Oh - we are past masters of gold-plating legislation to make it far more oppressive than it needs to be. You only have to look at how EU regulations are implemented here and on the continent to see that. I have no idea why, since the ordinary citizen seems not to want it generally, but we do breed a horribly Kafkaesque bureaucracy.
I guess it's the days of running an Empire come back to haunt us.
But I am sorry it has put you off visiting - I have to say that living where I do in the country most such laws and trends pass me by unnoticed - except the NT thing, which p***ed me off so much I resigned. I do take lots of landscapes on their territory though.
Lois
I'm sorry you have crossed swords with the NT, but I do think that those sorts of setups have their own internal problems, much associated with costs. It ain't cheap to run huge places (or they would never be in NT hands) and marketing their own attributes is part of their income source. I understand perfectly that they wish to reserve that for themselves. There are also risks, mainly indoors, from photography-related activities. I have worked in such places (with permission - shooting fashion) and there is no doubt that cables etc. strewn across floors present problems to other members of the public. Unless shot during closed periods this even exposes the NT to legal actions from members of the public who might trip, slip or slide, flip flop or fly (depending on their musical taste). I accept that amateurs are unlikely to use cables, but even tripods can cause problems to others and to the surfaces on which they are placed; imagine your Gitzo falling onto a little side-table with a piece of expensive pottery on it...
There is a tendency to believe, that is fairly common - certainly since the 60s or thereabouts, that everything should be free and open to all. This simply is not the case and nor should it be. It is reflected in the right-of-way issues that deny landowners some rights to their own land and continues over into such concepts as copyright, where things are increasingly assumed to be free to all. Google's (I think it was them) recent cock-up in France with copying books without permission is a fairly big and recent example; industrially, what about the work-place ethic where employees have become conditioned/encouraged to imagine they own the factory, workplace or company, when all they really are is hired hands? This thing about rights is very thorny and it seems to me that the less direct a right some people actually have, the more they defend it.
But then, that's the way things go; everybody wants more, myself included. I remember that during the late 50s there was a saying in the UK that one of the differences between Britain and America was this: in the States, if a guy drives past you in a big limousine you would think 'if I work hard, I'll be able to get one too' whilst in Britain the thought would be 'why should that bastard have that if I don't' which may or may not have been representative of a period in our history. I wonder how the Americans saw this then or how they view these things now? Or even if that was the American thought process at all?
Photographing in public places isn't a new problem, though; many years ago I had the Clydesdale Bank in Scotland as one of my clients via their ad agency. I was asked to shoot some exterior shots of one of the branches and was in the process of doing so from across the street when, after a while, I was approached by their security. Possibly my fault for not going in to see them first, but it was an exterior shoot and the less I got in peoples' way the better - I thought. I certainly wasn't aware of any terrorist attacks in Glasgow then! That was the 70s, so security issues are not new. Neither are X-Ray problems at airports: I had Kodachrome fogged (greenish tinge on skin) at Palma airport in '79 when I was refused a hand-search of the film bag.
Guess it's just part of the risk of the world we inhabit and we have to make the most of it. Also, don't forget that from a govt. perspective, they have to cover their asses in case of a terrorist attack, in the event of which they would be the first to be blamed for not doing enough. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Rob C
