In the launch year of what promises to be a fabulous new exhibition, the BPPA are looking for images telling the stories and achievements of women and girls for an online exhibition, which remains open for entries until midnight on Sunday 14th February

www.women.thebppa.com

Fiona Shields – The Guardian Head of Photography

Fiona has over twenty years’ picture editing experience across a range of newspaper titles. She was picture editor of the Guardian for ten years before taking up the role of Head of Photography for the Guardian News and Media Group. 

Throughout her career, Fiona has been involved in the coverage of some of the most historic news stories of our time from the current global pandemic to the events surrounding 9/11 and the subsequent terror attacks in London and across Europe, conflicts around the world from Bosnia to Iraq and Afghanistan, the revolution of the Arab spring, large scale natural disasters such as the earthquakes in Haiti, tsunamis in southern Asia, famine in Sub-Saharan Africa and the humanitarian crises resulting from the growing refugee numbers across the globe.

Fiona also delivers talks at photo festivals, mentors students of photojournalism and has enjoyed judging The World Press Awards, the Sony World Photography Awards, The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize and the Renaissance Photography Awards to name a few, has joined the panel for the Carmignac Photojournalism Award and is a regular nominator for the prestigious Prix Pictet Prize.

Gao Rongguo

Born in 1984 in Binzhou,in China’s Shandong province, Gao Rongguo graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2012, majoring in photography.

Gao is now an artist based in Beijing and his work has been exhibited internationally, with venues including National Portrait Gallery, Quai Branly Museum, CAFA Art Museum, Chongqing Art Museum, Today Art Museum, Dong Gang Museum of Photography, Sotheby’s gallery, Changjiang Museum of contemporary Art and Beijing Mingsheng Art Museum.

Gao Rongguo’s work has been featured in numerous publications including TIME, The Huffington Post, Daily Mail, VANITY FAIR, La Repubblica, Esquire, Feature Shoot and Rheinische Post Online.

Jakki Moores

Whilst studying Photography at Richmond College Jakki Moores worked for Nikon UK and on graduating became the Head of Nikon Professional Service and worked with some of the UK’s best photographers, supporting them at global events where she became became passionate about imaging and technology. First the transition from film to digital and then the requirement to send images around the world in seconds got Jakki hooked, who then moved into account management and corporate sales.

Now at Canon UK Jakki still specialises in News and Sport, working as part of the pro-business team where her customers range from Global Agencies, Media groups, freelancers and the next generation.

“It’s such an exciting and evolving industry to be involved in – with outstanding images at the core. The pictures we see every day still always amaze me!”, says Jakki.

Jane Sherwood

Jane Sherwood is the News Editor, EMEA, at Getty Images and is part of a team that handles Getty Images editorial news output on their subscription wire service. She says ” I am proud to work at a wire agency that is held in such high esteem among photographers and clients alike. The team has a collective integrity in news gathering and the talent of our photographers sets us apart”.

Jane began her career nearly 30 years ago as a receptionist at Rex Features and progressed, through a series of moves around the industry including the picture desks of the Daily Mail, News of the World and Daily Express, to becoming the Picture Editor of the Sunday Express newspaper.  Jane left in 2015 for Getty Images saying, ” I wanted to work where pictures were still being created and invested in – where photography was paramount”.

“I am thrilled to be part of the curating team for the BPPA photography exhibition celebrating International Women’s Day” says Jane. “Until women achieve true equality, highlighting work by and for women in all professions is necessary and essential”.

Milica Lamb

An industry veteran, Milicia Lamb has worked in press photography for many years.

Milicia started her career in image sales before graduating to the editorial side where she was able to work more closely with photographers. After working for News Team International as Head of London Bureau, commissioning photographers and managing assignments,  Milicia went on to work at EPA where she ran the UK and Irish service before joining the Press Association (PA).

Milicia was appointed Picture Editor for the PA in 2012 and in 2015 became Head of International and Entertainment at PA Images where amongst her responsibilities she managed the entertainment photography for the PA Wire alongside the Empics Entertainment service.

Milicia left PA Images in 2020.

Rebecca Naden

Now based back in her homeland of Pembrokeshire, Rebecca Naden covers major news, sport and features for the global agency Thomson Reuters, where she also loves to photograph wildlife – a pull Rebecca says she can’t resist, despite the sometimes extreme weather conditions.

Thirty odd years ago, Rebecca was told “It’s a man’s profession Rebecca, think on because it’s not for a girl”. But thankfully she had supportive English and History teachers who promoted and encouraged Rebecca to apply to The National Council for the Training of Journalists for the ‘pre- entry course’ – she was accepted and her hugely successful career in press photography began.

Rebecca was the first female photographer to join the Birmingham Post and Mail Group in 1977 and the first female photographer to join The Press Association in 1987, where she spent 25 years as a staff photographer before moving to Reuters in 2012 – winning the 1993 Royal Photographer of the Year and 2007 Picture Editors’ Award – Sports Picture of the Year along the way.

Highlights of Rebecca’s career to date are numerous and include being the only British photographer on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s plane for her tour to Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain; flying to the White House to photograph President Clinton; photographer on the Royal Tour to Malta by HM the Queen and Prince Philip. Rebecca has regularly covered the major sporting events, including the Olympic Games in Atlanta, USA and Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League finals including the historic Liverpool v AC Milan match in Istanbul.

“I’m grateful to all those who helped me get started and to the many generations of photographers and journalists who have supported my professional career”, says Rebecca. “Thankfully the glass ceiling has largely gone and now there are exciting career opportunities in professional photography available to all, irrespective of gender”.

Rob Pinney

Rob Pinney is a photographer and the editor of Point.51, a print magazine for long-form journalism and original photography from across Europe. 

As a photographer, Rob’s work is divided between press work and longer-term personal projects.

After going freelance in 2015, Rob worked extensively in Calais documenting the “Jungle” camp and the asylum seekers who lived there, as well as the town itself. His photographs from Calais have since been shown in London, New York and St Petersburg, and culminated in a long-form feature – Calais Belle Ma Ville – about the town’s long relationship with migration, which was published in the first issue of Point.51.

Get your entries sent in!

If you want to take part you’d better hurry as you only have until midnight on Friday 12th February to submit your entry : women.thebppa.com

Or, at least, tell the millions of viewers who search millions of pictures every day where to go to license them. From late 2020 Google links them directly to your website – provided you have entered the correct link into your IPTC metadata.

This is extremely easy and simple to do, and to incorporate into your daily workflow. Here’s how.

If you have entered the Four Cs into your IPTC metadata ( see the BPPA’s Four Cs, Five Ws and an A ), Google already reveals three of these, Creator, Credit and Copyright, so it should be clear who took your pictures and who owns them. But they also need to know how to license them.

Time now to add the Fifth C. Google calls this the IPTC Web Statement of Rights field, but it appears in photographic software with labels such as Copyright Info ( Photoshop and Bridge ), Copyright Info URL ( Lightroom ) and Copyright URL ( Photo Mechanic ). That’s the Fifth C.

The web link you enter here should lead to what it says on the tin, your copyright information, a licence, or licences available, or a contact to find out more details – whatever information you choose to provide.

One caveat – for Google to recognise this link it must begin ‘http’ or ‘https’, taking the form of a full web address.

As here in Photoshop:

And here in Photo Mechanic:

That done Google places a badge on your pictures indicating that your information is available and linking to it.

That’s all you need to do. It’s as simple as that. There’s a lot more to Google’s scheme, outlined below, but that’s the only requirement to get your badge, and tell the world what they need to know to license your work.

The badge also uses a second set of fields for further Licensor information, not required but recommended. This is partly because the copyright owner is not necessarily the licensor. Your pictures might be licensed by an agent, not you. It is even possible for you to distribute some of your pictures directly using your own fifth C, others through a licensor. Or, you could use the Licensor fields as an additional way to license your pictures yourself.

This requires the IPTC Licensor URL field, a web address in a sub-section of the Licensor field, which in turn is to be found within the IPTC Extension of IPTC metadata.

Not all photographic software is yet fully compatible with IPTC Extension metadata fields, but the relevant information can be entered via File Info in Photoshop and Bridge, and through the sidebar metadata panels of Lightroom. The name of the licensor goes in the Licensor field, and the web link, again a full web address, should link to licensing information.

Here in Photoshop:

And here in Lightroom:

Google does provide an alternative way of making the above information accessible, by adding ‘structured data fields’ to web pages. In plain English inserting IPTC info into the pages themselves. This procedure however is far from plain and simple. It is avoided in this brief guide because almost all photographers will already be editing the IPTC in pictures, and because where both web page and photo metadata are present Google reads the former not the latter.

Here below is Google’s statement of the information they need to be entered into your IPTC photo metadata:

So, in addition to your four Cs, now add your 5th C, and maybe an L for Licensor.

And don’t forget the A – A for always, always enter this information into all your pictures.

When the association was mentioned in an open letter talking about Gender in Photojournalism The BPPA’s Vice Chair Lynne Cameron said in her response that “The Board of The BPPA welcomes constructive input from anyone who wants to help to promote and inspire great photography. If you have ideas on what more can be done on the issues raised then please get in contact with me or any of the other members of our Board.”

We are very happy to report that we have received notification of two things that are happening that will make a positive contribution to women in particular and diversity in general in photojournalism.

• FotoDocument.org have announced the launch of their 2019 Women’s FotoReportage Award in honour of Marilyn Stafford. This year’s award will be supported for the first time by Nikon. You can read the press release below or you can visit their website here.

• Photo Forum are hosting a panel discussion on the subject of diversity in photography chaired by Helen Healy, Head of Pictures at the Financial Times with photographers Anna Gordon, Suzanne Plunkett and Chin We. The venue is theprintspace, 74 Kingsland Road, London, E2 8DL on Tuesday 8th October 2019 and the start time is 7:00pm. You can read more here on the Photo Forum website

The FotoReportage Award press release says:

£2000 will be granted to a professional woman photographer towards the completion of a compelling and cohesive documentary photo essay which addresses an important social, environmental, economic or cultural issue, whether local or global.

The work should, in part, showcase positive solutions to any issues it raises in order to contribute to constructive photojournalism, in line with the wishes of Marilyn Stafford and the aims of FotoDocument. The Award is reserved solely for documentary photographers working on projects which are intended to make the world a better place and which may be unreported/under-reported.

Women from any stage of their careers are welcome to apply, whether emerging, mid-career or established. They must already have started the photo essay for which they are seeking funding and be able to show work in progress. In addition, they must have already completed at least one other documentary photo essay to demonstrate track record prior to applying for funding. Entrants must be over 18, they may be any nationality and based anywhere in the world. It is free to submit.

Submissions will be reviewed by panel including: Rebecca Conway – 2017 FotoAward winner, Nina Emett – Director of FotoDocument, Rebecca Newton – PR & Social Media Manager Nikon and Marilyn Stafford herself among others.

One overall winner will receive The Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award of £2000 towards the completion of their project.

The final work will feature on the FotoDocument and Nikon websites and will be publicised via social media.

Partners will collectively endeavour to gain coverage for the final work in the international media, without any guarantee of this outcome.

Short-listed applicants will have at least one of their images profiled on the FotoDocument and Nikon websites and publicised via social media.

There will be a screening of the 2019 FotoAward winner’s work at the launch of the Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award 2020 to celebrate International Women’s Day on 10 March 2020 at the Nikon School in central London.

Submissions close at 5pm on 15 November 2019.

The charitable explanation for this misleading and misinformed policy painting an inaccurate picture of the law is that the writer genuinely believes it, in which case she really should not be holding any senior editorial position on a national newspaper, let alone responsibility for ‘compliance’. And she also seems unaware of the Mail Online’s own House Rules for comments

“You must not insert links to websites (URLs) or submit content which would be an infringement of copyright” (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/article-1388145/House-Rules.html )

The alternative is that the Mail Online, guilty of copyright infringement ( yet again ), instead of owning up and paying up is trying to avoid the consequences with pseudo legal twaddle. If so not a bright idea to try that on with the Digital Editor of Grazia.

But there’s more. It get’s worse. This is what the  Independent Press Standards Organisation, IPSO, which regulates most nationals including the Daily  Mail ( though not the Mail Online ) tells the public, most of whom will not be as clued up as Rebecca Reid:

“Journalists are normally allowed to publish photos, comments and information from social media profiles, forums or blogs if there are no privacy settings protecting them and they do not show anything private” (https://www.ipso.co.uk/media/1510/social-media-public.pdf ).

This is quite simply not true. Publishing without permission photos “from social media profiles, forums or blogs if there are no privacy settings”   is in flagrant breach of the law. The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. And also in defiance of their very own Editors’ Code,  Point 1, Accuracy: “ The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information….”

Piracy with the blessing of IPSO!  Quis custodiet IPSOs custodes?
The answer to which is the law of the land. Which is also the last resort of creators. Photographers can and do extract payment for copyright infringement from the Mail Online. But, why, why, why do we have to deal with the lawlessness of national papers, and IPSO advice as baseless as that Mail Online reply to Rebecca Reid?

This BPPA version is the first, and I hope only the first, produced with the help of Board member Neil Turner.

Four Cs, Five Ws and an A

As professional photographers we owe it ourselves, our colleagues and the wider creative community to make sure that we make the fullest use of the metadata options provided by the IPTC (International Press & Telecommunications Council) to identify ourselves as the creators and copyright owners of our work at all times.

The Four Cs:

• Creator/Photographer or Author – that’s you, the author of your photographs. If you do not identify yourself no-one will know who to contact for permission to publish them or pay you. Worse, your work may then be considered an ‘orphan’ and in certain circumstances used without either permission or payment.
• Caption or Description/Caption – that’s the 5 ‘W’s. Who, What, When, Where, and Why. Without this information a picture is useless for editorial purposes. There is no limit to additional details but these five are mandatory.
• Copyright or Copyright Notice – that’s to make clear that you are not only the creator but also the owner (assuming that you are) of your intellectual property. In three parts, the symbol © and/or the word ‘Copyright’, your name, and the year of first publication. For example; Copyright © 2019 Fred Smith (the copyright symbol is, on a Mac, ‘Option’ key and press the ‘g’ key, on a PC the ‘Alt’ key and type 0169). It is also acceptable to type (c). Omitting this information does not restrict your rights but can make it more difficult to enforce them.
• Contact Details – that’s so you can be found. Maybe to check caption details, but also, again, to get permission to publish and then to pay you. Even if you can be identified as author and copyright owner, if you cannot be contacted you still risk your photographs being considered ‘orphan’ works. To be clear that is a minimum of your telephone number with the international dialling code and a valid email address. Adding a URL with your copyright statement is also strongly advised.Different software applications display IPTC information in different ways, but these fields remain the same. Here below are three examples, from Lightroom, Photoshop and Photo Mechanic. We have also added the Credit field as Google searches do now read and report three IPTC fields, Creator, Copyright and Credit – not yet matching the four ‘C’s, but close.It is important that you don’t rely on metadata inserted in one of the dozens of other fields to convey important information. Not only do search engines not look into them but the majority of picture desk systems don’t show them either. There is nothing to stop you as the photographer filling in the relevant information in other fields – especially if a client requires it but important and unique information should not only be inserted into other fields.

Adobe Lightroom Classic uses the word Description instead of Caption and inserts a © in the credit line but otherwise follows the Four Cs well if you select IPTC as your metadata option

Adobe Photoshop CC also uses Description instead of Caption and also inserts a © in the credit line. The Four Cs are over three different pages of the File Info rather than being on one page.

Photo Mechanic has two captioning options – the Metadata Template (called Stationery Pad in version 5 and earlier) and the Caption Info tool. Both have all of the Four Cs fields displayed in a single view. The Caption is called Description/ Caption and the Creator is called Creator/ Photographer.

It also has the option to customise either IPTC dialogue window to only showing those fields that you are interested in. This is done under Preferences/Accessibility.

So we have explained the Four Cs: Creator, Caption, Copyright and Contact and the Five Ws: Who, What, Where, Why and When.

All that leaves is the single A; ALWAYS. Always add these basics of metadata to every single picture that you deliver to clients, place on the web or in any other way make available in a form that is accessible by those who may seek permission to use your work.

If we, as the professionals, do this properly at all times then we have a stronger case to go out there and demand our rights and defend our intellectual property.

You may download a PDF version of the Quick Guide Here…

Where and when?

The workshop will take place at 1:30pm on Thursday 23rd May at Cherryduck Studios in London.
Cherryduck Studios
12-18 Sampson Street
London
E1W 1NA

What is going to happen?

Neil is going to be running a lecture/workshop for members of The BPPA and other interested professionals.
It will be a half day, classroom based session where we will explore some theory, go through some of the basic techniques and generally talk the talk about how to get interesting results quickly and cost-effectively.
Of course no two sessions are alike and the exact content on the day can be fine-tuned to the audience but it is aimed squarely at working news, feature, sports and PR professionals wanting to develop their skills and narrow down the thought process when approaching this kind of work.

How much and how do I book?

To book please follow this link: BOOK THE WORKSHOP

• “How do I find clients?”
• “I got undercut by a photographer offering to do the job for £100”
• You probably all think “LinkedIn is useless; I have been on it for six months and haven’t had a single enquiry”.

If so these series of seminars may be useful to you… Experienced photographer Pete Jenkins has got together with ‘Cath Preston’, a successful Networker/Marketeer based in Sheffield to run a series of one-day seminars on Marketing Essentials’ and ‘LinkedIn Essentials’, aimed at photographers, (although basically useful for any solo-preneurs/creatives/self-employed professionals who are struggling with basic marketing and with using LinkedIn effectively).
Lots of 1:1 help, those difficult questions answered, and ongoing support after the seminar has long gone.
Members of the BPPA can get £50 discount, see the offers page for details.

• Marketing Essentials Ramsdale Golf Club Nottingham 20th March (all day) £133
• LinkedIn Essentials Ramsdale Golf Club, Nottingham 30th January (all day) £133
• Marketing Essentials NUJ, Kings Cross, London 6th February (all day) £199

You can see more details and book here…

THATS NEXT MONDAY!!

The new system wants you to file a complete list of every book or magazine publication you have ever had – which is confusing lots of people. IGNORE THAT.
You can still enter details of just three publications from magazines and qualify for around £700! That’s not three publications this year – that is three publications in your whole career. The same applies to uses in books.

BUT YOU HAVE TO DO IT NOW!!

If you’ve done it before, it takes about five or ten minutes to re-do. If you’re new to it, it’ll probably take about fifteen or twenty. Thats maybe around £700 for half an hours work – the best job you will get this year!!

DO IT NOW!!!

www.dacs.org.uk