As I thought about it more though on some level I do understand the fear of a camera being pointed at you. As a photographer I have grown to becoming increasingly comfortable behind a camera but at the same time my comfortability in front of the camera has declined. It makes one more self aware and questioning. How do I look? Do I sound stupid? What will other people think of me when shown this? Some of those questions I have asked myself when standing on the other end of the lens but I have also heard this from some of my portrait subjects.
The reason I believe that some police officers do not like to be photographed or video taped is partly because of this self awareness. I am sure we have all had moments in our school careers when our professors watched us paint or draw or work on a math problem. You suddenly become a little more tense, more aware of what you are doing and question yourself on if you are doing something correctly. If I was in the officer's shoes this is an uncomfortable place to be. Again I do not agree that it should be illegal to photograph and video tape police as a way to hold them accountable for their actions and I do not condone police who use excessive force or these arrests that are obviously ludicrous. However, I can see why police are uneasy when it comes to being photographed.
3 comments:
I can also see why they are uneasy, but some are so uneasy that it almost seems like to me that they are hiding something or feeling a level of guilt for their actions. To me that almost justifies having more cameras pointed at cops. They are in public service, people in public are going to see what their actions all the time! For your portrait subjects, it is understandable that they might be uneasy too, but I can't imagine them lashing out the way that cops do to defend themselves from being seen...
I agree with both of you!
I don't think many people feel completely comfortable or act how they normally would in front of a camera or while being recorded, but maybe that is important. I think that public servants, like police, should be under surveillance. They are here to protect us and to enforce the law. Excessive force and brutality is not in that equation. I also believe that surveilling them could help them if some things get rough while in the line of duty. I feel that surveillance should be enforced on public servants, Yes, it may make them tense at first, but they will get used to it and then realize that they need to be on their best behavior all the time. It will soon become second nature and completely normal for new officers.
While I agree with the sentiment that having a camera on you is certainly uncomfortable in a Big Brother/1984 kind of way, I think that in the light of this article it is important to recognize that the camera acts as a check on the power of law enforcement. It is unjust and simply not right to put yourself above the US Constitution, making a fool out of the first amendment, as the police are doing. It is our right as citizens to have the option to uphold free speech and, in this way, be able to photograph anyone in a public space without feeling threatened or pressured to do otherwise. I also tend to feel that those who are threatened by surveillance are the ones who have something to hide or are not acting in a way that they would like to be portrayed (which I suppose is somewhat "Big Brother" of me), which is why it might be uncomfortable to be film doing your job.
It is certainly a tricky, two sided issue and not as black and white as we might feel it is when first presented with this issue.
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