Brits On the Lookout For "Odd" Photographers

Are you a photographer? Do you carry a camera? Are you odd? Do you and your camera pose a threat to national security? (i.e., British national security or, for that matter, anyone's national security?) Or are you simply a criminal with a camera?

These and other questions weigh heavily on the minds of the United Kingdom's law enforcement personnel.

Last week, as reported in an article in Amateur Photographer, a UK online magazine, British police defended their anti-terror photo campaign: A campaign which targets odd people or people acting odd or maybe odd people acting odd (I'm really not sure which) who also happen to be carrying cameras. The graphical artwork at the top--which seems more than slightly Orwellian to me--is part of the Brits' aggressive media campaign.

The UK, BTW, boasts one of the highest populations of crime-preventing CCTV surveillance cameras in the world! And it seems British police are especially concerned, as part of their anti-terror photo campaign, about (odd) people with cameras taking pictures of... well, of other cameras: Cameras, in this case, being of the CCTV variety. I'm pretty sure all those UK-based, crime-preventing, CCTV cameras have done a really bang-up job of capturing images of the crimes they didn't manage to prevent as well as pics of the (apparently) unpreventable criminals who were not prevented from committing said crimes. So, I can see why the Brits are concerned about, amongst other things, cameras capturing images of the cameras which are capturing images of.... well, of the (odd) people with cameras who are capturing images of the cameras that are capturing images of them-- the odd photographers themselves. (As well as the unpreventable criminals [and terrorists] who, I suppose, the odd photographers might be working with.) Whew! That gets confusing!

It's been my observation that many Americans could give a royal shite less about what goes on, as they say, "across the pond." (Whoever "they" are?) But being the ever-vigilant paranoid that I often am, I get concerned about some of this kind of crap happening here, on this side of the pond. Please remember that George Orwell was a Brit. (See the connection?) And a few of Orwell's books (e.g., "1984," and "Animal Farm") are required reading for many high schoolers here, in the land of the free and the home of the brave. (Leastwise, they were when I went to H.S. back during the last Ice Age.) And while most people understand that Orwell's tales are cautionary, these days it seems like a few of Georgie's cautionary visions have (or might) come to pass.

I think I'm making a point somewhere in this entry, perhaps a cautionary one, and one that is also photography related... or maybe not? If I did (make a point, that is) it's one you'll probably have to determine for yourself. And just so no one feels cheated by me posting a (possibly) pointless update with only that bit of British, police-state, poster art to accompany it, here's a sexy pic of my good friend, Kori Rae, I snapped sometime back. I decided on using this particular image of Kori because I thought the color of her negligee almost matches the background color of the British, anti-odd-photographer-criminal/terrorist, warning poster.