Prince, it was once rumoured, wouldn’t let people take photos of him for fear that the camera would steal his soul. Prince, it should also be mentioned, used to sing about having sex with either a nun, or his own sister, depending on how you read the lyrics. He also, by the by, used to regularly hump a chicken wire fence in his pants during the Sign of the Times tour. So, you know, the guy has an interesting approach to these things.

I was reminded of Prince’s photographic phobia earlier this week as I trundled down to Primrose Hill (just head to Camden and then follow the smell of money) to have a look around the Museum of Everything #3. Curated by Peter Blake – the man who may as well just have the Sgt Pepper album cover tattooed directly on to his forehead to save the introductions – the exhibition is a circuitous, not to mention circusesque, collection of one man’s treasure and other men’s trash. Stuffed boxing rats, end-of-the-pier palm readers, matchbox pyramids, shell Madonnas and life-sized, hand-painted billboards for “the amazing two headed bull”; the man has some class, I can tell you. Walking around the rickety rooms of ragged rodents and dwarf portraits I had the feeling of being in the world’s biggest and best downstairs loo.

Just the sort of place to take photos, you would think. After all, what’s the point of having a slightly broken seven-year-old mobile phone if you can’t use the camera in it to supplant your own actual memory? All thoughts of photography were, however, stopped dead by a sign that read “No photography. Penalty = £1000”. A thousand pounds?! That’s like 20 pulls of the emergency cord on the tube (always an almost unbearable temptation, I think you’ll agree.) A later sign ramped up the threat, warning that the penalty for photography = death.

Of course, it is the threat of death that respective governments have been using to restrict the freedom of photographers for the last decade. According to the I’m A Photographer, Not a Terrorist campaign, police have consistently used the now-suspended Section 44 of the Terrorism Act to threaten, intimidate and obstruct photographers working in the public sphere. When street photographers are accused of involvement in terrorism, suddenly a £1,000 fine for a quick phone camera snap doesn’t seem quite so funny.

However, in a surprising move – and one that makes the dreadlocked anti-globalisation brigade strange bedfellows with the home secretary – Theresa May told the House of Commons in July that Section 44 undermined civil liberties and should be immediately suspended. Indeed, just this week May told the website SceneThat that “the government has no plans to introduce any requirement for photographers to carry identification,” directly addressing advice given by City of London police that stated, “Photographers should carry identification where possible and be prepared to answer questions about why they are taking photographs.”

It is a move that has been hailed by many as a victory for photographic freedom, particularly for those working in politically sensitive or controversial settings. However, at a photography event last Thursday, as I watched a slideshow of photographs taken in the women’s toilets of various Brighton clubs, specifically without the consent of their subjects, I couldn’t help but wonder whether photographic freedom should necessarily be boundless.

Perhaps, when it comes to the liberty of the lens I’m drawing a line in the sand. And that line is at my drawers.

More Nell:

...on naval gazing

...on being posh