Police officer films the crowd at Liverpool’s Albert Dock, July 2008.

Thankfully, I haven’t come into contact with over-zealous police while out with my camera, but plenty of other UK photographers seem to have horror stories to tell. The only altercations I’ve had have been with the often smug and aggressive security guards who pounce on anyone with a camera in parts of our increasingly privatised city centres.
Photography and journalism websites and publications have been awash with complaints about this police issue for a while now. Between being mistaken for terrorists and accused of being paedophiles, many within the industry are seriously worried about the health of British photography, going forward. Hence the BJP’s Photography is not a Crime campaign.
I’ve seen occasional stories in the national press but over the past week the mainstream media seem suddenly to have decided that this really is a story. In the days since a BBC photographer was questioned for taking pictures of St Paul’s Cathedral at sunset, there’s been TV and radio reports, a front page in the Independent and many other stories – including this comment piece today in the Telegraph.
Not before time. While I always thought this paranoia towards photographers was a dangerous load of bollocks, it was only really when I went to New York in October that it hit me how uniquely British this police crackdown on photographers actually is – instead of being, as I’d assumed, common to other western countries that have also been the target of terrorism. It felt to me as if there was much less hostility towards photographers over there, and in fact everything relating to security and police was politer and more relaxed than it is here.