Even worse, Rev. Shaun Sanders who had invited me to come with his church group was accused by security for "taking photos of other people's children without consent!"
Today, I was invited by Rev. Shaun Sanders to come along with his church group to Clacton-On-Sea to take some photographs. This was on the same day Storm Antonio was scheduled to land in the UK. I didn't initially want to come along but the idea of capturing some nice photos of a storm was too overwhelming, so I went along.
As the weather forecast predicted, It was generally a wet day throughout the UK but I was quite disappointed that there wasn't much of the storm. Perhaps my expectation of scenes like in the movie Twister was a lot to ask for.
It was not too disappointing not being able to take photograph epic storm, but it was rather shocking to be followed by a security person into the gents.
Sit back and grab your popcorn folks, I'm going to tell you a story of what had happened.
Shaun and I both spent a bit of time around the beach taking photographs. We both used our Nikon cameras. Shaun had his Z8 and I had my Z6II, with the hoods on for extra protection from the rain. Shaun had his 24-120 lens whilst I had my 24 - 200 lens. If you are not familiar with these cameras, they are huge and heavy. As the weather turned a bit wetter we decided to venture indoors, with our cameras hung around our neck. We decided to head for the pier.
Whilst in the pier, Shaun stumbled to some of his church members taking shelter as well . Some came with their children and grand-children. Naturally as with all church outings, Shaun would take photos of his congregation members for the church's newsletter, website and social media. We decided to go out to the pier deck when it was not as blustery, to take some more photographs. Walked to the end of the pier deck then went back in again when it started to get a bit more windy. This was when things got a bit wrong.
In the middle of our way going back out of the main entrance, were were stopped by a security person "reminding" us about not taking photos of other people's children and only taking pictures of family members. We were both in amazement as he was "reminding" this to us but as we were heading out anyway, we decided to just acknowledged him and walked away. Again, Shaun stumbled on his congregation members and took photographs of them. As we left the pier and back in the outside, the same security person approached us again, saying that his colleague had seen Shaun took photos of two children without their permission.
This time, the word amazement was an understatement. Shaun again had to explain to this security person that he merely took photos of his congregation members and we are knowledgeable enough not to do anything untoward, which seemed to be this security person's concerns. Somehow, his "colleague" forgot to mention to him that when Shaun took the photos, the parents were also present and gave their consent. After listening to him "explaining" things to us again, we just smiled and walked away because, well, what else to do? Common sense would dictate that if someone wants to do something unscrupulous, they would want to be as discreet as possible. Carrying a big, heavy camera around the neck is certainly not discreet. Then again, we also know that common sense is not very common, or it may mean something else to certain quarters of society.
It reminded me of the story about a tiger who argued with a donkey about the colour of the grass, whether they are green or blue. Donkey was convinced they are blue and the tiger argued passionately that the grass is green. It got so heated that they went to lion for a final deliberation, whereby donkey insisted that lion should punish tiger for not acknowledging the grass is blue, to which the lion agreed. Tiger was surprised by the punishment. When tiger asked lion why he was punished, lion replied that it was not because he was wrong about the colour of the grass but because he wasted time arguing with a donkey about such trivial matter and had the audacity to escalate such insignificant matter to him.
Anyway, back to my story. As we parted ways with the security person for the second time, we wondered around the beach again then made our way to the Armstrong's Pavilion Bowl and Restaurant to have some coffees and cakes as the rain began to get heavy again.
As we were inside trying to make our way to the restaurant, we were stopped again by a different security person to "remind" us to take our hats off when we are inside the premise. We complied but we didn't realise that wearing cap indoors was prohibited. At least we are not alone as many others were reminded to take their cap off. Considering the weather though, should not be very surprising. As we settled ourselves at the restaurant, I decided to visit the loo and as you can guess, yours truly, the friendly security person decided to pop-in as well. Coincidence? Perhaps. This was when I decided to utilise my time (and their free WiFi) to write this blog.
We did find a few moments at the restaurant, pondering over our unfortunate day out at Clacton Pier. Perhaps we should post this on Reddit forum and ask the world wide web to weigh in. We can then get the Internet to decide whether what had happened was simply due to our ignorance of the local custom, or because it was a slow day at the pier and some petty functionaries decided they needed a bit of drama to spruce up their day at work - as if having Storm Antonio for the day was not exciting enough.
To fellow photographers and especially those who are planning to shoot POV videos, be warn! Do not draw yourself any unwanted attention by bringing your, as the security person said, "specialised camera", when visiting Clacton-On-Sea. It upsets the locals. If they want free promotion on social medias they will hire a professional photo/videographers for that. Maybe also try and dress as locals do as well. And, leave your hats home! They want to have a good look of your face when you are inside. Although, it seems that it is alright to wear your hat in the pier. We were not challenged then. They only have problems with our "specialised cameras".
Despite not getting the storm photos I was hoping for, I did however have a story that I can share on the world wide web. Yay!
The end.
p/s I think we might have been banned from Clacton Pier.