FINAL EDITING: THE URBAN EYE

Panopticon:

a building, as a prison, hospital, library, or the like, so arranged that all parts of the interior are visible from a single point.

CCTV camera looking on the Thames Path on the north side of the river Thames, London

I started photographing CCTV cameras as a reaction against the fact that I couldn’t do anymore my street photography over the City of London without being constantly questioned by security guys and police officers. Every time I stood suspiciously for a while at the same point, a security guard came and questioned me. They (the cameras) were watching me and so I decided to watch them through the viewfinder, as a part of the urban landscape. From that point my problems went further and I’ve had to deal with the undercover police and some City Police officers. So the cameras can watch me but I’m not allowed to watch them? Despite the pressures I kept on photographing them, dodging, lying to the police, avoiding facing the cameras, as if watch the cameras were a crime!  They are visible, they are not camouflaged, they are obvious, so why the hell I’m not allowed to watch them?  Wouldn’t them be more effective if they were hided? By being visible they reduce the perception of insecurity as citizens feel they are in a protected area but, at the same time, perhaps they also increase the sensation of fear, as do so the constant presence of police officers and security services.

Not fear but some paranoia is what I have been feeling the last weeks, as I got deeply into the subject. Now, everywhere I look I see a CCTV camera…

CCTV camera looking from the roof near Bank

A man walking under Tower 42

CCTV warning off Bishopsgate

Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon prison idea first came in 1791. The idea has now become more ambitious, and we are not talking about a single building anymore but about the whole urban space being under surveillance by various Panopticon or CCTV systems. 

A plane flying above the City of London and a CCTV camera looking down the street

Foot path near the Barbican Centre

A pupil look at me near the Millenium Bridge

That is the only posible angle where I can be really close without being watched

A man appears from behind a wall and I catch him, near Liverpool Street Station

Construction worker being watched by CCTV camera

Watching the Moon

Since the IRA bombing campaign in the City of London during the 90’s, the square mile have been surrounded by a cordon of CCTV cameras, known as the Ring of Steel, able to check all the vehicles and pedestrians that are entering and exiting the City.

A digitally system that automatically read the cars plate numbers (ANPR) is installed around the City of London and recently there is the possibility to install cameras with biometric technology able to automatically identify citizens by scanning the face. 

Cameras with ANPR technology, able to read and identify the car plates that are entering or exiting the 'ring of steel', High Holborn

Three cameras watching pedestrians and cars, Canon Street

City worker near the Gherkin Tower

Surveillance from the police helicopter during the G20 protests, Bank

Some pedestrians at the G20 protest, Bank

Camouflaged CCTV camera, off High Holborn

There are not official or unofficial statistics on how many CCTV cameras are there. The academics Michael McCahill and Clive Norris claim that according to a survey done on two busy high street in south London, and assuming the survey as broadly representative of CCTV coverage across London, they reckon that londoners are monitored by at least 500.000 CCTV cameras. The report estimates then that as London have 7.2 million resident and the UK has around 60 million, the UK hasaround 4 million CCTV cameras, that is approximately 1 camera per every 14 citizens.

Photographers being watched during the G20 protests, Bank

North side of the Thames foot path next to Blackfriars Bridge

Watching the graves, near St.Paul's Cathedral

Near St.Paul's Cathedral

Spot light on a CCTV camera and the Bank of England in the Background, Bank