Taking photographs in public can sometimes attract the unwarranted attention of the Police, Special Constables, security guards, PCSOs or even people in yellow vests.
This article takes a look at what might be a bit of a current trend to sometimes treat photographers as suspects. There are some helpful links to sites that set out the legal position regarding photography in public places.
In response to reports of overzealous demands by police for photographers to delete images or hand over memory cards, the Nottinghamshire Police guidelines state:
Police officers do not have the authority to prevent a person taking a photograph or to confiscate cameras or film, and such conduct could result in criminal, civil or diciplinary action.
There's an excellent 'print your own' guide to UK photographers rights here.
Jon Jolly has posted here about the issue of how we set boundaries in our online interactions with young people, citing a forum discussion he kicked off at UK Youth Online.
Here are a few thoughts from our experience, which may have turned into a bit of a ramble, but here goes anyway.
Within CYO our approach is to attempt to replicate the boundaries that we set by, for example, not giving our personal mobile numbers. In practice this means using work email addresses rather than personal ones. When it comes to social networking we do not admit young people (under 18's) that we work with as friends on e.g. FaceBook. Although it hasn't come to it yet, if we felt the need to set up a social networking space, we'd do it in our professional rather than personal capacity. A social networking space in a youth work context will naturally appeal to the same good practice guidelines about how much you share with young people to preserve professional boundaries. So, what photos you post (if any?), what you say in messaging, how much info you add to your profile, how often you update it or are available for IM chat. The guidelines we follow in other aspects of professional youth work practice convert fairly easily to this kind of Social Networking as long as it represents our professional persona.
Most IM clients allow you to save the message log and if you're using instant messaging with young people I would suggest it's good practice to save conversations; just as one would log phone calls, make a record of texts sent / received and save emails.
Collective, the girl band that work in partnership with us, have set up a MySpace page to allow a level of social networking with young people they meet. In their case it's a bit easier and less 'personal' in that they always present themselves as a band and never as individuals, so when replying to young people's emails they sign off as 'Collective' rather than as the person writing the email. If you're the only or main youth worker then obviously this isn't an option - you've got to sign off as yourself!
As above, none of us, including the members of Collective, accept friend requests from young people. However, it's a feature of the internet that if they want to, anyone can find you. We had a very persistent young person who managed to follow a long and ingenious trail to find out personal details about one of Collective. I would therefore advise anyone, whether working with young people or not, to be circumspect about what they post and where, youth workers especially.
We need to exercise care in what we post - this obviously includes things like blogs and Flickr accounts. There's a whole load of photos I haven't posted to my Flickr account, some for artistic reasons (!) and some because they include people and I want to retain absolute control over how / if I use them, who sees them and in which context. You don't have to post everything; know yourself and be aware of your motives, just as you would be in your work with young people. And be very careful about what gets uploaded to YouTube!
I blog with clear reference to my employer, CYO, and use my work email address, so although it's my personal blog I need to post with regard to the way what I say will reflect on CYO. Anyone can read it, including my Trustees and young people so I seek to post in a way that would not cause problems if one of the young people we work with came by for a look. This means no names of young people and often insufficient identifying information (e.g. name of school) to ensure that if you didn't know the situation already you wouldn't be able to derive missing information.
Any major flaws, or advice you'd add? You're welcome to comment here, but you could also pop over to Jon's blog or the UK Youth Online forum.
Thanks to Dan Kimball for posting this.
We laughed. We nearly cried. We printed it out and stuck it on the wall.
I'm really not sure what to make of it. I think it could be subtitled, "where fundamentalism meets paleontology". But I'm not really sure.
Dan wonders whether this was truly from a Christian children's colouring book. I hope not...
I'm still confused...
You could also see Dinosaur Comics!
The Jesus Film has been dubbed into over 1000 languages and is probably the most watched film in history. But it's starting to look a bit dated. So the people behind it have started a project to create an anime version, reusing the many existing soundtracks in all the languages it's been translated into.
The Visual Translation Project is the homepage to the whole project.
They've uploaded some concept videos to YouTube. These are just visuals, not finished animation, but are designed to give a feel for the idea. The film is likely to take about 2 years to complete and in the meantime The Visual Translation Project is actively seeking feedback here. There's also a survey which includes five different sample styles to choose from.
This looks like a great way to update what is honestly a rather dated production - we've avoided using it in schools out of embarrassment. So we'll be watching developments here with interest.
In my many years of working in schools, I have not experienced times like these. Whilst, in some ways, the work we do through assemblies, lessons and lunchtime groups has hardly changed, we're seeing a much warmer response from young people. Many have a real interest in what being a Christian is all about. But more than anything else, we've noticed an increasing number of young people asking us directly how to become a Christian, or seeking out God independent of any intervention from youth workers.
There was the boy who came into the lunchtime group we run and asked how to become a Christian. He had no church background and neither of his parents are Christians. We got the other young people there to explain how to become a Christian. The next week he was back, and said, "Since I've become a Christian I'm not afraid of death."
Then a few weeks ago I chatted with two 14 year old girls who had come to the evening service at our church. They were there because they were seeking God and just knew they needed to get to a church. They had no apparent church background and no-one had invited them, they just decided together.
Today I had a text message from one of our team. She said, "Just went to a really old church in ... to look round and there were 3 kids there on their own exploring and I had a long chat with them about God. It was amazing. Young people are so hungry!"
I wouldn't call this revival, but I've never come across this level of active seeking, as distinct from general interest. Is it happening anywhere else? Are we just reading too much into a few coincidences? Or is God quietly at work stirring up young people to seek him. It's what we've been praying for - perhaps we're beginning to see our prayers answered.
Diana and I are back from a holiday in Egypt, staying in Luxor and managing a two day trip to Cairo to meet friends.
Here are some of the things people said to us on the streets of Luxor. I'll leave you to work out how much you believe them!
"Welcome to Alaska"
"You walk like an Egyptian"
"Where are you from?" "England" "I'm from Scotland!"
"I have friends in London / Birmingham / Liverpool / Manchester"
"My girlfriend / wife is English"
"Can I show you the market; it's only open today"
As ever, there are a load of photos on Flickr
