64-year-old photographer David Hoffman has been awarded £30,000 and given an apology by the Metropolitan police after having five of his teeth knocked out when a policeman in riot gear charged Hoffman and hit him with a riot shield. The MPS released a statement staying,

On 1 April 2009 well-respected social issues photographer David Hoffman was recording the G20 protests in the City of London.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) recognise that Mr Hoffman was entitled to report on that day but was caused injury by an MPS officer during the event, preventing him from doing so.

The MPS confirms its recognition that freedom of the press is a cornerstone of democracy and that journalists have a right to report freely. The MPS apologise to Mr Hoffman for the treatment he received and have paid compensation.

It was at the same protests that newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson was pushed to the ground and later died of a heart attack.

(via DigitalRev)

Image credit: The Met by zoonabar

Last week one of the big stories in the world of photography was that Kuwait had banned the use of DSLR cameras in public places. The story originated with an article in the Kuwait Times, and was then widely reported by publications ranging from The Guardian to Amateur Photographer. People were in disbelief that a country would take such an unreasonable stance against a particular camera technology while leaving others legal (e.g. mobile phones, compact cameras, etc…). Turns out the whole thing was a big hoax.
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A Texas-based photographer named David Langford received quite a surprise earlier this year when his friend tipped him off about a photo of his being used on vehicle registration inspection stickers in Texas. Turns out an estimated 4.5+ million stickers used a silhouette created from a photo of his from 1984 titled “Days End 2″. Langford is now suing the state to stop further use of his photo on the stickers — designed by prison inmates as part of a contract between the Department of Criminal Justice and the Department of Public Safety — and to collect damages and attorney fees.

Suit centers on silhouette cowboy (via The Online Photographer)

On November 9th, 2009, Software programmer Antonio Musumeci was filming the arrest of a protestor outside a federal courthouse in NYC when he himself was arrested. His main camera was confiscated, but he recorded the entire encounter on a second camera (the resulting video is above). In April 2010, the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the government on Musumeci’s behalf, and yesterday it was was announced that a settlement had been reached, with the government recognizing the public’s right to photograph and film in public spaces outside federal buildings.
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Charges have been dropped against Anthony Graber, a motorcyclist who filmed a plainclothes Maryland State Trooper during a traffic stop and uploaded the video to YouTube. According to the Baltimore Sun,

Judge Emory A Pitt Jr. tossed all the charges filed against Anthony Graber, leaving only speeding and other traffic violations, and most likely sparing him a trial that had been scheduled for Oct. 12. The judge ruled that Maryland’s wire tap law allows recording of both voice and sound in areas where privacy cannot be expected. He ruled that a police officer on a traffic stop has no expectation of privacy.

“Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public,” the judge wrote. “When we exercise that power in public fora, we should not expect our actions to be shielded from public observation.”

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We’ve covered quite a few stories of photographers being harassed while doing legitimate photography, but what about cases in which photographers are doing the harassing? For many of you, paparazzi likely come to mind. The above video was published by Hollywood.tv back in 2008, and shows supermodel Kate Moss trying to leave Los Angeles International Airport with her young daughter while being hounded by a swarm of paparazzi.

The video was recently used by a campaign that aimed to toughen up laws against paparazzi, and resulted in a new law that passed two weeks ago with a 43-13 vote. If signed by Governor Schwarzenegger, the law would fine paparazzi $5,000 if they break traffic laws or interfere with the operation of a car (as seen at the end of this video).

Judging from the comments left on the YouTube video, it seems like the general public would agree with this kind of law. Do you agree with tougher restrictions on paparazzi?

(via Huffington Post)

The model on the cover of indie band Vampire Weekend’s album “Contra” is suing the band, its record label, and the photographer for more than $2 million. Ann Kirsten Kennis discovered that her image was on the cover of the top-selling album when her daughter purchased it and brought it home to show her.

Kennis claims the model release for the image was forged and the image was used without her consent for commercial use.

Though Kennis worked as a model in New York during the 80s and 90s, she says that the photo, which was taken in 1983, was not taken as a part of her modeling career. Kennis believes that the photo, a Polaroid, was possibly taken by her mother. Kennis’ attorney Alan Neigher, told Entertainment Weekly:

Her mother was a chronic Polaroid snapshot taker, and used to sell whole archives of photographs to these shops, five bucks a hundred or whatever. Her mother may have given away to a charity bazaar a whole ream of photographs. We just really don’t know…She has no idea how that photograph got into the photographer’s hands.

Neigher later said that the family has no solid idea about who took the photo, but he says the family maintains that the signature on the model release was forged.

The credited photographer, Tod Brody, says Kennis’ accusations are false, and that he took the photograph, had it in his posession for 26 years, and only recently gave it to Vampire Weekend for use on the album cover. Brody told PDN:

Ms. Kennis, through her lawyers, has slandered and defamed [him] by claiming that her family took the photo. We will easily prove in court that I took the photo,” he said.

The defendants have not filed an official response to Kennis’ claim, nor has a court date been set.

(via Entertainment Weekly)

It seems like every week there’s a new story of some photographer being hassled by law enforcement. Photojournalist Stretch Ledford and Carlos Miller of Photography is Not a Crime recently visited the the Miami-Dade Metrorail to ride through a few stations and see if anyone would stop them from doing non-commercial photography. They didn’t even make it to the first station.

Despite receiving assurance from Eric Muntan, Chief of Safety and Security of the metro, that non-commercial photography was perfectly fine, they still ran into a load of trouble with the private security and subsequently the Miami Police. Check out the video Miller recorded above to see what unfolded.

Here’s Ledford’s account of what happened, and here’s Miller’s.

Thanks for the tip, @stephanieldavis!

Over the weekend 16-year-old freelance photographer Jules Mattsson was photographing police cadets in an Armed Forces Day parade in London when he was approached by police and told that he needed parental permission to photograph the cadets.

The British Journal of Photography writes,

According an audio recording of the incident, the police officer argued, at first, that it was illegal to take photographs of children, before adding that it was illegal to take images of army members, and, finally, of police officers. When asked under what legislation powers he was being stopped, the police officer said that Mattsson presented a threat under anti-terrorism laws. The photographer was pushed down on stairs and detained until the end of the parade and after the intervention of three other photographers.

Mattsson, having been stopped by police before, started recording audio of the incident on his cell phone in an attempt to capture the arguments that police use against photographers. In the recording, an officer can be heard stating that they didn’t need a law to detain Mattsson.

This reminded me a little of the confrontation between a photog and policeman in Los Angeles that we wrote about earlier this month. However, in that case many commenters thought that the photographer had crossed a boundary and was intentionally provoking the officer in order to create a scene.

What are your thoughts on this new incident?

(via The Independent)

The above video was recorded by Shawn Nee for Discarted, a blog that fights for photographers’ rights to shoot in public locations. It shows Nee getting into a verbal exchange with a police officer over whether or not he can legally photograph the officer.

Opinion over this video — created in February but just released yesterday — is extremely divided. Photography blogger Thomas Hawk thanks Nee for “continuing to fight for photographer’s rights”:

Our ability as citizens to document the police is extremely important. Historically, citizen photography has been instrumental in documenting police abuse cases from Rodney King to the recent shooting death of Oscar Grant. To wear a badge and a gun in our society is a privilege and ought to only be afforded to those willing to enforce actual laws and not intimidate citizens by making up illegal photography rules of their own.

On the other hand, comments left in various places regarding the video argue that Nee was intentionally provoking the officer, “stirring the pot” for the purpose of producing this video. A commenter at the LAist writes,

Who is harassing who in this video? Clearly, the guy taking the video wanted this to happen. He had a video camera set up, to video himself taking picture of an officer making a traffic stop? The cop tells him to stop at the beginning, and that the the guy on the bike is making him nervous. The officer is making a traffic stop. Lord knows how tense a traffic stop can be. Then you have this kid pull up behind up, and stop, and start taking pictures.

What are your thoughts on this video?