For medical reasons, I am required to visit a hospital for prodding and poking every few months, and the clinic I visit was recently moved from Barts in the City to the Royal London Hospital in the distinctly non-regal Whitechapel.

However, on almost every visit I keep meaning to stick my nose in the museum the hospital is reputed to have, but being distracted by medical matters I keep forgetting. It was therefore slightly bizarre to make a specific trip to the hospital yesterday, not to see a doctor, but to see this fabled museum.

Going in through the main entrance, there is a big directions sign pointing out where everything is – but no sign of a museum. Fortunately, the reception could guide me down the corridor, over the courtyard, across the road and it is in the church outside. The church that incidentally I had walked past on my way to the hospital.

In the courtyard, there is a statue of Queen Alexandra and thinking it looked rather impressive I decided to take a photo of it in the empty courtyard. Opps! Out darted a matronly looking nurse berating me for taking a photo without a permit from the press office.

I might take photos of patients she explained, as I looked around the empty courtyard for the patients of whom the privacy I was so wantonly invading.

Now, I perfectly understand a restriction on deliberately taking photos of patients, but in a hospital where I can guarantee that hundreds of camera phone photos are taken every single day by doting relatives visiting patients, to huff and puff about someone taking a photo of an empty courtyard is rather irritating.

As instructed, an email has been sent to the press office for permission to take a photo.

In the meantime, have a look at some photos of the statue that other people took.

Pettifogging over – I continued to the museum, which is round the back of the church and not at all accessed through the large doorway indicating the library and archives. Nope, its the next smaller doorway along.

Down the slope and opening the solid looking wooden door and an electric bing-bong heralds the arrival of another visitor into the museum.

Considering the lack of signage in the hospital about the museum I wasn’t expecting that much to be honest, but was pleasantly surprised at the size of the place. Roughly horseshoe shaped, the museum is lined with large glass cases packed full of mementos from the hospital’s long history, which can be dated back as far as 1740.

Past the original royal charter and the small group watching the now ubiquitous video screen explaining the history of the museum for those less inclined to read the display boards and I was into the museum proper.

Here is the sort of museum I love, lots of glass cases full of things to look at, each with a letter code and a key explaining what they are. Some of the cases are generic medical history and a few are devoted to specific people who are famously linked to the hospital.

Whether you are interested in the story of the nurse, Edith Cavell, the Elephant Man or Jack the Ripper, there is ample here to sate your curiosity.

Of considerable interest to me are the three representations of the Whitchapel Mount, which was a huge mound of earth that can possibly be linked to Saxon times, and was almost certainly part of the English Civil War defences of the city. I had see one of the drawings before, but the other two were new to me.

The museum is free to enter apart from the donations tin by the door. I was probably in there for about half an hour, although the more diligent visitor can easily spend an hour or more if they want. I will probably dip in every few months on my regular visits to the hospital to look at things in more detail.

The Museum is sadly not open at weekends though – being just Tuesday to Friday, 10am-4.30pm, but is certainly worth a visit if you have a day off work.

Unsurprisingly, the Diamond Geezer has been there already.

Two photography posts in succession? I better stop this sharpish!

Anyhow, after yesterdays somewhat sarcastic opinion about a photo contest, here is one which is vastly more worthy and exciting.

Britain Loves Wikipedia is a photography contest that will be held in museums and cultural institutions across the UK, with the aim of increasing the number of pictures available to illustrate existing articles on Wikipedia and to inspire new articles.

There is no prize as such, as you give your photos to the open-source community, but there is the warm glow of doing something that will benefit the UK’s museums, which is difficult to replicate with mere trinkets.

(updated – have been informed that there will be trinkets for the winners, but I am sure that is not our motivation!)

The event will kick off with a launch event at the V&A on Sun, 31st Jan 2010, followed by a series of events each weekend at locations around the UK. The event will run for the whole month of February 2010.

They are still seeking museums to join in – so if you are the responsible person at one of my favourite little London museums, kindly fire off an email to nick@collectionstrust.org.uk or via Twitter to be included and get lots of visitors sporting cameras turning up on your doorstep in February.

Other websites of interest:

Seeking museums to love Wikipedia

Wikimedia seeks underexposed UK Museum

Wikimedia page about the event

I am writing about this not because I think the contest is noteworthy due to wondrous prizes, but for the sheer irony of the issues it raises.

Over the years I have lived in the docklands area, I have on many occasions been stopped from taking photos either on the DLR stations, or within the Canary Wharf estate.

Although the Canary Wharf estate management office assures me that, despite the actions of their security guards, my photography is fine, I have never had a reply from the DLR about their official policy.

Flicking through one of the free rags given out in the area, I notice a photo competition.

The terms are simply delicious – they want photos taken from DLR trains or on their stations.

Yes – there we have it! The next time I am stopped from taking photos on the DLR for security or privacy reasons, I shall inform the person that I am entering a competition run by their own company.

Huzzah!

Anyhow – more details here.

In the 1970′s-80s large swathes of the docklands area was left as wasteland following the development of container cargo trade – and as such there are quite a lot of photos of the area showing the wastelands left over from the demolition of buildings and warehouses.

In a way, I quite like the desolation and slightly mourn its passing.

Therefore, I was quite delighted to see a building demolished right next to Tower Bridge, and while surrounded by solid fencing, there is a tiny gap you can just about fit a camera through to get some photos.

It’s quite rare to get photo opportunities like this now – especially with the rise of health & safety making it difficult to (ahem) enter the building sites.

Google Maps location if you want to poke your camera through the gaps.

There is an ongoing and sometimes very contentious debate about the rights of people to take photos in public spaces and the attitude of the police and security officers when they see a camera pointing at something interesting.

There have been many reports of the police, and more often the hobby-bobbies (PCSO) who seem to treat photographers as a threat to be stomped on. Ironically, with the proliferation of cameraphones, the ire of the police and security guards seems to be mainly directed at people holding “old-fashioned” conventional cameras as we are presumably more of a threat.

That anyone being naughty is more likely to surreptitiously use a camera phone than stand boldly in public with a big hunk of electronics in-front of their face seems not to have occurred to people.

Anyhow…. this morning my email pinged to alert me to a new statement from the Met Police (you can subscribe to them) and I was delighted to read that a fairly sensible advisory statement has been issued.

The key message is that the police cannot stop you photos in public, even if citing anti-terrorism acts, but they have the right to question you if you film an officer (or ex-officer!) and can ask to see photos – but not demand that you delete them.

The issue of photography in so called pseudo-public locations, such as shopping centers or the London Underground is not addressed – and it would be good if TfL issued a public statement on the topic as the police have done.

The link to the full document is here, which you are advised to print out a copy if you are a regular photographer – but below I summarise the key points.

Photography advice issued

Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel.

The Terrorism Act 2000 does not prohibit people from taking photographs or digital images in an area where an authority under section 44 (or S43) is in place.

Officers do have the power to view digital images contained in mobile telephones or cameras carried by a person searched under S44 (and S43) of the Terrorism Act 2000, provided that the viewing is to determine whether the images contained in the camera or mobile telephone are of a kind, which could be used in connection with terrorism. Officers also have the power to seize and retain any article found during the search which the officer reasonably suspects is intended to be used in connection with terrorism.

Any officer making an arrest for an offence under Section 58a must be able to demonstrate a reasonable suspicion that the information was of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

(the difficulty here is that a photo might be useful to a terrorist – but that I have no intention of passing it to said terrorist – so where does the line get drawn?)

There is however nothing preventing officers asking questions of an individual who appears to be taking photographs of someone who is or has been a member of Her Majesty’s Forces (HMF), Intelligence Services or a constable.

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In conclusion – its a good start and I am pleased that the Police have addressed the issue, although in the grand scheme of things, I think a policy statement, probably from the Mayors office covering all types of locations that photographers are likely to cover within London would be a good idea.

Update:

Sadly, the news that photographers can take photos in public hasn’t reached Chatham yet, where a photographer was arrested under the Terrorism Act only yesterday for taking a photo of a police officer while being quizzed as to why he was taking photos in the local high street.