Good week… and a bad week

This has been a strange week. For a start I've been ill, and therefore very tired, but I've been missing sleep because the cat has been ill too. So I've been a bit of a zombie. And I've also managed to have three complaints made against me, coincidentally all by council people.

First, the positive: It's been a busy week and I've produced a lot of photos that I'm happy with. Thursday was a high point as the three papers I do most work for all had my photos on their front pages:

But the week started on a negative, with a complaint from a councillor who I photographed for a newspaper a couple of months ago. She was furious that I had shown the photo here, on my blog, when I didn't have permission to do so. Unfortunately her complaint was hollow because I did actually have 'permission', not that I need it as I'm freelance so I own the copyright. Anyway this councillor demanded that I remove the photo or she would "contact the Scottish newspapers", which I assume was her way of blackmailing me with a threat of career damage. Naturally I didn't remove the photo. (Someone else asked for their photo to be removed a few days later and I did so immediately. They asked politely. Update: And I've now removed the councillor's photo.)

The next complaint was from another councillor. I turned up to do a pre-arranged photo and he informed me that he had double-booked himself so he could only stay for a few minutes. That would have been okay apart from the fact that he was camera shy, so it took ages to get even one decent shot without him staring off into the distance or looking at the ground. Just as I was starting to get some useable pics he announced that he had to go, and if I tried to keep him any longer then he would complain to the newspaper. So off he went. And then complained anyway.

And from the bizarre to the ridiculous: Yesterday I was scouting a location to do a newspaper photo, and there were some council workmen cutting the grass. Today someone from the council complained to a different paper that I'd been hanging around the workmen, dangerously close, and trying to take photos of them. Never mind the fact that I hadn't gone anywhere near them and didn't even have my camera with me at the time! They wouldn't have even known I was a photographer until they saw me doing the photo for the paper about half an hour later.

Hopefully next week won't be quite so weird…