Vision for an Open City

CityCo has a vision for Manchester to lead the way as the UK’s most welcoming and accessible photography destination.

To support this, in association with Red Eye, the Photography Network, CityCo launched Manchester Open City – a campaign that seeks to inspire many more people to capture the essence of the city through photography.

We aim to encourage landowners and stakeholders to work together to reduce the frequency of photographers being stopped unnecessarily in Manchester city centre; ultimately encouraging the wider promotion and celebration of our evolving urban landscape – improving perceptions and attracting more visitors.

The Open City Campaign

Overall, the campaign seeks to encourage many more photographers to capture Manchester’s amazing urban landscape. And…

• Seeks to find a sensible balance between reasonable freedom and expression and right to privacy. CityCo seeks to work with landowners and stakeholders to ensure organisations are working together to support photography of people in public places, unless too obtrusive or harassing.

• Seeks to encourage landowners and stakeholders to support photography on private land, unless conduct is obtrusive, disruptive or convenes company policy. In these cases, the Open City campaign seeks to encourage landowners to explain their policy to affected members of the public.

• Seeks to encourage landowners and stakeholders to support photography on all public thoroughfares, unless conduct is disruptive or in breach of the peace.

• Seeks to encourage landowners and stakeholders to reduce any unnecessary stopping of photography, seizing of equipment or deleting of images, unless an offence has been committed.

The campaign is endorsed by Red Eye, the Photography Network

Paul Herrmann, Director of Red Eye says:

“Redeye fully endorses the Manchester Open City campaign. It sends a clear message to our photographic communities that Manchester is accessible and a great place to work. Manchester is leading the way on partnership working with landowners and stakeholders towards a positive and supportive environment for photography, which is something to be proud of. The city’s iconic urban landscape provides an inspiring and interesting back-drop, and through initiatives such as Open City, people should feel encouraged to hit the streets and explore with their cameras.”

photography guidelines

CityCo has produced a set of simple guidelines for photographers out and about in Manchester city centre.

Download Open City Photography Guidelines

reporting being stopped taking photos in manchester city centre

Open City Manchester encourages any feedback from photographers who feel they have been unnecessarily stopped in the city centre.

CityCo will then use this feedback to liaise with landowners, authorities and relevant security firms around steps to resolve and improve the situation.

To send any feedback, please contact us at info@cityco.com, with the subject line “OPEN CITY PHOTOGRAPHY”.

Projects

CityCo and Red Eye launched Open City in Spring 2010, working with five renowned Manchester photographers; Director of Red Eye Paul Hermann, Andrew Brookes, Len Grant, Mark Page and Aidan O’Rourke. We ran a series of workshops attended by 100 amateur photographers, with thirty inspiring images then displayed at a free, public exhibition for three weeks at The Triangle Shopping Centre.

View exhibition images

This was followed by a new partnership between CityCo and photography school and gallery “Manchester Photographic”, with the launch of a new Urban Canal course to capture life from Piccadilly to Castlefield. This was timed to coincide with the 2012 Canal Festival.

Over 400 of the best images from the duration of the course were then judged by leading photographers, in promotion of our Open City campaign, and exhibited at the gallery.

Read more about the Urban Canal course and competition

View the amazing winning images