[youtube width="580" height="344"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gw8E5oulos[/youtube]
I was surprised to learn the other day that a friend of mine and fellow photographer, Lance Rosenfield, had made it onto CNN. I wasn’t surprised that he was in the limelight because he is an excellent photographer…see proof here and here.I was surprised because he was on CNN since he had just been detained and harassed whilst on assignment photographing a BP oil refinery in Texas.
The above video is an interview with Lance from the Anderson Cooper show on CNN a couple of days ago. Lance outlines his experiences of being followed by the police, detained and quizzed after having taken pictures of the refinery.
It’s understandable that sights such as this will be sensitive to people randomly turning up and taking photographs. It’s equally understandable that they may stop people and ask what they are doing. What isn’t understandable is the way that those people can then be treated by the authorities as was outlined by Lance in his interview. The fact that Lance’s personal information was given to BP security by the police, despite his protests, is worrying. The fact that he was also intimidated by the threat and subsequent arrival of a Homelands Security Officer sounds excessive and uncalled for. Was this really needed when I am sure Lance outlined he was a professional photojournalist working for a reputable publication?
It’s seems this is another in a long line of conflicts between photographers and the authorities with the photographers normally ending up on the wrong side, being treated unfairly and with an excessive amount of suspicion. To be honest, I am not sure of the extent that this happens to photographers in the US on a daily basis. In the UK however it has been a contentious issue for some time now with a series of reported cases of photographers being harrassed and detained for photographing in public places mainly under the auspices of the ‘Terrorism Act’. Have a look at the video below from the Guardian News website from December last year showing the terrible treatment a student photographer received whilst out photographing in central London.
[youtube width="580" height="344"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-6DijNE3Z0[/youtube]
Active campaigning by large portions of the photography community in the UK against this kind of police behavior led to the excellent “I’m a Photographer Not a Terrorist” Campaign which culminated in January with a mass rally in Trafalgar Square in London. Constant pressure by photographers about the increased occurrence of this behavior towards them by the police, coupled with further campaigning, led to the determining that a certain section within the Terrorism Act that was mainly being used against photographers was deemed in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was an impressive victory but cases are still popping up from time to time about the excessive treatment issued against photographers by the authorities.
Wherever we are in the world, it’s an important issue to stay aware of and we must continue to defend our right to photograph in public places without the fear of harassment, detention or worse. Hats off to Lance for doing exactly that.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by sabrinahenry and Sean Gallagher. Sean Gallagher said: By the way, that last link of Lance contains a vid of him on CNN on Anderson Cooper show! -> http://bit.ly/cRwn6S [...]