of my friends got caught up in the bombings and she was OK. She was one of the first to surface from King's Cross as she was on her way into work at BBC. She simply called the office and ended up being one of the first quoted online that day.

A few hours after the bombings I blag my way into the Scotland Yard, where Brian Paddick received yet more intel during the press briefing. © Magnus Andersson

Today all the victims are remembered.

The end is nigh

An angry motorist snaps (sorry) after being photographed by a Lambeth Council CCTV Enforcement vehicle, and starts photographing the two officers on his mobile phone, shouting: "If you can photograph me I can photograph you!" © Magnus Andersson

I think we all have had enough of Big Brother, and there might actually be an end in sight for the stupid use of 'Section 44 of the Anti terrorism Act' against terrorists photographers. Earlier today Lord Carlile of Berriew - the independent terror law reviewer for the Government - called for S44 to be scrapped, weeks after the European Court of Human Rights found it illegal, as BJP reports.

Good news indeed. More from the Evening Standard here, including this ominous Carlile quote: "Nothing fills my in-tray and in-box more than complaints on the use of Section 44."

When a law reviewer gets concerned about his inbox there must be a serious problem at hand. If S44 is scrapped, perhaps the police can go back to whatever they were doing before, i.e. catching camera wielding people criminals.

Here's a good read on the chances of being killed by terrorism (spoiler: 1-in-a-million chance for each person, about the same as the chance of flipping a coin 20 times and it coming up heads every time).


© Leon Neal/AFP

In other news, here is a fantastic blog post from the Winter Olympics in Vancouver by AFP photographer Leon Neal. Great read, lots of insight on covering such a huge event and stellar pictures too, especially the picture of one of the luge riders staring at the metal pillar which killed his team mate before the Olympics had even started. A very sad yet telling picture.


A lone girl is refreshing under the late monsoon rain in the impoverished Oriya Basti Colony in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, near the former Union Carbide industrial complex. © Alex Masi

And finally, only last night I met up with my dear friend Alex Masi and it is good to see that his solid good work has been rewarded yet again, this time with a 2nd prize in the PGB awards. Big up!

Hey, stupid! Camera = WMD?

© Steve Bell/The Guardian

I'm saving the best for last in this post, so here we go: This is totally getting out of hand. The ACPO issued a letter to their staff last week stating that photographers should no longer be persecuted. The big question is: has this worked out on the ground? In short, no.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

I like the fact that the guy in 'Exhibit A' used film and therefore the ill informed officers were unable to see a preview of the images he had taken. Is that the solution if you want to take a photo in public; go old school on their Metropolitan asses?

The big point for me is that the police seems to have forgotten what they are there to do, namely catch criminals. That differs quite wildly from incriminating anybody with a camera, i.e. anyone with a mobile phone, which equates to pretty much every single person on the street, tourist, casual or professional. Are the police underused? Have we got a case of too many officers on the payroll without doing any proper work? Could this be the source of this police obsession with cameras?

In the recent case of Grant Smith, who took pictures of a church near to the Bank of America, where four police units, some of them armed, responded to a person with a camera doing his job. Surely it would have been much more beneficial to society if police actually would have gone inside the premises of the bank to see what the employees were up to?


Detailed view of Westminster as seen on Google Street Maps.

Its been said before, but I doubt very much the idea that criminals intent on doing some serious recon would use a full DSLR setup. Personally I would stick to Google's Street Maps.


© Steve Bell/The Guardian

Last time I looked, the powers fighting terrorists were branded MI5 and MI6. Somehow our friendly neighbourhood officers seems to have overdosed on Spooks and decided that the chosen weapon of mass destruction is a camera.


A plainclothes officer covers the camera of Guardian journalist Paul Lewis.© Paul Lewis/The Guardian

If you are interested in disturbing video evidence of the Kafka-esque society in which we live today, look no further. It really is frightening.

Marc Vallee has a comment piece here.

Even The Daily Mail has raised the issue here.

HA HA HA!

Our intelligent anti-terrorist officers have come up with a brilliant, two-pronged, new plan to beat terrorism;

#1: go through your neighbours trash. If its full of takeaway boxes and beer cans, report him/her, otherwise they might have an early death.

#2: did you see anyone taking a picture of a CCTV camera? Report them! Any half decent photographer will tell you that the background is just as important as the person you are photographing.

I like the idea of turning the population into your own little Stasi machine, imagine how much time it will save the intelligence gathering folks? Boingboing has the story here.

It also looks like this will set off another avalanche of brilliant remixes of these posters, flickr has a bunch already; here, here, here, here, here and here, to name but a few.


Link

This relates to the previous police posters, where this poor fella got done for having a beard. A "big brown beard". Quality.

If you actually have any problems with the police, here's what to do.

However, its encouraging to see that at least parts of the government doesn't agree with how the police treats journalists.

Sign up! (updated)

John on the bench he was photographing. © Magnus Andersson

Local historian John Beasley was taking photos of this bench in Holly Grove, Peckham, when he was stopped and questioned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act in January. An elderly gentleman with a compact film camera is now seen as a terrorist.

With this in mind, please sign up to photographer Simon Taylor's petition to 10 Downing Street to remove new restrictions on photography in the United Kingdom. Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act, introduced on February 16, makes it an offence to “elicit, publish or communicate information” relating to members of the Armed Forces, police and intelligence services if that information is “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.

Those convicted under Section 76 could face a fine or up to 10 years’ imprisonment.


Update: cutting from NUJ's latest newsletter, not on the Terrorism Act but on the cuts we face in the regional press;

Please lobby UK Members of Parliament – NOW
Tomorrow (Wednesday) NUJ members are lobbying the UK parliament over the massive job cuts in the regional media. If you can’t attend but live in the UK please support the activity by sending a letter to your MP NOW. You can find a suggested text and a free, quick way to send it here.

Let’s make regional media the talk of the House of Commons. If you plan to attend and you haven’t received a briefing from NUJ HQ please email campaigns@nuj.org.uk.

Al Qaeda post

Kids playing in the snow, how innoncent, no? © Magnus Andersson

Ha ha, you police officers are sooo funny. This particular officer was [illegally] forcing a journalist to delete photos of his (dare I say) fully clothed children playing in the SNOW! This says more about this stupid copper than anything else. At least the copper permitted his kids to wear clothes whilst in the snow.

Actually, most police officers that I've met through work are decent, but the one's that give you trouble lack not only judgement, but also proper education and common sense. That's a fact, not merely based on chance encounters. Regular readers will know, sadly.

The number of intelligent officers that I've met can be counted on one hand. They are either CID already, or they have gone private: i.e. been promoted to investigations or are working a security detail somewhere, because as we all know, having a reliable police force in the UK is not really a priority.

Different country, I know, but as Ice Cube, Dr Dre, MC Ren and the late Eazy-E so eloquently put it: Fuck tha police!

The above picture could have made me a criminal, providing the insufficient uneducated off-duty officer would have been at hand, with his winter clad kids. What are the chances??!!?!

To get involved, check this out, and go here on Monday, if you happen to be in the UK. I am sadly working but my colleague Rob Logan has taken a day off work and will be exercising OUR legal right in shooting police officers - via camera - until he drops (or gets arrested/handcuffed/assaulted/shot). Go Rob!

I spoke to soon

A picture of two forensic officers entering a crime scene from this morning - which potentially could land me in jail for 10 years. © Magnus Andersson

Following on from the previous post, it seems I might have spoken to soon. The totalitarian society has now arrived with full force; from February 16, if you photograph a police officer in the UK, you can expect up to ten years in jail. Ten years! Read the BJP article here.

I think its about time for the NUJ to organise all its members into a boycott of all Government press calls, then perhaps we might see a shift away from criminalising the press.

Welcome, fellow terrorists!

Police attending a fire in the Bermondsey area. © Magnus Andersson

UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith didn't give two hoots about my last post on the subject. Now it seems that any man/woman wearing a police uniform is perfectly intelligent enough to decide for themselves if that person over there - with a camera - is a terrorist, and then take the appropriate action. Journalists have no rights in the eyes of a police officer anymore, the once 'open society' is now well and truly gone.

The UK is currently one of the most oppressed countries to live in, just take a look at this story from 2002. Back then, we were photographed on average 300 times per day! Imagine what the stats would show for 2009?! And why do the police deem photography unlawful only when they see it so? It seems to me that there are a huge amount of double standards going on here.

I deleted a lot of ranting here for the benefit of keeping this blog on the clean side of commentary, but I can only refer to a story that I shot a few days ago on the repercussions of this disastrous government decision.

Apart from the fact that democracy as we used to know it is falling apart, there's not much to report. The Mugabe approach (see earlier posts here and here), which Gordon Brown seems to have adopted, is so much more effective than we ever imagined.

See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. © see here

The suspects are of course the tabloids' obvious caricature: beard-plus-Middle-Eastearn-looks, but we can now also add ANYBODY with that well known WMD - a camera - to that list.

Well done Gordon Brown! The democracy that you foster is second only to, well, most of the rest of the world.

Did anyone tell you, Gordon, that Guantanamo Bay is closing down forever, for the simple fact that it was all a BIG MISTAKE? Didn't anyone tell you, Gordon, that persecuting journalists is a Mugabe sport, not something that an instigator of international freedom should engage in?


GAZA, GAZA STRIP - JANUARY 06: (EDITOR'S NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT) Palestinians evacuate the dead body of a child from in the rubble of a four story house that collapsed when struck by an Israeli air strike on January. 6, 2009 in Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Israeli forces killed at least 30 people today when artillery shells targeted a United Nations run school where Gazans sheltered from fighting. Israel continues to intensify its wide-scale ground assault against the Gaza Strip ignoring mounting international calls for an immediate cease-fire. (Photo by Thair Hasani/Getty Images) © Getty Images

Did you think that the Israeli tactic to not to let any journalists into Gaza was a good move? See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil? For a so-called Labour man you seem to have forgotten your core values a long time ago.

So why allow this stupid guilty-before-proven innocent-approach in the first place? There can only be a couple of good reasons, the first one being to get elected again by pretending to be tough on terrorists. Well...so far, not a single terrorist plot has been stopped by checking someone's camera. Secondly, it might favour the police if they can confiscate any photographic record of their own wrongdoings. Or am I just being cynical, Rodney King?

Things are looking gloomy for UK photojournalism, perhaps worse than it ever has been. We're all terrorists now, professionals and happy amateurs alike, and entirely in the hands of people that are neither elected nor properly educated on human rights.


This is the police officer, TL 270, whom I wrote about here, and who will know not even have to apologise when he takes my camera next time. © Magnus Andersson