List of 'Fast Pages'
1.
Introduction to Fast Sections / Fast Pages
2.
South Yorkshire Police, the Bishop of Liverpool, a Community
Protection Notice: WRITTEN WARNING
3. Clergy and congregations: photographing
and filming
4. Durham University
I observe copyright. I'll use photographs I'm free to use, supplemented now by photographs I've taken myself. As yet I've never taken any photographs of church people at any time. Most of my photographic activities - which aren't a priority for me - are concerned with landscape, with plants and with buildings.
I obviously use images very often on this site but the images have secondary importance. Far more important is evidence expressed in other ways, above all, in words, but I also make use of diagrams. Images can't be used to express an argument. Argument can be accompanied by evidence in the form of a photograph but again, words are far more important to me.
In the United Kingdom, photographing and filming members of the public in a public place is freely allowed. The police have no powers to stop photographing and filming in public places and no permit is needed. Photographing and filming of police personnel is also freely permitted. The exceptions are few, as in photography or filming for criminal or terrorist purposes.
I never take photographs or film of members of the police and I never take photographs of children or film of children, even though the law allows it.
The law freely allows the photographing and filming of members of the clergy and members of church congregations - not inside the church, obviously, or on land belonging to a church.
I intend now to take photographs of ordinary members of Church congregations - people regarded by the Church as 'New Creations in Christ' - to illustrate this page, as well as people who would probably regard themselves as more important than that, the people who are church 'leaders' or church organization leaders, such as Dr Tim Ling of the Church Army - and ordinary members of the clergy.
People in the Churches and Church organizations mentioned on this site - and others - in the column to the left (or the right) may find an image of themselves in the public domain, in a page of this site. People in churches and church organizations not mentioned on this page or anywhere else in this site may find themselves in the same position. I have given undertakings to some Church people that they and their churches won't be criticized on this page or anywhere else on this site, when I've contacted them about matters which aren't directly concerned with Christian belief.
Members of Church congregations - not nominal members, but people who think that they have accepted Jesus and that God has accepted them - are, in their own estimation, Very Important People: 'New Creations.' If they panic when they find themselves on this page - but the chance of this happening is obviously very low, the chance of being in a photograph here, not the chance of panicking if a photograph appears - if they resent that very much - why? Is their Christian faith that weak? I don't give anyone any credit for having a 'strong' Christian faith, though. I'd regard 'strong' Christian faith as evidence of more advanced stupidity than in the case of nominal Christian faith.
I first began to take photographs of people and to publish the photographs on this site in connection with the Pro-Palestinian protest camp at Sheffield University in 2024. I considered it a futile but very harmful exercise in self-deception and ignorance and was certain that it would close, and it did close, without achieving anything. The protesters were students, supplemented on occasion by worse, much worse contingents of Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC.)
I took photographs and film footage of the students and went to Palestine Solidarity Campaign protests and took photographs and film footage of these protesters, despite their objections and worse. They tried it on. There was threatening behaviour, they used various tactics to try to stop me carrying out this lawful activity. At a protest which took place in front of Sheffield City Hall, I was attacked and they tried to take my camera away. The attack was recorded.
From my page on the pro-Palestinian camp at Sheffield University, 'In a world where people take photographs very, very often with their phones (I'm not one of them - I use photography far less often, in a far more restricted way, always with a camera, not a phone) then their ban on photographs of themselves is ridiculous - their attempted ban is ridiculous. Students and members of the Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign made determined efforts to stop me taking photographs and filming. Before one pro-Palestinian protest got away, in front of Sheffield City Hall, I was attacked and one of the protesters tried to get hold of my camera. He did get hold of it but I refused to let go of it. When I was able to examine it, I found it had stopped working but later, it began to work again. I had film of the attack and I had a photograph of the man who had tried to take away the camera. I contacted South Yorkshire Police and they examined footage from a security camera in the area (or more than one camera.) They didn't locate a recording of the incident. After this, I carried on photographing and filming.
If I managed to withstand their use of force, I'm sure I can withstand any attempts by Church members to stop me taking photographs and filming. I was very reluctant to take photographs of students, to film students and to use the material on this site. It can be found on the page Sheffield University Camp: the case against. I take the view that the photographs of people enhance the page. This encampment, like the other encampments which sprang up and vanished, was a place of human activity - completely misdirected human activity - just as churches are places of human activity - again, completely misdirected. The claim is that the churches are also places of divine activity, like the world as a whole, the universe as a whole, a claim I obviously contest repeatedly. People at the former encampments and in the churches are alike in having a very high opinion of themselves and their importance in the scheme of things - an opinion which isn't deserved in the least. As they are such important people - in their view - they can have no possible objection to someone recording them in action. The strength of objections to being photographed will indicate that they have some insecurities.
I take the view that young people should be allowed to make mistakes, to have very varied experience of life, unless, of course, the mistakes have very serious consequences, such as acts of violence. The mistakes may take the form of misdirected activism for bad causes, misdirected activity in churches and, of course, in so many other mistaken ways.
Coming to conclusions about the importance of these experiences, distinguishing the successes from the embarrassing failures, can come later. The lives of these people shouldn't be ruined by the mistakes unless the mistakes were very, very serious.
I did feel that many of the students were already hardened fanatical or semi-fanatical ideologists. Some of them, I think, are likely to stay that way but I've obviously no evidence of that. The main thing is that students were actively trying to stop me taking photographs or filming and I had no intention of allowing them to stop me. If by any chance any of these students see this section and contact me to ask me to remove the material from the site, I'll be glad to remove it. I wouldn't consider that as giving way to censorship. The student, or rather former student, is likely to want removal of the material simply because the person has moved on, isn't the same kind of person who went in for deliberate obstruction. Even if they're hardened ideologists, they may alter their views later and it may be that removal of the material will encourage them to do that. But I've no way of knowing. They're in charge of their lives, not me.
Young people who become active in churches may grow out of it, come to realize that the world is a far more complex and contradictory place than they realized, although, as in the case of non-religious ideologies, I'm perhaps more pessimistic than optimistic. There are many people unlikely to advance beyond these infantile stages.
Anyone who is having a hard time and finds that their photograph is displayed on this site, or that they're part of a photograph displayed, is welcome to contact me by email or phone and the photograph will be removed, if I think it would be unfair to include it in the display. People who decide that they are no longer Christians will obviously have any photograph in which they appear removed, if I'm informed of that fact.
As I point out in various places, in particular the page About this site, I treat emails and phone calls to me as confidential, with practically no exceptions.
Above, outline marking a place where a photograph can be inserted, when available. I have an idea of an outline waiting to be filled at various places in the pages on Christians and the Churches. Amongst the people who may perhaps find a place in this site, in the form of a photographic image, are these (but I don't underestimate the difficulties of locating the subject of the photograph, except in a few cases):
Revd Canon Alan Billings, former South Yorkshire Police and Crime
Commissioner, frequent celebrant at St Mary's Church, Sheffield
Revd Tom Finnemore, Anglican Rector and Team Leader, STC, Sheffield
Revd Richard Pollard, Baptist Minister, STC
[and perhaps others from the STC 'team']
Mike Rutter, St Thomas Philadelphia
Zak Venable, Curate, St Thomas Philadelphia
Malcolm Chamberlain, Archeacon, Sheffield Diocese
Dr Tim Ling: According to the publicity machine of the Church Army, 'Tim is Director of Organisational Development at Church Army. He provides strategic oversight for the work of the Research Unit. Previously, Tim led the Church of England’s ministry research, including longitudinal studies on sustaining an effective ministerial presence.'
The photographs of church people which do appear on the site are ones which don't infringe copyright. I feel that the relative scarcity of these photographs in the public domain, compared with ones protected by copyright, amounts to a kind of unfairness. The unfairness doesn't lie in the copyright protection but in the fact that the people whose photographs are publicized in this way are in the minority, the ones whose photographic identity isn't in the public domain are in the majority. This is a situation, obviously, where in most cases the church member would rather have anonymity than publicity. I view a wider range of photographic examples as fairer. The people whose photographs appear are likely to view things differently.
I've made a firm decision not to include photographs of some people, for one reason or another, even if photographs were to become readily available. I don't give my reasons, but hey include
Pete Wilcox, the Bishop of Sheffield, Beth Keith, the new Vicar of St Mark's Church, Sheffield, Dr Kathy Rhodes, Sheffield Diocese Environmental Officer, Dr Margaret Ainger (So called 'Diocesan Eco Church Champion.')
I'll provide more material on these people in verbal form, if necessary. Existing material can be extended as well as revised when necessary.
I don't intend to begin taking photographs and film footage yet. I intend to contact a range of churches and church organizations to inform them that I may begin taking photographs and film footage from 1 January 2025 but not before.
Whatever the subject - the subjects have never included church people so far - I use only a tiny proportion of photographs that I take. I practically never use film footage as film. The exception is the footage showing installation of a swift nesting box I designed. Instead, I sometimes extract still
photographs from the moving footage.
Although I'll sometimes make use of images which don't satisfy me very much at all, as when the images were obtained in difficult circumstances, or when it seems better to use an image than not to use one, and no other images are available.
It's very, very likely that in most cases, the photographs and film footage I take after 1 January 2025 won't be used but deleted.
