Photographers protest over security guard 'harassment'

Photographers who say they are fed up with being 'harassed' by private security guards and street wardens took part in a ‘flash mob’ in Manchester city centre on Sunday.

The event was organised by Salford-based photographer Joel Goodman who told the Manchester Evening News: ‘Many of us are getting stopped on a regular basis… We are constantly being obstructed or prevented from taking pictures when it is perfectly legitimate in a public place.

‘They have no right or principled argument to prevent it but I read stories on a daily basis about it happening and a great many people I know have been affected by it.’

Billed as a ‘low-key show of defiance’, the gathering - outside the Arndale Centre - passed peacefully.

Organisers added: ‘Such incidents… sometimes result in actions that are intimidating towards and obstructive of photographers, or in demands that images are deleted – behaviour which, in the name of preventing illegal behaviour, is itself illegal.’

The flash mob had been publicised through the image sharing website, Flickr.