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Your mileage may vary, I have an anecdote to tell.

About a decade ago, I went to North Wales for vacation and obtained a 70's Soviet camera in pristine condition (Zorki-4K) at a car boot sale, along with the original case and strap.

A couple days later, it came to my attention there was a carnival nearby. And, frankly, I'm not sure if "carnival" is what it's called, but they had a Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, stuffy prizes, that kind of thing.

All I had with me was my Zorki and a couple rolls of b&w 35mm film. By the time I got there, it was dark, I had to push the exposure quite a bit, and I was so focused in trying to understand the gear I had, a couple of local policemen came to me and start asking why I was taking pictures.

Even after hearing my thick accent, seeing my vintage camera, examining my Russian passport, they weren't satisfied and wasted almost half an hour of my time checking some sex offender database for my name.

I didn't even bother to process the roll, none of those pictures had enough light.




In a time before I had any awareness of international security concerns, I was taking photographs of an airport and the planes taking off from an adjacent abandoned industrial lot. To my surprise, the federal police showed up and ask what I was up to. Turns out explaining that you're taking pictures of something because it looks cool is not going to cut it, I guess it's shallow enough of a reason for it to be suspicious. They asked to see my photographs, because it was all sunset silhouettes I think they were satisfied I wasn't trying to gather intel on the airport and they went on their merry way.


You should check out Auditing Britain on youtube.




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