Comming soon...

Security, Protection and Photography.

I'm sure many of you have heard, and been in outrage at facebook's recent change in contract and policy as blogs and news sites all over the interwebs have been in outrage at facebook's indiscretion in proclaiming ownership over the content we place on their website. If by chance you have been living under a rock and havent heard of this facebook policy, or havent kept up to date with it, let me bring you up to speed.

Initially Facebook laid down a policy indicating that all content that us, the users, upload on facebook becomes property of said company. However at the bottom of the clause there was a subclause indicating that this ownership would expire when the content was deleted or if we shut down our account, therefore returning full ownership to us the user, and only documented copies of our content would remain with facebook, for of course...documentation. However recently Facebook decided to remove this clause, thus making all content ever placed on facebook theirs. This of course presents a problem to many of us digital artists who use facebook as a form of networking, publicity, and having our work viewed through the networking system that they have developed by facebook taking ownership of the images that we place on there. However the chances that facebook would contest the ownership of the work placed on there should it ever be used, or of facebook abusing this clause and use the artwork for their own purposes are of course low, the chance is still there, scaring many artists into not publicising their work, or downright not using facebook at all.

This brings to question of where do we draw the line? Have we reached such a point where we are happy to live in a society where our privacy is is continously beeing lost for convenience and protection? In certain cases I think Facebook goes to far with the contract clause, when easily alternative options are available which would have the same efect, particularly for the purpose that facebook is claiming to require the ownership for. Since facebook has become such an integral part of the web with its content beeing streamed, replicated, streamed and reproduced, in order to protect itself from the abuse of its content they supposedly need to claim ownership so that problems dont arise in these situations. However rather than claiming ownership, Facebook could create a clause stating that by accepting the agreement facebook has the licence to use its content at its own leisure. This way facebook is free to allow its content to behave as it does on the web, and users continue to retain ownership of their work.

Overintensive security measures though, dont only affect photographers and artists on the web and on facebook but also in the streets, especially as governments become more paranoid and police forces begin to abuse the power in the name of national security. Living in a city where a cctv camera is located every 10 steps or less, I'm quite happy to on film in the name of providing a secure environment which is used to catch criminals and true threats to national security. not a drunk taking a piss behind a tree. However when Jailtime is a possibility for simply photoraphing a police officer I begin to wonder why? On Photo District New's website Today one of the main articles was of a police officer arresting a photographer on the New York Metro for taking pictures of a train. It truly Befundles me. I have pasted the article here (can be viewed on www.pdnonline.com) because when I try and click on the article link i get a blank page, but just so you all can get the gist of it

Arrested for Photographing a Train: "It's Almost Embarrassing"
© Robert Taylor	An amateur photographer was arrested and cited for unauthorized photography after taking pictures in a New York City subway station. The charge, for a crime that doesn't exist, has already been dropped. More

An amateur photographer was arrested and cited for unauthorized photography after taking pictures in a New York City subway station. The charge, for a crime that doesn't exist, has already been dropped. More Supposedly the more link will take you to the full article but its just a blank page. Something that they will fix soon I hope.

They have also made it an arrestable offense to photograph a police officer in the UK, however at least the metropolitan police has been kind enough to recently have a few talks at some photographer meetups regarding photography laws, which can be found online, and I belive photocast.net even did an podcast on it (its number 23 I believe)

to Conclude I hope my readers have a better awareness of what is happening in security in protection out there and how it affects us, and for those of you who did know the comment button on this blog is there for a reason, comment on it! Let me know what your thoughts are!


EDIT 1: A fellow photographer reports on his knowledge and an incident he recently had regarding security and photography http://wildlifephotographer.blogspot.com/2009/02/by-arresting-photographers-weve-lost.html

Valentine's Shoot

Well considering my track record, a day and a bit late is not bad, not bad at all. And so here are my images representing yet another of Capitalism's forms of extortioning and controlling us through further Ideas of Consumerism. Albeit it is still a fun Idea and a good excuse for a pink, flowery theme. and so with further ado, the images

White London

So as I'm sure many of you know, especially those living in London, (I would highly reccomend you go join the Darwin Awards if whilst beeing a resident of London remain completely oblivious to this) that we recently had a rather extreme bought of snow. Strong enough to almost completely topple the public transport system. Tubes were out, and not a single bus roamed the streets (something that even the Blitz didnt stop!). But as many of you know, especially the photogs, that neither hail, nor sleet, nor snow, nor an overbearingly scary thunderstorm will stop us from roaving out there to snap our images (considering that description I've just realised photographers are the Ideal FedEx Employees). In fact it drives us to do so that much more in hopes of getting those extraordinary Images. and So I have here for all you to enjoy, my attempt at getting such Images as i troved around Kings Cross and Hyde Park in search of....Interestingness, although I found out later the place to be was Big Ben, I am still proud of some of my achievements.