Be careful what you photograph

A rather worrying trend for photographers makes the front of the Independent this morning as the paper reports that

Police have been accused of misusing powers granted under anti-terror legislation after a series of incidents, ranging from the innocuous to the bizarre, in which photographers were questioned by officers for taking innocent pictures of tourist destinations, landmarks and even a fish and chip shop.

As a keen photographer it is rather concerning that,Police are using powers engrained within the Section 44 authorisation zone which allows them to allowed to stop and search anyone without having to give a reason.

More than 100 exist in London alone, covering areas such as the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and other landmarks.

says the paper which gives the case of Jerome Taylor who relates that

I was on the South Bank of the Thames trying to compose a shot of the Houses of Parliament last week when two police officers stopped me.
Despite living in London for the past five years I had never photographed the Houses of Parliament before. I wish I'd never bothered. Just as I'd finished fine-tuning my first composition, two officers appeared. "Excuse me, sir," said one. "My colleague and I would like to perform a stop-and-account on you. Don't worry, you haven't done anything wrong."

Will a citizen photo site still work?

Back at the beginning of May,Kyle MacRae once of Scoopt gave an excellent talk on his business model of a citizen photo agency,a concept which ultimately failed.

The general consensus around the room was that was overtaken by events,the soaring popularity of Flickr etc and the model which he had come with simply couldn't compete.

It is interesting then that Demotix who launched a similar scheme last year are basking in the rays of glory after their site sold front-page pictures to the New York Times taken by Iranians who captured shots of protests after the disputed presidential election in Iran.

They also had the only photo of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in handcuffs more recently.

So can they prosper where Scoopt failed?

At Mediashift, Mark Glaser,asked Kyle for his comments

I'd say their chances of acquiring significant volumes of content with commercial value -- where value is largely driven by timeliness -- are slim to zero,It's hard to get sufficient awareness to stand even the remotest chance that the next punter to witness a newsworthy incident will have heard of Demotix, and know how to submit a photo or video quickly...Demotix (or Scoopt in its day, or any similar site) will always score well when they get a big hit -- but otherwise?"

and Mark's conclusion?

Demotix will have to move beyond being a destination site for citizen photos and put itself where amateurs will be taking the shots and uploading them.