Tribune Blogs -- Fly on the Wall

Camera Guy - Full Text

2007 was an interesting year for newspapers. And I mean interesting like this: Imagine you're parachuting into an orchard of spears. That's how the future of newspaper journalism sometimes looks to those of us drifting slowly down, trapped in gravity's pull.
A few months ago, a longtime friend called to say farewell. He said I probably wouldn't see him again. He had developed a time machine and was going to return himself to 1989, a simpler year when he was much happier. (Fact: there are no time machines.)
This friend is a photographer who worked at a small daily newspaper in a small town. If you've ever worked on a small paper, you know how it is: several assignments per day and everyone in town knows you're the "Camera Guy."
My friend served as Camera Guy for over a decade. It's what he always wanted to do. It's what he loved. But one day the word "multimedia" blew into town and was heralded as the future and savior of his newspaper. After that, going to work became something to be nervous about. With photo-graph-video-tography pushed on him, he was facing the task of mastering a new medium and learning complex software without any training.
He quit.
And you know what? I find it hard to blame him. In fact, I give him a lot of credit for stepping away. If his heart wasn't in it, better to leave than to slog along half-heartedly at something he didn't believe in. Newspapers are in desperate need of believers and dreamers right now, people with passion for storytelling and loads of creative energy. Without them newspaper readers will drift away to more interesting sites. (ratemycorpsepaint.com, for example.) If you're not up for the fight we face, you'll be happier elsewhere. No shame in that.
I think what my friend saw in the future of his newspaper was a shift from quality to quantity. I think he was concerned about doing quick, shallow multimedia pieces. And that spending his time on labor-intensive multimedia would limit the time he could spend making great in-depth photographs of his community.
It could be said that many newspaper photographers are wanna-be artists. I'll gladly put myself in that category, even if you won't. Working at a newspaper provides me with equipment, an audience, and a never-ending stream of assignments to visually riff on. Not every assignment provides the best canvas for my artistic attempts, but there is always another one coming up in a couple hours that might expose me to a beautiful moment or story.
I guess the question my friend had to ask himself was related to that. Is the newspaper of the future a place where he could satisfy his passion for creating something beautiful? Or would it become a lifeless production centre, filled with 24-7 deadlines and weekly multimedia quotas?
With everything up in the air, who knows? Every newspaper seems to be scrambling for the answers and reaching wildly differing conclusions. I've got no answers for you and your particular situation, other than to say that you need to find your own answer.
Back to the time machine. Why is my friend going back to 1989, you ask? It isn't for the hair metal. It was a great year for photojournalism. Nikon released their flagship pro SLR, the F4. The Canon F-1 was still seeing action on the frontlines. Kodak's new T-Max 3200 black and white film let you see in the dark. The first Eddie Adams workshop was held.
It was a different time then. Better and worse than today. In 1989 I attended a photojournalism conference in San Jose where the topic was the future of newspapers People were saying that people would one day read the newspaper on the TV set. They were showing their prototypes for the newspaper of the future. I remember one front page was simply a list of ten headlines, nothing more.
Nineteen years later, the printed edition of the paper still slams hard into my front door every morning. I'll leave the predictions on its future to Dr. Robotnik and his ten-headline front page.

Labels: multimedia, photojournalism

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Tribune Blogs -- Fly on the Wall

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A while ago I attended a seminar held at a leading media law chambers on UK 'frontline' journalism - that is the reporting of events likely to involve public disorder such as, but not limited to, the recent actions against blood sports, GM crops, capitalism and animal laboratories. There were several issues discussed - one being that journalists (or the more inclusive term 'news gatherers') are usually held in the same regard by the authorities as the demonstrators. Allegedly each side either claims news gatherers are collecting information on behalf of the authorities or that demonstrators are posing as news gatherers to evade arrest. Of great concern to those attending was the number of cases of news gatherers being detained and so having their film or tapes confiscated and then being released without charge after their deadlines had passed. A concern was what could happen to news gatherers films, tapes, laptops, PDAs, digital cameras, phones etc. while in custody for they could contain evidence of crimes being committed, not only by the demonstrators but by the authorities, or might contain data that could be copied and stored for intelligence purposes. That happening would undermine the position of all news gatherers and in certain circumstances would endanger their lives.

Under the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), if the police believe that a news gatherer's notes, film or videotape or any other 'journalistic material' contain evidence of a crime and the news gatherer is not charged with a 'serious arrestable offence', the police have to apply to a circuit judge at a Crown Court to obtain it under 'special procedures'. Journalists can ask the judge to refuse the request to prevent revealing privileged information such as sources. The present law is extremely complex, hence the need for the seminar, and has yet to be fully tested against the subsequent human rights legislation but a basic assumption is that if a news gatherer is detained by the authorities but not charged, the authorities cannot freely examine their journalistic material. The likelihood of journalists suing for false arrest and the PACE legislation should deter fishing expeditions into a news gatherer's notes and films while they are detained but this apparently is not always the case. In one instance police officers detained news gatherers covering a demonstration and refused to acknowledge their status (even though the detainees made strenuous efforts to present their credentials) and refused to accept that their belongings were journalistic material and alleged they were demonstrators and their credentials were faked - despite the established methods of police verification. Other violations of special procedures have occurred while journalists were in custody without being charged but the defence was put that the journalistic material had been separated from the news gatherer during the disturbance and so its status could not be known.

I asked the question if simple labels on the equipment warning of its status could avoid this. I was surprised to learn that this had not been thought of before but after a discussion by the distinguished panel of media and human rights lawyers, including a QC, they urged the media to adopt the labels. The only certainty that labels would be effective would come from putting them to the test. Therefore, for the common good, I provide the label artwork here. The wording has been carefully written (with the previous caveat) to remove any doubt as to their purpose and cover as many applications as could be foreseen.

Nobody on the panel could see how these labels could hinder the authorities from lawfully carrying out their duties. If you have any qualified comments or have had the opportunity to test these labels, please get in touch.

The format is suitable for the many kinds of mylar® inventory tags which can be printed cheaply and come in various thickness and glue strengths to suit any surface. I am told that printing onto vinyl with a colour inkjet printer produces suitable results. I advise that news gatherers always mark their equipment in case of loss anyway. For me a tape printer label with my surname and a postcode strikes the right balance between size, privacy concerns and the information required. I must also point out that this label wording and artwork is COPYRIGHT and I only provide it for free on condition that no one manufactures to sell or profits by these labels. I have asserted my moral rights as the author. I also have it on m'learned advice that changing the wording does not void my copyright and would be committing plagiarism.

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The Spector of Hope

The 'Specter of Hope' is a documentary based on the latest work of photographer Sebastião Salgado.

Salgado spent 6 years traveling to over 40 countries, taking pictures of globalization and its consequences - most notably, the mass migrations of populations around the world. In the film, Salgado presents his remarkable photographs in conversation with John Berger.

Go and watch LENGTH 52 min :)

Love in central Stockholm

Love in central Stockholm, originally uploaded by Jnana-ruddha.

"Homeless also have a sex-life" was their message. They put a bed in Sergels square in central of Stockholm and made out.

Just goes to show the power of flickr comunity, do you think an editor could ever get such a picture via a professional photographer?

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.