(Via Cybersoc) National Public Radio is calling on its Flickr followers to identify individuals in a series of photos from a US senate meeting.
The idea reminded Journalism.co.uk of regional newspaper-style calls for information about old photos of sports teams etc in print. A clever way to get your community to help you out using a free tool too.
Further to our round-up of Demotix activity from Iran, here are two front pages from the New York Times, both featuring images from the pro-am agency’s contributors.
Demotix images have also been published by the Telegraph, El Pais, Wall Street Journal, ABC.es, and syndicated by Reuters, AFP and EPA to other outlets around the world.
“The bravery of our Iranian reporters has been astonishing. They are defying their government and risking their safety to tell their stories to the world, and we are delighted to be able to help them make their voices hear more loudly,” said Demotix commissioning editor, Andy Heath. “Demotix exists for moments like this.”
“A PR message has no authenticity. It won’t go viral. Organizations are looking for a new way to get their message out, and journalists can play a role in that,” says Brian Storm, founder of MediaStorm, in this piece, which looks at how US photographers, videographers and videojournalists are finding new commissions outside of traditional journalistic gigs.
A new launch for photographers looking to protect their images (via Photo Archive News) – Photometadata.org, a project aimed at promoting an industry standard for metadata in all digital image files.
“The mission of the SAA [Stock Artists Alliance] Photo Metadata Project is to help promote these best practices by investigating and reporting on the issues, and then developing online resources and educational events – demonstrating that embedding metadata in digital photos benefits us all and is easy to do,” explains the site.
The site also comes with a handy list of FAQs and guides to using metadata and is planning to include tutorials on the subject – a very handy resource.
Meanwhile, the National Press Photographers’ Association (NPPA) in the US has updated its Independent Photographers Toolkit.
Well worth a look, the toolkit focuses the business aspects of employing photographers or running a photography business, and also best practice procedures for freelancers and photographers in their business dealings.
It’s a work in progress – and NPPA is looking for feedback – but there’s some good starting points, including this calculator for working out ‘the cost of doing business’ for a photography client or firm.
Some interesting comments in the video below (courtesy of Paula Geraghty) of Metropolitan Police commander Bob Broadhurst on the police’s relationship with photographers, public order policing and the recent G20 coverage.
“If you look at those images around G20 and the climate camp at the other end of the road, some of our officers had huge problems doing anything with the crowd because of the phalanx of cameras in front of them before they could get to anybody,” says Broadhurst, who was speaking at the National Union of Journalists’ (NUJ) photography conference.
“Legitimate? Maybe yes, but we do seem now to be in a new dynamic; certainly because of the way some of the G20 events were portrayed in the media, by the time anybody turned up most of the ground was already taken up by competing camera crews and journalists looking for a story, All that does is add to the mix that our officers have to deal with. We need to work our way through that. Let’s have a more sensible dialogue.”
Commander Bob Broadhurst at NUJ Photography Conference from Paula Geraghty on Vimeo.
Insight from Danfung Dennis, a war photographer, on freelancing in the field in the digital age and making the most of new media skills.
Catalogue of international photoblogs, organised alphabetically by place name (ht @cybersoc).
Country Life Magazine has launched a new online picture library featuring more than 100 years of images.
The selection of images includes architectural and garden photography; as well as interior design images from houses across the UK and Europe.
“Until now we’ve only been able to offer a limited service to researchers, but the new site allows unprecedented access to our unique record of British life over the years,” said Country Life picture library manager, Justin Hobson, in a release from publisher IPC Media.
The archive is fully searchable and new images will be added each week as pictures are scanned from past editions of the magazine.
It’s free to use, though registration is encouraged. Images can be ordered for a charge.
New organisations have forgotten that people love photos, writes Pat Thornton, so why don’t they publish more?
“Why give a photographer $10,000-20,000 worth of equipment for just a few shots to appear in the newspaper and online?” says Thornton.
Stop thinking about captions, start thinking about tags, he adds.
The Guardian is going to demand increased usage rights for commissioned images, according to this report.
The paper will reportedly ask for full and future usage rights, but with no extra compensation.
A Guardian spokeswoman said the matter was still under discussion.