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/.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
As reported by HoldtheFrontPage yesterday, some photojournalism graduates from Sheffield College have been told they must resit one of their end of year exams after a mistake made by their college. More than half of the students are reportedly boycotting the proposed retake.
The college recently wrote to around 20 students to inform them that they would need to resit a law paper taken on June 4 2009.
The National Council for Training of Journalists (NCTJ) invalidated the paper because of a ‘procedural blunder’, it told Journalism.co.uk. This is thought to centre around the fact that the computers used to sit the exam had access to the web. This is the first time the college has used computers for the law exam.
In a press statement given to Journalism.co.uk, Andrew Cropley, executive director of the Norton College campus, which is home to the photography, media and journalism courses, said an investigation into how this error had occurred had been launched. He emphasised that the students were in no way to blame for the mistake.
“The college will ensure that future exams are taken in strict compliance with NCTJ procedures,” added Cropley.
“The college is totally committed to getting this right. We are proud of our press photography and photojournalism course, which has a national reputation for training some of the best media photographers in the country.”
Many students are now busy in full-time jobs, some are even thought to have left the country. Paul Johnson, now working as a press photographer at the Times and Star in Workington, told HTFP: “I am supposed to be doing my NCE in November, but I don’t now when I’m going to be able to fit it all in.”
The Sheffield course is thought to be the longest running photojournalism course in the UK.
To reduce inconvenience as much as possible, the college will reimburse all travel expenses and will create individual exam dates for students. Despite this, students are forming a protest against the ordered retake including a Facebook group against the move.
A spokesperson for the NCTJ gave the following statement to Journalism.co.uk: “In fairness to all candidates, and to protect the integrity of the exams and the industry’s standards for journalism, centres must ensure candidates sit NCTJ exams under the required conditions.”
As of yet there is no further information regarding the status of the protest.
If you are affected by the exam retakes please do get in touch with either office [at] journalism.co.uk or laura [at] journalism.co.uk.
In this interview with Catherine Gluckstein, the VP of Getty Image’s iStock, which the photo agency bought back in 2006, discusses the difficulties of finding a business model for images from citizen journalists.
Getty’s own foray into the cit-j space saw it buy and later shutdown Scoopt.
“[A] lot of people who take the pictures are not necessarily trying to monetise them – it works best when they send them to the news organisations,” explains Gluckstein.
iStock, which is a pro-am microstock play, is finding success with timeless images, she says. Contributors receive up to 40 per cent commission with images sold to users from $0.95 each.
Gluckstein, who is also CFO of Life.com – the resurrected photo magazine, also comments on the role of social media as a significant driver of traffic to the site.
Photojournalist Marc Vallée comments on the new guidelines issued by the Metropolitan police service (MPS) for the public and the media on photography in public places, over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free. Full post at this link. He writes:
“It details the Met’s interpretation of anti-terrorism legislation, and how these laws should be used against photographers. Professional photographers such as myself view it as part of an ongoing campaign to create a hostile environment for photography in the public sphere.”
One area highlighted by Vallée:
The advice covers section 44, section 43 and section 58a of the Terrorism Act 2000 (58a is more commonly known as section 76). On sections 44 and 43, the MPS say that “officers have the power to view digital images contained in mobile telephones or cameras carried by a person searched”.
Vallée says that guidance for section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act 2008, which came into force at the beginning of this year, is key.
“It amends the Terrorism Act 2000 to make it an offence to elicit or attempt to elicit information about an individual who is or has been a member of the armed forces, intelligence services, or a police officer in Great Britain – this has been an offence in Northern Ireland since 2000.”
What does the guidance say?
The MPS advice says that section 76 (58a) “should ordinarily be considered inappropriate to use… to arrest people photographing police officers in the course of normal policing activities, including protests”.
What does Vallée say?
“Section 76 should be scrapped.”
Vallée spoke about these issues at the Frontline Club this week. Video below:
Background on Journalism.co.uk Editors’ blog:
Watch the Frontline’s event on the media and anti-terrorism legislation here, at 7pm tonight:
Here’s the run-down from the Frontline Club:
An ‘On The Media’ discussion in association with the BBC College of Journalism
How concerned should photographers and journalists be about anti-terrorism legislation that came into force earlier this year making people taking pictures of the police potentially subject to fines or even arrest? A mass picture-taking event outside Scotland Yard organised by the National Union of Journalists earlier this year reflected widespread concerns that section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act would extend powers already being used to harass photographers.Under the Act eliciting, publishing or communicating information on members of the armed forces, intelligence services and police officers ‘likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’ is subject to a 10 year maximum sentence.
The Home Office has insisted that the Act does not target the press but the number of photographers and camera crews who claim they have been prevented from taking pictures has increased.
On the other side of the lens there is growing evidence that Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) are not only collating information on protestors and campaigners but also photographers and journalists who report on demonstrations.
The emergence of video footage following the death of Ian Tomlinson during the G20 protests in April demonstrates how significant images can be.
Claims by Val Swain and Emily Apple that they were unlawfully arrested during the Kingsnorth Climate Camp has again put the spotlight on the issue of police surveillance at demonstrations. And also raises questions about the status of citizen journalists in the eyes of the police.
How much of a challenge to the freedom of the press photographers, freelances of citizen journalists – to bear witness during protests could Section 76 become?
Panel: Peter Clarke, former head of counter terrorism for Scotland Yard
Marc Vallée is a London based photojournalist who is currently working on a long-term project to document political protest and dissent in modern Britain
Turi Munthe, CEO of Demotix, a citizen-journalism website and freelance photo agency
Angus Walker, UK editor, ITV News
Moderator: Margaret Gilmore is a freelance writer and broadcaster and senior research fellow with the leading independent think tank, RUSI, where she specialises in homeland security, covering terrorism and Olympic security