On 09.12.2011 during a photo-opportunity organised by Labour MP Barry Gardiner and survivors of the Bhopal disaster in India under the London 2012 Olympic count-down clock on Trafalgar Square to urge the London 2012 Olympics organisers to drop Dow Chemicals - who own what used to be Union Carbide, the company reponsible for the appalling industrial accident in India in 1984 that killed 3,700 on the day of the disaster and a further 21,300 since - as corporate sponsors of the London Olympics, the assembled national press photographers were at first incredulous and then outraged to find themselves being stalked and photographed at absurdly close-quarters by Trafalgar Square Heritage Wardens, four of whom had descended on the press-pack who were there solely to photograph and video this brief event which was of global interest.
As the photojournalists crowded around the MP and other members of 'Labour Friends of India' who had organised the press-call, several wardens pushed into the pack and proceeded to go through the group as they tried to do their jobs, shoving their compact cameras into people's faces, photographing all the individual photographers and taking written notes on their notepads.
Many of the press photographers there had not been on Trafalgar Square for quite some time, and were genuinely shocked to be told by the wardens that they were photographing there illegally and could face prosecution by the Greater London Authority. The professional journalist shown here photographing a warden photographing him said to me "This is unbelievable. It's incredible. What's happening in this city? This is a story of global interest, he's a sitting MP, this is a public place and suddenly we're breaking the law by taking a photograph of him? I can't believe it".
The immediate implication is that there is a database being collected and maintained by the Greater London Authority for future use which may prove later be to the legal detriment of many photographers, and to be shared at will amongst different agencies of the State with no oversight or redress. This recording by "Heritage Wardens" with stills cameras and notepad is also done to tourist photographers on Trafalgar Square whom the "Heritage Wardens" have arbitrarily decided have or might have 'commercial intent'. The basis of this judgement is often, I was told by one warden, based on whether or not the person's camera "looks expensive, or if they have a tripod, or if they have a big flash-gun or a big camera bag or if they just look like they know what they're doing".
Tourists using Trafalgar Square who are judged to be behaving contrary to the local bye-laws posted on either side of the square in small, dense type (and in english only), are immediately intimidated when these wardens with their puposefully designed authoritarian-looking black-and-blood-red uniforms approach them and demand their names and addresses at the slightest sign of resistance, and maybe they do not realise that the wardens have no legal powers to stop and search, which is effectively what they are attempting. Neither are they entitled to look at the contents of your camera, tell you to delete or otherwise wipe images from your camera, or confiscate your memory card or film, though they often deceitfully tell people that they have that power.
That legal power belongs solely to a court, but just the threat of this draconian action levelled against ordinary members of the public innocently taking photos and family videos on one of the most famous landmarks in the world - especially as London is expecting a couple of million Olympics visitors to descend on the city bringing their much sought-after spending money with them - is enough to frighten the public into stopping immediately, and leaving them with a healthy dose of fear in their hearts. Everyone is painfully aware that attracting even a summons can permanently damage your career, and most innocent people do not want to be told that they can be arrested for taking photographs, especially if they come from a different country. Subsequently those photographers who have been singled out by the "Heritage Wardens" (generally only carrying out orders) almost always stop taking their souvenir photos and leave with a bad taste in their mouths. So much for hospitality and a bit of quid pro quo - your vast amount of spending money in exchange for a home-made web-page or YouTube clip showing your holiday exploits.
A huge majority number of these affluent tourists and visitors from the four corners of the Earth will be bringing their cameras with them as they and their families, friends and loved-ones have that very expensive holiday of a lifetime, and they will quite rightfully expect to be able to go onto a world-famous public space and take photographs of each other, the pigeons, Nelson's Column and the large fountains (originally installed in the 1840's to reduce the amount of space available for fear of riotous assembly). Many of them will want to make fun-filled home-made video clips with their camera equipment.
Of those camera owners, the majority will have either high-quality cameras in their mobile phones or good quality 'point and shoot' comapact cameras. A very significant minority, however, will be arriving in London proudly carrying their more expensive digital SLR cameras; some of the more ambitious hobbyists amongst them touting tripods and flash-guns.
The global photographic equipment and accessories business is worth many billions of pounds a year, and the companies which make them - as well as the myriad retail giants, independent outlets and a plethora of internationally-circulated glossy magazines which expensively promote the equipment - have combined annual advertising budgets running into many hundred of millions per annum per territory. It's big, important business, and events like the Olympic games are responsible for regular surges in camera sales and interest in all things photographic.
Conversely, the recent surge in camera development and popular ownership of personal devices absolutely unimaginable fifteen years ago has put some serious creative power at the public's fingertips and has stoked people's enthusiasm for attending events like the Olympic games, which is massively photogenic and is sold to us incessantly by the medium of world-class professional photography through adverts, posters, books, souvenir programmes and by TV and the Internet. People are going to bring their cameras to the Olympics, and when they're wandering around London during the rest of their vacation they're going to be taking photos and making video clips everywhere they go. This is right and desireable. Unfortunately for them, the Greater london Authority has decided that the slightest possibility of you looking competent enough with your camera to take a photograph on Trafalgar Square that doesn't have your thumb over the lens and then selling that image at a later date for ooh... anything up to £10... is enough to make them quietly change the law so they can make the police enforce their rules.
Two of the photographic industry's relative newcomers into the burgeoning marketplace, Panasonic and Samsung, are amongst the 48 corporate sponsors of the 2012 Olympics, and I have found myself wondering if they're even aware that some of their customers this year might find themselves being threatened by a Trafalgar Square "Heritage Warden" for engaging in such an innocent pastime?
It would be foolish to claim that the Greater London Authority - custodians of this national cultural landmark - should not be able to enforce or prevent certain activities on the square. The threat of Trafalgar Square being inundated by crinolined prostitutes, whelk stalls and rioting Chartists is en ever-present threat, and, all joking aside, it makes sense to have enforceable rules to stop street-vendors pitching their stalls, film companies arriving with 7-tonners full of lighting and coachloads of extras, or whatever protest group du jour might want to permanently set up shop on the square, but I personally feel that the alteration of the existing established and effective bye-laws - which already had a prohibition on commercial activity, but which now encompasses 'commercial photography' and also makes breaking the bye-laws a criminal offence - is run right through with a thick streak of a more arrogant, dismissive intention, as the new bye-laws will have a convenient (but insidious) chilling effect on the possible reporting of any 'incident' on Trafalgar Square which is not sanctioned in advance by a hugely uncooperative GLA, which picks and chooses when it wants to allow 'commercial photography' carried out by trained, professional photographers invited by an official press call on Trafalgar Square, like today, for example, when London Mayor Boris Johnson wanted to be seen and photographed - for reasons of personal political expediency - with Met Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe promoting the latest anti-gang initiative... a worthy enough event I agree, but there are plenty of other places they could have photographed it if they wanted to be even-handed in their application of the new bye-laws if the GLA had the slightest interest in fairness.
