Hi Mike - with my ex-coppers hat on - I remember I was not paid to argue with people but to keep the Queens Peace - you get heated - as far as I'm concerned you become disorderly - your nicked!
Sure you have a right to photograph in public and the copper may be wrong to start with - but you step over a very arbitrary line and his or her "ton of bricks" will descend. You don't know - but a short while ago they may have been telling some poor soul that there child is dead or been pulling the bits from an horrendous accident - so their fuse may be very short.
Politeness always achieves much more and has got me and my camera into places where few get. An awful lot of these people spend a lot of time learning their patch in a way the casual visitor can never hope to and many will show you places to photograph from that give that unusual or little known viewpoint.
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