A new blog: ‘Angry people in local newspapers’

Brought to our attention by FleetStreetBlues, this site’s title needs little explanation.

Its author (Scaryduck aka Alistair Coleman / @duckorange) introduces ‘Angry people in local newspapers’ thus:

“I feel sorry for local news photographers. They are hugely skilled and poorly paid, and sent out to photograph miserable people pointing at dog turds. Here, we celebrate their work.”

Journalism.co.uk recommends its first post ‘Dog Poop’ on October 22, to give a flavour of the whole blog.

• Angry people in local newspapers at this link…
  

Similar posts:

• Photo Attorney: Who is right in the Fairey vs AP Obama photo case?
• Nicky Getgood on being a community blogger who is Not Stupid
• Sarah Hartley: Help investigate local authority news coverage
• Media Guardian: Esquire’s electronic cover unveiled
• EveryBlock blog: EveryBlock one year on

EPUK: Photographer wins copyright infringement case against Mirror Group Newspapers

Photography site EPUK publishes a report by law firm Swan Turton on a celebrity photographer’s copyright victory over Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).

“In a judgment issued on October 16 which has potentially important ramifications for the photography industry, the High Court held that Daily Mirror publisher MGN Ltd had infringed copyright in photographs included in back copies of newspapers it was making available online to paid subscribers.”

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• Belgian newspaper group to take European Commission to court again after its first challenge over news aggregator fails
• FT.com: Birmingham Post ‘might cease daily publication’
• Twitter injunction: ‘No such thing as unfettered freedom of speech’ says right-wing blogger
• Guardian: Mirror Group websites join ABCe
• Editor&Publisher: Different owners but shared content – two US newspapers pool resources

A short film on photo assignments

Funny (sweary, you have been warned) stuff from animation site xtranormal and user trott57 on ‘how to conduct yourself when offered a photo assignment’:

Just for fun – though I may be able to rustle up a prize from my desktop – if you can top this for comedy and accuracy on a journalism theme, send it our way.

Similar posts:

• Charles Apple: Newsweek photo-cropping row
• World Press Photo launches competition archive
• Tom Walker Trust opens foreign reporting prize
• British Guild of Travel Writers’ competition for unpublished writers
• Stuff magazine to hold Youtube auditions to find new tech reviewers

World Press Photo launches competition archive

Photojournalism body World Press Photo has launched an online archive of more than 10,000 images from 50 years of its annual photography competition.

The archive can be searched by categories, year or alphabetical list of prize winners.

“It includes photos that have become icons, by some of the leading names in the profession. World Press Photo has put them online with the aim of sharing our knowledge, resources and experience with the widest possible network,” says the site.

A great resource and way to see how trends in photojournalism have changed over the last half-century.

Similar posts:

• Photo round-up: New metadata site and tools for photographers
• Times Archive Blog: How did the press win the right to report on parliament?
• BBC appoints Roly Keating as first archive director
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – free ads for picture desks
• The new Student Publication Association needs to converse with existing communities

Next Photolegal podcast to focus on photojournalism

Photolegal, the UK podcast about photography and the law, will focus on changes is photojournalism for tonight’s podcast.

Kicking off at 8:30pm (BST), the podcast will be hosted by new Telegraph.co.uk communities editor and photography blogger Kate Day.

Worth a listen at this link – http://www.photolegal.com/.

Similar posts:

• Goldacre and Drayson live debate at 7pm: Science reporting – is it good for you?
• World Press Photo launches competition archive
• Will Lewis’ defence of Telegraph expenses coverage
• Columbia J-school New Media: Podcast on Twitter for journalists
• BBC R4: The Investigation

Charles Apple: Newsweek photo-cropping row

Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist David Hume Kennerly is not at all happy with the way Newsweek magazine cropped his photo of former vice-president Dick Cheney at home with his family, Charles Apple notes on his blog. The original photograph shows Cheney leaned over a chopping board, with his family in the background. The cropped version shows the vice-president only, to illustrate quotes that he made about C.I.A. interrogators.

“This incident is another example of why many people don’t believe what they see or read. And America clearly notices these shifts in journalism,” wrote Kennerly in a piece for the New York Times site. Newsweek has defended its use of the photo.

• Charles Apple:  Newsweek alters photo… by cropping it?
• NYTimes.com: Essay – Chop and Crop

Similar posts:

• Editor and Publisher: WPNI head quits, Post takes greater control over web elements
• Reuters cameraman killed in Gaza
• AP facing boycott, to set blogger guidelines
• paidContent:UK: Sun’s page 3 girls too ‘obscene’ for Apple newspaper app
• NUJ calls for investigation into death of photojournalist Richard Mills

BJP: Derbyshire – the best place to live as a photographer?

Olivier Laurent’s extensive report into the use of the terrorism act against photographers suggests that many British police forces have been permitted use of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to stop and search individuals, including photographers – with Derbyshire’s force, so far, being the only exception.

The British Journal of Photography (BJP) filed 46 Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to chief constables in Britain to determine whether they had requested permission to use the section of the Act in their regions.

A number of forces declined the information requests, according to BJP.

“[C]ounties including Cumbria, Essex, Hertfordshire, Merseyside, and Surrey all declined to answer, claiming that although there is a public interest in the transparency of policing operations, release of any details regarding the use of S44 could threaten the health and safety of the public and the police force itself,” reports Laurent.

Full report at this link…

There’s also a breakdown of how the police forces responded to the FoI requests by county.

Follow this link for more coverage of photography and the UK’s Terrorism Act.

Similar posts:

• Marc Vallée: The Met’s new photography guidelines
• The draft Terrorism Act 2000 guidance: what’s happening?
• BJP documents Terrorism Act photography event
• Frontline Club: The media and anti-terrorism laws 7pm GMT
• BJP: Photographers sue Met Police for treatment at Greek embassy protests

Jonathan Warren: Climate Camp, the Guardian and cit-j photos

Interesting post by photographer Jonathan Warren reacting to the Guardian’s setting up of a Flickr group asking attendees of this week’s Climate Camp in London to submit photos from the event.

Warren raises a few concerns, firstly:

“If they want protesters to send them pictures for free they aren’t going to want to be too critical about the camp or actions that people from the camp might be doing. To say nothing of the veracity of the pictures that might be sent in by those opposed to its aims as well as by supporters.

“It is no longer news gathering when the subject of a story provides their own content – it is propaganda. Would you trust the Guardian if it took content supplied by the police in the same way?”

He also argues that there is some good from this as it challenges the restrictions being placed on professional photographers wanting to photograph the event.

But the Flickr group also comes at a time when freelance photographers are petitioning against a supposed ‘rights grab’ by the paper, he says.

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• Frontline Club: The media and anti-terrorism laws 7pm GMT
• MEN harnesses multimedia for English Degence League protest coverage
• BJP: Photographers sue Met Police for treatment at Greek embassy protests
• Flickr.com/ara-maye: ‘Photographing the photographer photographing the photographers’
• BBC News/Flickr: The week in newspaper billboards

Fifth International Photography Award open for entries

The British Journal of Photography in partnership with the Association of Photographers is calling for entries for its fifth annual award.

There are two award categories this year: one recognising a single outstanding image; the other an exceptional body of work.

Anyone of any country can enter and there is no theme. Photographs can be captured in any format, film or digital, and can be of any style or genre.

The prize fund is worth more than £13,000 with the winner of the single image category receiving a SIGMA DP2 professional compact camera and the winner of the body of work category receiving a LEAF CAMERA (the exact model TBC).

The winning work of both categories will be given a solo show at a leading London photography gallery, printed by one of Europe’s top fine art laboratories. Both winners will also feature in the British Journal of Photography.

Entry is £25 for the series category, and £5 per single image. Photographers are welcome to enter both competitions, and to enter more than one body or work or image.

The deadline is September 11 2009. Full details of how to enter and the criteria are available at this link.

Similar posts:

• BJP: Photographers sue Met Police for treatment at Greek embassy protests
• Webby success for FT.com and BBC News
• Photography Is Not-A-Crime.com: images from the fourth plinth
• ‘It’s info porn that’s customizable’: USAspending.gov database
• Independent launches 2009 Wyn Harness young journalist prize

Photography Is Not-A-Crime.com: images from the fourth plinth

At the beginning of August the photographer Spike Brown mounted the Trafalgar Square fourth plinth, with a simple message: photographers, both professional and amateur, have the right to take photos in public. He supported two campaigns:

• Photography Is Not-A-Crime.com

The British Journal of Photography aims to raise international awareness about the threat of attack, arrest or harassment to photographers in the UK. A Flickr group pool of self-portraits can be found here.

• ‘AP Rights Watch’

Updates on The Amateur Photographer’s ‘AP Rights Watch’ campaign to protect photographers’ rights can be found at www.amateurphotographer.co.uk.

Brown’s ascent was reported at the time by the Telegraph’s Kate Day here, by the British Journal of Photography here, and by Amateur Photographer here [August 3].

You can see the video of Brown on the plinth here at OneandOther.co.uk.

He has kindly shared his own view from the plinth with us.

This self-portrait:

and another view:

Spike Brown, Blue Feather Photography, www.bluefeather.co.uk

Similar posts:

• BJP: Photographers sue Met Police for treatment at Greek embassy protests
• Fifth International Photography Award open for entries
• BJP documents Terrorism Act photography event
• BJP: Derbyshire – the best place to live as a photographer?
• Photo round-up: New metadata site and tools for photographers