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Get On, Clip In, Fall OffRandom bletherings of a dilletante cyclist. |
It's become clear to me recently that there's a lot of confusion along staff, customers and police alike about what the rules are governing personal photography on London Underground and National Rail (Network Rail / ATOC members) stations and trains. Given the number of unpleasant incidents which have been documented over the last year or so, I thought it might be useful to all involved if I were to summarise the results of my various bits of both formal and informal research on what's allowed and what's not. This is just the result of a little web searching, so no responsibility accepted for advice taken, especially as I'm not a lawyer. Get that? I'm not a lawyer - the below just represents my understanding of what I believe to be the situation. You want legal advice, call a lawyer. Don't call me. If you want a UNIX system adminstrator, feel free to call me, but while sysadmins are an opinionated bunch, relying on them for legal advice is like relying on your lawyer to set up your new mail server. Sources are hotlinked.
There is no automatic legal right to take photographs on private property. For the basic legal issues surrounding photography in the UK in general, see (download, and print, and carry with you) Linda Macpherson's excellent summary.
Neither Transport for London or National Rail byelaws make any specific mention of photography. However, as with any private place you have no automatic right to be on a railway station, and can be asked to leave the premises if it's clear that you don't have any business with the railway (i.e. you're planning on travelling or meeting someone).
As far as I can understand it, nobody has any right to touch or interfere with your equipment or order you to turn over your film or memory cards. I need a little more research to confirm this, but I suspect that the only people who can do this are police officers, and then only in very specific situations. Under any other circumstances it's a criminal offence. (Not being a lawyer, I need independent confirmation of this. Have I said I'm not a lawyer enough times?)
Be aware that both the Official Secrets Act 1911 and Terrorism Act 2000 impose potential restrictions on what you can photograph. Even if you don't read any more of it, read and digest the National Security section of Linda Macpherson's guide.
You may take personal photographs on the Underground, but you MUST NOT use flash. This is specifically addressed in section 4.5 of the Conditions of Carriage, which states that you must not (among other things) "take flash photographs and/or use a tripod or other camera support equipment". It's hard to disagree that this constitutes an implied permission to take the odd snapshot on the Underground. From experience, I'd also recommend that if your camera has an autofocus assist light that you either turn it off or tape over it if you can't - although it's not a flash, they can be pretty bright and I've had drivers complain about them over the PA before.
Notwithstanding the above, serious photography and filming requires prior permission and a permit from the (very helpful) LUL Film & Photography Office. While this doesn't seem to be stated explicitly, I guess this refers to "serious photography", as in photography for photography's sake and photography being the main reason for your being on the station, as opposed to a few snapshots while waiting for a train - the boundary is rather fuzzy, though, and I think this is what's leading to confusion. The permit itself states that station supervisors may also at their discretion permit the use of a tripod under circumstances if you're a permit-holder. Unfortunately, in my experience the type of camera being used seems to be being used as more of a determinant of whether photographs being taken are personal or not than the subject matter and the behaviour of the photographer. In any case, loitering on a station for a long time photographing passers-by or whatever most likely crosses the boundary between casual snapshots and serious photography.
If you are in possession of a permit, it does not give you carte blanche permission to take photographs. Final permission must be sought from the Station Supervisor on duty, and you will be required to sign in and out. Under most circumstances, photography authorised through the permit mechanism is only permitted during off-peak hours.
The only source I can find here is the Guidelines for Railway Enthusiasts which have been rather unilaterally adopted by Network Rail and the various ATOC companies. These state that
Taking photographs on stations is permitted providing it is for personal use. For any commercial photography, prior permission must be sought from the appropriate train operator or, from Network Rail at their 17 major stations. On busy stations the use of a tripod may cause a dangerous obstruction to passengers and you may be asked not to use one. In addition, tripod legs must also be kept away from platform edges and behind the yellow lines. Flash photography on platforms is not allowed as it may distract the attention of train drivers and train despatch staff and is therefore a potential safety hazard. You are also not allowed to take photographs of security related equipment such as CCTV cameras.
This section is composed purely of my own personal opinion, but it's in the interests of everyone to be reasonable. Photographers, enthusiasts and the rules surrounding their activities have once again come under scrutiny recently because some people are quite rightly worried about unusual or suspicious activity. It's easy to simply dismiss these concerns as unjustified paranoia and an excuse for a clampdown, but given that everyone's a little nervous right now it's a good idea to try and understand their point of view.
Use common sense. It's hard to convince people that you're totally innocent if you're going around taking photos of, say, security doors or CCTV cameras rather than arriving trains and platform furniture.
If you do happen to get stopped or even searched by the police (most probably a stop and search under section 44 of the Terrorism Act) then it's most probably for a reason and it's probably easier to agree with good grace than to risk being detained for a few hours at the police station. You might want to check the BTP's guide to your rights and the responsibilities of the police if you're stopped using these powers.
Ultimately, it's in the best interests of everybody involved for enthusiasts and photographers to treat everyone in an official position who they encounter with courtesy and good grace. Going too far in the other direction could lead to photography getting forbidden altogether (after all, "no photos" is a far easier policy to interpret and enforce than the current "photos are usually okay, but.." policy, isn't it?), which would be a lose-lose situation all around. It's also in the best interests of everybody involved for any staff and police officers coming into contact with photographers and enthusiasts to treat them with courtesy and good grace in return, mind.
As I mentioned a few months ago, the current security paranoia prevailing in the UK is making life very difficult for people whose hobbies happen to include photography. While the rights photographers have in law when taking photographs in and around public places are fairly clear and laid out in this excellent summary which everyone should read, people like me who like taking pictures of railways and, in particular, the London Underground have a rather more confusing time. Railway stations are private property, so the owners can impose more or less any conditions they want within reason. Historically, the main rule concerning photography on and around the Underground and the main line railways has been one of common sense. Personal photography - no problem, but don't get in the way of other people, no tripods without the express permission of the station manager, and absolutely no flash because it blinds drivers. If anyone asks you to stop with a good reason or asks what you're doing, be polite. Professional photography, photo shoots, filming and anything else were a completely different area and obviously required advance permission.
Then came the last few years. Notwithstanding the fact that these common-sense rules had generally served people just fine for a very long time, including through a lengthy and unpleasant campaign of terrorist violence lasting from the 1960s to the 1990s, all kinds of bizarre clampdowns and rule changes started happening as a collective mood of paranoia gripped the nation, characterised by weaselly excuses such as "Well, you can't be too careful" and "Of course, terrorists could make use of those photos for planning an operation". After a number of unpleasant incidents involving railway enthusiasts minding their own business being turfed out of stations, threatened with the police and generally made to feel like criminals, it became clear that this decades-old understanding was now At An End. The growth in the use of private security firms rather than railway staff didn't help this, as undertrained security guards with little understanding of railway culture started throwing their weight around.
Still, I thought. London Underground have a sensible policy, which is more or less exactly the one described above. You can see it here on their website. Personal photography is fine, no flash, no tripods, anything else requires a permit. The usual rules. Ambling around there with a camera shouldn't be a problem, right? Well, no. The LU Film Office's FAQ states that "anybody wanting to film or take pictures must seek prior permission from the London Underground Film Office". I found myself shouted at at great length (rather incoherently - I could hardly understand a word of it) over the PA at an LU station a few days ago for taking a photo of a platform sign with my D200, so emailed the Film Office to ask what the actual policy in force is. They were apologetic and helpful, and offered to issue me with a free photography permit for use in future. However - (a) permits only last for a month, and renewing them is going to be a lot of hassle for me and extra work for the Film Office who probably have better things to do, and (b) all a permit entitles you to do is to ask the Station Supervisor with slightly less chance than usual of them saying "no".
I suspect that what caused the tirade was the fact that I was using my digital SLR. Now, point and shoot cameras don't generally work well in the Underground where flash isn't allowed, as their low-light performance just isn't up to that kind of work. If you want bad, fuzzy photos then that's fine - go ahead and use a digital compact (I find them a lot more convenient a lot of the time), but if you want to be able to reliably take sharp photos at handheld shutter speeds it's hard to beat a DSLR and a fast prime lens. However, merely being in possession of such an artifact doesn't make me a professional photographer who needs the permission of the Press Office to be there.
This is becoming a real problem for railway enthusiasts across the board, and I've decided that I'm going to attempt to collect incidents of railway photographers and other enthusiasts being hassled while doing things which were always perfectly ordinary and harmless in the past. By doing this, I hope to to be able to develop a coherent picture of the situation to encourage the relevant authorities to to work with, rather than against enthusiasts and ensure that their staff are also made aware of what is and is not permitted.
If anything like this has ever happened to you, then please do drop me a line with the details (when, where, who was involved, what rules were cited, what the outcome was, etc) and I'll add it to the files.
In a bout of extreme fiscal irresponsibility (although it has rather usefully spurred me to finally put a bunch of unwanted stuff on eBay) I gave into temptation on Christmas Eve. I'd read the specs of the new Nikon D200 when the camera was launched, and had harboured vague thoughts that maybe I'd get one someday. When the stars were right and I had the money and could justify it. The main reason for this was that although my D70 is an absolutely fantastic camera which I'd recommend to anyone without hesitation, it was sometimes just a little fiddly for what I like doing, which is taking photos of trains and other things which only give you a few seconds to frame, meter and shoot. The D200 can also make more use of older Nikon manual-focus lenses than the D70, which I like. It's also somewhat more rugged, and has a magnesium-alloy body with gaskets around all the vulnerable bits to make it a bit more weatherproof. All these things are nice, and there are a few other touches which I liked enough to covet one despite the rather-more-than-a-D70 pricetag and the fact that I was really very happy indeed with the D70.
Anyway, I didn't think much more of it until just before Christmas, when I found that I was a bit better off than I thought I'd be. Oh, I thought. Maybe I can get a D200 sometime. When the stars are right. I can always sell the D70 to pay for it. Anyway, supplies are very limited at the moment and it'd take a long time to get one, so I went back to vague lust from afar.
Unfortunately, while visiting my parents I strolled down town on Christmas Eve to buy some presents and glanced in the window of the local camera shop to see.. a D200, with a sign cheerfully advising that this was most likely the only one on sale in Warwickshire. I agonised for a bit, paced up and down a lot, agonised a bit more, then thought "Oh, what the hell", and went in and waved my credit card. To imagine the significance of just finding a D200 on the shelf like that so soon after its release, think of it as being roughly equivalent to just finding a bunch of unsold Xbox 360s in the window of HMV on Christmas Eve. So, well, er, I had a D200 several months earlier than I thought I would, and my gadget lust was sated. Even better, the D70 is going to a good home, which is much nicer than selling it to some random person on eBay who might, like, mistreat it or something.
But what do I think of it? Well, there's certainly no buyer's remorse. As I grew up handling manual film SLRs the controls are nicely laid out (the ISO button being on top rather than shared with the playback button is a big win), and the screen is fantastic. The magnesium-alloy body feels sturdy enough to club an attacking leopard senseless if the need ever arises, and AI lens compatibility is very appealing. I borrowed my dad's 55mm Nikkor macro, and it worked just fine with the D200 - metering and all. And of course, seeing as I tend to crop images heavily, the 10.1MP CCD makes things like that a lot, lot easier. There are a number of other things I could also talk about, but there are plenty of people out there more qualified than me to write in-depth reviews.
There are two things so far which have annoyed me - firstly, it's quite easy to knock the AF selector from AF-S or AF-C to MF as it's a little lever just down by the lens mount (I've lost at least one shot this way already while on the Piccadilly Line), and secondly, the drive mode selector's most usual settings (single, continous low speed and continuous high speed) aren't at the ends of the dial, so it's hard to change drive modes without looking at the dial. I've also lost a shot this way by switching into self-timer mode rather than high-speed mode. Oops.
What I do with it now is, of course, very much up to me. I certainly now have a serious incentive to pay as much attention to my photography as I did when I was younger. I also need to get a decent tripod (as London is the city of gloomy weather and long exposures), and having discovered the magic of really fast lenses after getting an 85mm Nikkor f/1.8 for Christmas I think I'll be hitting eBay for a fast 50mm pretty soon. I have a horrible feeling a copy of Photoshop CS2 might be in my future as well - but in the meantime, there's a move and a wedding to plan. And pay for.
