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Being branded a 'pedo' for carrying a camera

The ramblings in the post i replied to. I'm confused as to why else anyone would think i bumped it to be honest.
Go Google Ron Oliver & Graham Ovenden to see when This started.ie a full generation ago. This is the Culture expected by the Culture that created This.

I'd say Anthea Turner too...but I can't find any Net evidence of that...ha!
Click to expand...
 
Super photo at the beginning. Grew up in Sutton know the ponds well from childhood. A pity there are plonkers about that come out with daft comments though to ruin your day.
 
Didnt this happen in the first series of Peepshow?

My sympathies, its never happened to me, but I could see it happening if ya know what I mean.
 
Spymaster said:
A friend of mine, a keen amateur photographer, was asked by two coppers to leave Paddington rec last summer because there'd been "complaints from concerned parents" that he was taking pictures in the park. He showed the plod all the pictures that he'd taken which were of plants and reflections in water. They came out with some shit about children's safety being paramount and that he'd have to leave anyway. He was fuming and still gets arsey about it, especially when I wind him up about "going noncing" at the weekends.

It says something pretty sad about society when single blokes are branded paedophiles when doing nothing but minding their own business.
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even if he had been taking pictures of children there'd have been fuck all the cops could do bar asking him to go, because no one has a right to privacy in a publick place. Obviously most people have the courtesy to ask other members of the publick before taking their picture, but I have never extended that to cops, ticket inspectors or suchlike. But what do cops or parents think would happen to the pictures of these children? Even allowing for paedophiles finding children sexually attractive, it would take a right perv some effort, i'd expect, to crack one off over a picture of a toddler playing in the sun.
 
This just happened to me and I'm still seething. I just sat down on the grass in a small park for two secs,
not a child or even the sound of a child in view of earshot and I decided to take a couple of shots of the dandelions on the grass a metre in front of me.
After taking them and getting a sort of typical shallow depth of field effect with blossom in the background a woman out of nowhere comes striding up to me.
"What are you doing?"
At first I thought, I'm not in a private park am I?, no er ok . So I thought maybe she's into photography and wanted to strike up a convo.
Unlikely, but what else could it possibly be?
Anyway after telling her about my so-called arty flower shots, she said "You're not taking photos of those children then?"
I was gob-smacked.
"What children?" I said. As far as I could see there were absolutely no children around and still weren't.
It turns out over this little hill I was on and way beyond some other trees and behind a fence there was a kids playground.
Anyway I didn't get angry because I like to be nice, but as she was walking away she said "you should be more careful"
And I'm thinking what the fuck!
There is just me a pigeon and a dandelion here. What do I have to be careful of?
Anyway, you can tell I'm angry and I'm just venting, but I really think things are getting ridiculous in the UK and probably some other
paranoid countries. Everyone is so fearful. I think it is she that should have been more careful.
If I'd been observed, for some length of time pointing a camera towards some children then I could accept at least she had something approaching a reason
to challenge me.
Instead, 30 seconds of sitting down and photographing a flower and it is "I MUST GO AND STOP THE PAEDO!"
Right, little rant over :)
 
dweller tbf that would piss me off also. None of her business what you are up to anyhow in a public place. Some people are just busybodies and I suspect this woman was one of those.
 
Yeah, I think I was double pissed off one because there were plainly no kids around and two because of their snipey comment as they walked away.
I think she made that comment because she felt a bit foolish when she realised it was an unwarranted challenge.
Ah, well, I'm getting a can o' beer now.
 
.........happened to me in Roath park (cardiff) a year or two back ..heard a woman call me a perv ... behind me

I was on my hands and knees in front of some swans at the time
 
Tankus said:
.........happened to me in Roath park (cardiff) a year or two back ..heard a woman call me a perv ... behind me

I was on my hands and knees in front of some swans at the time
Click to expand...
You filthy bastard, everyone knows swans are too young to give consent.
 
I wonder what would happen if the photographer just started taking lots of photographs of the busybody. Click what are you doing click click..... etc ... I suppose they would just be so incensed that they would probably call the police :-)
 
Sorry to hear this dweller.

Straight up I would've photographed her anyway after being so confrontational. And then told her to do one.
 
As much as I would like to carry my camera around with me, this thread is the exact reason I don't. I live in a rather touristy area (during season) and when we go down to the beach, I'd like to take random pictures, but am afraid some twit is going to go fuck all on me and say shit (no one has yet). I have gotten some really decent pictures, but it's at the sake of being paranoid. My camera stays in my bag at least 80 per cent of the time I'm walking around anywhere that I bring it.

It sucks, living in the world we do now. No one can do what they want, all because a few nutters fucked it up for every one else. My questions is, how does legal press people deal with it? I'm sure they get the shit stare too.... and they're on the job!
 
dweller said:
This just happened to me and I'm still seething. I just sat down on the grass in a small park for two secs,
not a child or even the sound of a child in view of earshot and I decided to take a couple of shots of the dandelions on the grass a metre in front of me.
After taking them and getting a sort of typical shallow depth of field effect with blossom in the background a woman out of nowhere comes striding up to me.
"What are you doing?"
At first I thought, I'm not in a private park am I?, no er ok . So I thought maybe she's into photography and wanted to strike up a convo.
Unlikely, but what else could it possibly be?
Anyway after telling her about my so-called arty flower shots, she said "You're not taking photos of those children then?"
I was gob-smacked.
"What children?" I said. As far as I could see there were absolutely no children around and still weren't.
It turns out over this little hill I was on and way beyond some other trees and behind a fence there was a kids playground.
Anyway I didn't get angry because I like to be nice, but as she was walking away she said "you should be more careful"
And I'm thinking what the fuck!
There is just me a pigeon and a dandelion here. What do I have to be careful of?
Anyway, you can tell I'm angry and I'm just venting, but I really think things are getting ridiculous in the UK and probably some other
paranoid countries. Everyone is so fearful. I think it is she that should have been more careful.
If I'd been observed, for some length of time pointing a camera towards some children then I could accept at least she had something approaching a reason
to challenge me.
Instead, 30 seconds of sitting down and photographing a flower and it is "I MUST GO AND STOP THE PAEDO!"
Right, little rant over :)
Click to expand...
where you went wrong, is not kneecapping her.
 
What would these people do if you actually said "Yes, I am indeed a pedo and I'm going to get my pedo friends to pedo at you because your a pedo magnet made of delicious pedo juice"
 
Tankus said:
.........happened to me in Roath park (cardiff) a year or two back ..heard a woman call me a perv ... behind me

I was on my hands and knees in front of some swans at the time
Click to expand...
Urmmm, What exactly where you doing with the swans at the time?
 
abe11825 said:
As much as I would like to carry my camera around with me, this thread is the exact reason I don't. I live in a rather touristy area (during season) and when we go down to the beach, I'd like to take random pictures, but am afraid some twit is going to go fuck all on me and say shit (no one has yet). I have gotten some really decent pictures, but it's at the sake of being paranoid. My camera stays in my bag at least 80 per cent of the time I'm walking around anywhere that I bring it.

It sucks, living in the world we do now. No one can do what they want, all because a few nutters fucked it up for every one else. My questions is, how does legal press people deal with it? I'm sure they get the shit stare too.... and they're on the job!
Click to expand...

It only seems to be a problem in the UK though. I've only ever been questioned about what I'm photographing in the UK, when a vast majority of my photographs have been taken abroad.

I have never been accused of being a paedo though, I once got questioned as to whether a 5x4 camera was a speed camera (I was doing long exposure headlight trail shots with it), and I've had run ins with over zealous security guards in London, and police at a protest march
 
I took photographs near a military base without realising and the next day two plain clothed policemen appeared at my door asking to see what photographs I had taken and why.
 
weltweit said:
I took photographs near a military base without realising and the next day two plain clothed policemen appeared at my door asking to see what photographs I had taken and why.
Click to expand...

This is the sort of thing I'd probably unwittingly do.

More on topic, I was with my nephews at a kids playground and was taking some photos - I'm sure some photos have other kids in them - there were other parents etc. with cameras too. It never even would have occurred to me that the paedo-panic has gone as far as people randomly accusing anyone with a camera. :(
 
8ball said:
This is the sort of thing I'd probably unwittingly do.

More on topic, I was with my nephews at a kids playground and was taking some photos - I'm sure some photos have other kids in them - there were other parents etc. with cameras too. It never even would have occurred to me that the paedo-panic has gone as far as people randomly accusing anyone with a camera. :(
Click to expand...
it's the people without cameras you should be looking out for
 
sim667 said:
It only seems to be a problem in the UK though. I've only ever been questioned about what I'm photographing in the UK, when a vast majority of my photographs have been taken abroad.
Click to expand...

To be honest, although I see your point and don't disagree, I think maybe it's more pronounced of an issue in the UK. Like, the US (or any other country) seems more focused on other problems, than turning people into paedos at a desolate park. Then again, I can only speak from experience in Boston and Fort Myers, two very different tourist cities.

I know a lot of avid / amateur (and pro) photogs up in Boston used to rely solely on abandoned buildings and isolated areas to get a really well rounded shot. Some of the architecture in the city screams "take my picture", and it was captured perfectly. However, it was always in areas where people less frequented.

Maybe it's just the crowd I hung around and their way of thinking.
 
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