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The Matter Of Privacy When Taking Photos Of Random People

Book Review: The Photographer by Craig Robertson

I am an avid amateur photographer — with several photography day courses under my belt, and blessed with creative talent. I love taking pictures of buildings, landscapes or animals, and my favorite subjects are anything I can capture with my macro lens.

Sometimes we (photography is a mutual hobby of my husband and I) find ourselves in crowded places, and one thing I am very careful with is to take images of other people. If I do, mostly the person is not aware, and I’m careful to share those images anywhere.

Why?

Because I know how I feel when I discover a lens in my direction, even when I know it’s pure coincidence, like when I stand at the zoo and I just happen to be in the shot when a person takes an image of an animal. I always think: no, I don’t want to be in your picture. I understand others may feel the same.

When I saw the title of this book by Craig Robertson — The Photographer — it intrigued me enough to want to read it.

About Craig Robertson, the author

It’s interesting that for some authors you can find information about where they were born and raised, but not so much for others.

Craig Robertson falls into the latter category. He was born in the United Kingdom, and is married to his Californian wife, Alex. He met her when she delivered a class at a crime-writing festival in Colorado Springs in 2013.

This author is a former Sunday Post journalist and in he has an impressive list of achievements during his twenty-year career, such as interviewing three Prime Ministers, reporting on 9/11, Dunblane, the Omagh bombing, and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. He was one of the first to interview Susan Boyle, spent time on Death Row in the USA, and dispensed polio drops in the backstreets of Mumbai, India. He also won a major award, beating Oprah Winfrey.

Craig Robertson sets his crime novels in the modern-day Glasgow. He divides his time between California and Scotland.

Books by this author are: * Narey & Winter Books: Random (2010), Snapshot (2011), Cold Grave (2012), Witness the Dead (2013), In Place of Death (2015), Murderabilia (2016), The Photographer (2018), Watch Him Die (2020), * Standalone Novel: The Last Refuge (2014) * Anthology: Bloody Scotland (2019)

Random images which are not so random

In The Photographer, a sergeant finds a box of photographs in the house of William Broome, a social media entrepreneur. He’s a confident, arrogant man with cold eyes, and a recluse.

The photographs are all of the attractive women between their late teens and early thirties. It’s found in a raid on Broome’s house, after a rape victim has come forward because she recognizes the press picture of Broome as the man who has attacked her brutally in her own home.

None of those women has been aware of anyone photographing them.

The judge rules the box of photographs inadmissible, and William Broome walks out of court, a free man.

DI Rachel Narey and her team start a race against time, as does Tony Winter, because Internet trolls threaten his young family. They need to find the unknown victims of the photographer’s lens, and they need to do so before he strikes again.

Addressing several uncomfortable subjects

The author touches on different troublesome matters in the book, and all of them in a sensitive and insightful manner. There’s rape, the difficulty of victims to come forward, and the shocking mental and physical impact on them.

The book also deals with stalking, because Broome doesn’t photograph those women only once, but several times. He knows where they live, where they work, and what their normal routines are.

Malicious online trolling is another subject, and something Tony Winter — Narey’s husband — has to deal with after he receives copies of the photographs in an email.

Then, of course, the matter of privacy for being photographed by a total stranger.

The shocking events in this book keep you on the edge of your seat. Learning about what those poor women went through made my stomach turn, and I hated Broome’s mother because she believes her son is as innocent as the day he was born.

You know who the villain is, but you don’t know if Narey and Winter will get the evidence they need to convict him. Definitely a compelling read!

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