Theoretical Photography & The Big Bang Theory


Like most professional photographic organisations, The BPPA has a strange relationship with photographic education. On one hand many of our members visit courses on a regular basis and quite a few fill roles as members of industrial liaison groups. On the other hand we find it impossible to whole-heartedly recommend more than one or two courses anywhere in the country.  We readily acknowledge that there are many lecturers and tutors that try hard to prepare their students for entry to the profession but  it appears that there are relatively few that come close to succeeding.

Professional photographers talk about this topic a lot – mostly bemoaning the state of photographic education and even when it is pointed out to them that not all those studying photography want to become photographers they are still highly critical of the status quo. Anecdotes about students who don’t know their “apertures from their elbows” abound and entire cohorts are dismissed because of this. Many courses aren’t concerned with training for the craft of photography but it isn’t always clear that the undergraduates signed up for those courses realise this.
Members of The Board of our association have become quite disillusioned by the long-running trend towards “academisation” or “academic drift” even within courses whose principle purpose is to produce graduates capable of working in the photographic industry. The world of academe understands intellectualisation and it understands research based methodologies. It doesn’t understand or, more importantly, respect craft, skill or talent.
What we are scared of is a pecking order of tutors, lecturers and professors developing where those who talk intellectual nonsense about photography using terminology compatible with the way that higher education perpetuates itself are placed at the top and those whose goal is to equip students with real world skills are looked down upon or relegated to support roles. We know that photography – and press photography in particular – has a vocabulary all of its own with liberal usage of slang, acronyms and technical jargon but the way that academics use language is either intentionally or unintentionally excluding the profession from taking an active part in education.
If you’ve never watched the US sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” you’ve missed out on one of the best bits of television to come out of America in many years. It also serves as a good analogy for what is happening to arts education in general and to photographic education specifically.
At the top of the tree we find Dr Sheldon Cooper – a theoretical physicist whose intellectual arrogance allows him to look down on all other areas of research and education. Next on the ladder we have Dr Rajesh Koothrappali – another theoretical physicist whose work is less well respected and nowhere near as trendy. Moving down the list we have an experimental physicist Dr Leonard Hofstader who actually gets his hands dirty in the lab and Dr Am Farrah Fowler who is a neuroscientist. Getting nearer to the bottom of the tree we have Dr Bernadette Rostenkowski who has sold out and works in the real world in research with a large pharmaceutical corporation and poor old Howard Wolowitz who ‘only’ has an MA and is an engineer and an astronaut. There are several other characters including the pivotal non-scientist Penny but for the purposes of the comparison we have enough players.
You could easily build a table with direct comparisons from the world of Big Bang Theory to the world of photographic education in the UK. At the top there are the Sheldons – thinkers who write papers, have big thoughts about the nature of photography but who, on the whole, don’t take real pictures – or at least ones that matter. There are the Leonards – practitioners who cannot make a living outside of academe who occasionally have something interesting to contribute to the bigger picture and there are the Howards that actually contribute something concrete but whose achievements don’t cut much ice within the education system. You can slot the other characters in for yourself.
Everyone wants to look down on the Bernadettes – highly trained and highly qualified and actually earning a living from a real world application of those skills – but they prefer to ignore or dismiss them instead. A big mistake and a very silly and divisive attitude. I’m not going to stretch the analogy any further by shoehorning the other key characters into it but, if you are a Big Bang fan, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a go.
Unfortunately there is one problem with this comparison. The Big Bang Theory is really funny. Academic drift in UK photography education isn’t.
There seems to be a tendency within arts education that exists to make sure that it continues to exist: a self-perpetuating and self-interested core whose sole purpose appears to be to create a world where the words spoken and written about the art are more important than the art itself.
Good news of sorts – we are not alone. The concept of academic drift is well recognised and well documented.
Dr Jonathan Harwood is Emeritus Professor of History of Science & Technology at the University of Manchester and he wrote a very interesting paper entitled “Understanding Academic Drift: On the Institutional Dynamics of Higher Technical and Professional Education” in which he identified a trend in higher education whereby knowledge which is intended to be useful gradually loses close ties to practice while becoming more tightly integrated with one or other body of scientific knowledge. One of his key conclusions was that as teachers search for status in the academic hierarchy there is a tendency to mimic colleagues with perceived (or actual) higher status and that choice of language (dense ‘academic’ jargon, etc) is one obvious way to achieve this.
It is clear that this tendency to become part of the system has spread from Dr Harwood’s initial research areas of agriculture, engineering, medicine and management sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries into arts and photographic education in the 21st.
Theoretical photography has grown and flourished inside the academic world whilst it appears that nobody from our industry was watching. It employs a vocabulary so opaque that you have to study with the masters of the game to understand it and by then you are part of the game. You have become part of theoretical photography and if you dare to become the little boy who calls out the Emperor’s New Clothes as a sham then you are dismissed as not having sufficient intellectual capacity to ‘get it’.
There are those who inhabit the arts establishment who are complicit in the game too and all of the time those of us who practice and love photography are being nudged out of what should be a series of inclusive discussions. This wouldn’t be too much of an issue if they went off to play their game and left us to get on with doing the job but there are two serious side effects that cannot be allowed to continue.
The first is the effect on those young people spending a small fortune studying photography with the intention of making it their career. Many (or even most) of them are being taught by people with no real understanding of, or regard for, the industry and whose primary motivation is to further their own careers as academics.
The second is the way that Government defers to academic opinion rather than that of professionals. In an industry like ours where practitioners are, by the very nature of the job, individuals it is so much easier to consult with a learned professor than it is to talk to photographers. All too often this results in a skewed view of what is happening, what needs to happen and how to get from one position to the other.
Dialogue is almost certainly the answer but how do working photographers get inside the walls of academe to get it started and how do we persuade academics to put aside their opaque vocabulary? Could it be that we need intermediaries and interpreters? The answer might be that those lecturers inside the system who haven’t bought into the academic drift yet could act as a bridge.
As an association whose mission is to promote and inspire the highest ethical, technical and creative standards from within our industry we would like to extend an invitation to meet, talk and see if we can do something to stop theoretical photography mimicking theoretical physics.
Acknowledgement:
Dr Jonathan Harwood http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11024-010-9156-9
 

Press Photographers Association of Ireland 2014

Fennell Photography©Fennell Photography

In a guest blog Mirror Staff Photographer Phil Coburn talks about his recent trip to Dublin:
Thoroughly enjoyed my weekend in Dublin judging The Press Photographers Association of Ireland’s annual awards with Lefteris Pitarakis of the The Associated Press and the esteemed former Irish Times photographer and picture editor, Dermot O’Shea. Great competition with superb photojournalism. Great support and sponsorship from the Allied Irish Bank, too, which puts a decent amount of money behind it and makes the whole thing run extremely smoothly and professionally. The winning photographs of this competition have toured all over the world in the past but more importantly this years winners will also be shown in all the main regional branches of the AIB, bringing really high-quality press  photography to thousands of people who aren’t necessarily photography buffs. It would be wonderful if we could have some similar support and sponsorship for the B.P.P.A. or the P.P.Y. competition on this side of the water.
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Who has what's required ?

 
Here’s what the late, great Sir David English, who created the modern Daily Mail, had to say about newspaper photographers. (thanks to Dave Parker)
” Press photographers are a strange breed. Moody, enthusiastic, temperamental, excitable, humorous, self-deprecating . They are in many ways the most interesting collection of people to be found on any national newspaper. More interesting frequently than the star bylined writers. More interesting than the gossip columnists with their fund of inside chatter. More interesting even than the showbiz kings with their stories of rubbing shoulders with the great and their `all life´s a cocktail party´ philosophy. Photographers are the shock troops of journalism. They cannot muse. They cannot pontificate. They cannot sit in the office and get their stories by telephone. Nor do they pick up their scoops over lunch. They have to be where the action is. They have to be there! ”
And here’s what Roy Greenslade Professor (no less) of journalism had to say about newspaper photographers.
“Everyone can, and does, take photographs as a matter of rote nowadays.No event occurs – fires, fetes, road accidents, cats up trees, whatever – without someone being on hand to snap a picture. In the real sense of the word, newspaper photographers are therefore redundant.
I concede that standing outside court for ages to capture an image of a defendant or witness may still require a professional (enter the experienced freelance). Otherwise, for the general run of the news diary, anyone can do it.”
I think we all know who has/had the better understanding of the qualities required to do the job .
The idea that because almost everyone has a camera and takes pictures means you no longer need photographers has a logical conclusion. Almost everyone can write and has a pen.
Newspapers are always on the look out to cut costs… to make a few more quid for the shareholders. I mean you wouldn’t expect them to have last year’s reg car would you. But no business will ever profit by making cuts. That’s short-termism. You have to speculate and invest to accumulate. That’s not just my opinion. Ask billionaire Warren Buffet. Stupid managements make stupid cuts which affect their product the newspaper. The product suffers and the advertisers leave in droves driving profit further down. Stupid management then implement more cuts to increase the dividend which affects the product and the advertisers leave in droves driving profit down further. It’s a cycle of stupidity.
The demand for visuals is higher than it has ever been. More photographs and videos are used than ever before. Newspaper websites need photographs, 360’s, time-lapses, videos, slideshows….these are the things that attract an audience and advertisers.
So who are the best people to deliver these things. Easy answer really. It’s not the columnists.
It’s us. The photographers.

Commentating on the race to the bottom

 
Yet again The BPPA finds itself responding to a piece by Professor Roy Greenslade on The Guardian’s website. Yet again Professor Greenslade adds his influential voice to the drastically mistaken notion that anyone can take a picture good enough for a newspaper these days. Seriously? Have you looked at some of the utter rubbish that gets used in some of our newspapers? To assert that anyone with a camera can take a picture isn’t only an insult to the skilled photographers who make silk purses out of sows ears on a daily basis it also invites the bean-counters who are behind the decisions to axe photographers jobs to question the need for written journalists too.
I can just imagine the conversation between the accountants and the owners with an editor sitting there listening to the conversation;

Owner: We need to save some more money. Sales are still in decline and sacking the photographers hasn’t saved us enough.

Accountant: Well, members of the public are providing all of our visual content so maybe we can get them to supply the words too.

Editor: But…

Owner: Brilliant idea. Let’s start with all of the senior reporters who really know what they are doing. Editor – we need you to sell this to the staff.

Editor: But…

Owner: They’re all scared for their jobs anyway. Accountant – you are a genius and you will be rewarded for your work with a big pay rise.

Editor: But…

Accountant: Thanks Owner, maybe we should discuss a few other money-saving ideas that I have over a drink or two. Do we NEED editors?

How long will it be before expensive columnists get their marching orders in favour of a few blokes with word processing software who “can write a bit”? Who will those people actually be? Will they be honest and concerned citizens or will they be people with an agenda and an axe to grind?
We are already at the stage where a large percentage of the ‘supplied’ images being printed in some papers are not properly checked for honesty, accuracy or ownership (not to mention quality). Beyond that, nobody seems to care whether members of the public are putting their own or other people’s lives in danger to get the pictures that they are giving away for free. Even Professor Greenslade has to agree that journalism stands or falls on its honesty and accuracy even if he has already thrown the towel in on quality.
One of the numerous responses to his Media Guardian article points out that very few people remember the words after the event compared to the number who remember the images. You might think that newspaper owners would forget this at their peril – unfortunately they have forgotten and their newspapers are in peril. Another response points out that newspaper decline could well be a chicken and egg discussion. Which did come first – the fall in sales or the loss of photographers?
This is rapidly becoming a race to the bottom and it really doesn’t help the case for quality newspapers and quality journalism when one of the highest profile commentators on the industry has given up on any notion of defending the simple idea that quality products have longevity and cheap ones don’t. We’d wonder if The Guardian’s own Picture Desk team would agree with The Professor’s odd logic or if its own sub-editors would approve of his fact checking.
Losing reporters would be the largest and most recent nail in the coffin of local and regional journalism. National newspapers, radio and television get a lot of their best people from the superb training ground that is (or maybe was) local journalism.
If I were contemplating training as a journalist right now I think that I’d have second thoughts about it. If the learned Professor is right maybe those currently on his course should consider switching to accountancy before it’s too late.

Anyone for….No I can't call it that !

 
So another Wimbledon Tennis Championship is over. O.K so it was over ages ago but I’ve only just recovered enough to look through my pictures again.
What an extraordinary championship it was. I’ve covered it for about 8 years and despite believing our one hope Andy Murray is a fantastic tennis player, I never truly believed he’d make the final. The night Murray won the semi-final I was walking to the car-park with Sports Photography legend David Ashdown. I asked him how many years he’d been covering Wimbledon “34 years ” came the reply. “Did you ever think you’d see a Brit in the Final ?” , “No” he said.
When Nadal went out early it started to look good for Murray but he still faced stiff competition. We all started to speculate on what an enormous story this event in a small part of South London could turn into firstly if he made The Final and secondly if he won it. History in the making.
From a Newspaper Photographer’s point of view there is a lot more to covering Wimbledon than what is jokingly referred to as “Bat and Ball”.
To begin with you have to follow the main man Murray whenever he trains and not just during matches. Training often gives a little insight into the ‘Dour’ Scot. Contrary to this persona he is often smiling and laughing during these sessions on the practice courts at ‘Aorangi Park’ where the public are denied entrance. One of the staff there even mentioned to Cavan Pawson from The Evening Standard that this relaxed side was even more evident when we were not around. There is much anecdotal evidence that he is in fact the opposite of ‘Dour’ and other players have mentioned how much of a comedian he is in private. There’s no denying he has a ‘Public’ face which very rarely slips. A friend of mine in Yorkshire offered me a crate of Beer for a picture of Murray smiling on Centre Court. If he’d have won I think I’d be awaiting delivery.

Andy Murray training where after which he laughed and cuddled his cousin Cora Erskine(9)
Murray training on one of The Championship Courts
Murray training on one of The Championship Courts
Murray warming up on one of The Championship Courts he looks like he might be regretting his Lamb Dhansak the night before.
Those sponsor’s sweatshirts can be a bit tricky.
Happy Smiley Scotsman.

One of the biggest distractions from the Tennis In our celebrity led industry are the guests who turn up in ‘The Royal Box’ frequently generating more interest than those on court. Following Catherine Middleton’s wedding to our future King last year the presence of her and members of her family has become a major event at the contest.

Pippa and Kate in The Royal Box.
The Duchess of Cambridge.
Pippa and Kate
…and again…
Even the In-laws turned up for a chat with Brucie ” Good game good game”

It should be straightforward enough really. Sit in one of the Photographer’s pits with a 600mm or a 600mm and a 2x converter (1200mm) and watch your celebrity/Royal subject react to every shot of the game. Err..NO.

Kim Sears watches boyfriend Andy.


Not quite The Royal Box but still Centre Court for Kate’s Mum
Rupert and Wendi

To begin with The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club does not approve of it’s VIP’s being spied on for every second of their visit. You simply can’t sit there watching them. There is also the fact that a 600mm is quite a large piece of kit and if you imagine a line of closely packed Sports specialist Photographers on a bench with everyone pointing their cameras right except for one News Photographer pointing the other way. It’s a sure fire way to lose friends and alienate people. So you compromise. You shoot the Tennis (it is after all why you are there) but when the players rest between games and sets then you turn your attention to the guests. It’s not ideal but it is necessary. The other difficulty is that despite having fellow Telegraph Photographer Heathcliff O’Malley accredited and in attendance the rules only allow one from each organisation on court at a time. This is to prevent the big agencies flooding the limited spaces with shooters from every corner of the world. So when you are on court you have to do both the sport and the news.

It wouldn’t be Wimbledon without the rain…
..or the fans

Oh and a bit of ‘Bat and Ball’

Maria Sharapova on Centre Court


Mr Murray in action



The other British hope Heather Watson.

Victoria Azarenka
Victoria Azarenka
The nemesis of Andy, Roger Federer.

Petra Kvitova

Akgul Amanmuradova with Centre Court reflected.

The unstoppable Serena Williams.

Another hitch is the fact that during the breaks in play when the players are seated is also the best time to shoot the expressions on their faces as they contemplate the shots they’ve just made and consider how they will try and win. They are often lost in their thoughts and their faces can sometimes speak volumes. Pictures which are a hundred times better than one of Cliff Richard clapping.

Heather Watson between shots

Andy Murray after losing to Federer in The Men’s Final.

The greatest Dilemma with a Brit in The Final was if he is winning who do you watch at Match-Point ? Andy Murray or Catherine Duchess of Cambridge. Whose reaction will make the front page ? 2 seconds after the Match-Point is not THE moment, 1 second after and the reaction has already changed. You decide.

Andy winning…before The Final

Federer at Match-Point

The ‘Potshots’

More photographers in the crowd than in the Pit

Thankfully (or regrettably ) Mr Federer made the choice irrelevant. So after 14 days of  following our favourite Scotsman around SW19 we watched as his emotions overflowed and he left Centre Court with the runner up prize. Better luck Next Year Andy.

The tears after losing.

As a little side project Heathcliff and myself shot some bits and bobs around the Championship on our i.Phones. I used the Instagram app and Heathcliff used Hipstamatic.
These are a few of my fav’s there are more at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/picture-galleries/9379006/Wimbledon-2012-Telegraph-photographers-Instagram-and-Hipstamatic-photos.html

Murray training.

Rainy Centre Court.

The Copyright Fight – David Bailey weighs in…

 
Today is the day when the UK Government could vote to include a seemingly innocuous clause in an otherwise largely uncontroversial piece of legislation that will not only harm our industry but also place this country at odds with a vital international treaty. It is upsetting, bizarre and unnecessary to the point of being farcical.
The BPPA has been trying very hard to get the Government to see sense and drop the copyright clause from the Enterprise Regulatory Reform Bill for a while now. In a world where the intervention of a celebrity can unclog jams and open doors we decided to ask UK Photography’s biggest celebrity, David Bailey, to write to cabinet members on behalf of all owners and creators of intellectual property. He decided to write to George Osborne MP, The Chancellor of the Exchequer personally and he has given us permission to circulate that letter as widely as we wish – and here it is…
The text of the letter in full:
Dear George
I am writing because I am appalled at what the government is doing to our rights in the ERRB (Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill). Why the ERRB by the way? Why can’t copyright be dealt with properly in a proper Copyright Bill? I’m told everyone will be able to get their hands on our so-called “orphans” so libraries and museums can publish old photographs whose authors have long been forgotten. But never mind what’s lying around on dusty old shelves, what about the millions of “orphans” that are being created now every day!
Why? Because social media, and everyone else for that matter routinely strip our names and contact details from our digital files. They simply should not be allowed to get away with this. They can because our government refuses to give us the right to our names by our pictures (Moral rights). So now commercial organisations will be allowed to make money from our “orphans”, but not us, the creators.
This legislation should never have been even considered without first giving us our moral rights, and is contrary to our rights under the Berne Convention. Why the rush? A scheme, the Copyright Hub – a scheme backed by the government – is being developed to ensure that those who wish to find our pictures can not only do so quickly online, but also find the contact details of the pictures’ owners. You are about to put the cart before the horse.
I’m told the real reason for speed is that “releasing” orphans will create growth. We all understand the need for growth. But where’s the evidence? The seemingly impressive financial figures presented originally in the Hargreaves Review have mysteriously had to be revised – down by 97%! Which now apparently amount to no more than 80p per taxpayer per year. Given the damage this legislation will now cause to taxpaying creators, damage no-one has so far taken into account, the effect of this legislation on economic growth will in fact be negative.
It’s not too late to think again!
Best,
David Bailey

Another open letter to Professor Greenslade

An Open letter written by Chris Eades – a member of The BPPA’s Board in response to Professor Roy Greenslade’s inaccurate blog on The Media Guardian website:

Dear Mr Greenslade

I am writing on behalf of your photographic colleagues in the British Press Photographers’ Association to express our disappointment and frustration at your recent series of articles about “paparazzi” seeking to photograph Vicky Pryce while in prison.

I regret to say that the suppositions upon which you have based your article are for the most part untrue, with the result that your subsequent analysis and opinions are based on an ignorance of the facts.

When photographers sought to correct your mistakes and question your motivations in slurring your colleagues you responded not by seeking the truth, but by turning off comments on your blog to disable further criticism.

As someone who lectures in journalism, and presumes to lecture his peers on ethics, it is distressing that you have made no effort to substantiate the facts – but have chosen instead to rely on rumour, supposition and lazy stereotypes with the unfortunate result that you have thereby reinforced those stereotypes.

For your information we have laid out below the true events surrounding the taking of pictures of Pryce, and have sought to address the questions that you raise about the implication of these events.

In short – No laws were broken, the PCC code was adhered to and there is a strong case that a govt minister and his wife both being jailed for criminal offences is a valid news story, strengthened by the perception that Pryce is receiving preferential treatment by being transferred to open prison less than a week after being convicted.

You question the legitimacy of photographing convicted criminals in prison – but there is a long tradition of doing so. Myra Hindley, Jeffrey Archer, Sarah Tisdall, George Best, Rose West, Ernest Saunders, Maxine Carr, even Dr Crippen have all been photographed in prison.

If you think this is wrong then campaign to change the law, or the PCC code – but please don’t vilify your beleaguered photographic colleagues for legitimate news gathering.

We respectfully request a correction in full – with equal prominence to the original articles.

Yours

Chris Eades
On behalf of the BPPA Committee

THE TRUTH
The true events surrounding the pictures on Pryce at Sutton Park prison are as follows.
On sunday 17th The Sun ran a story that Pryce had been transferred to an open prison after less than a week in prison. This is unusually soon for a prisoner, even on a short sentence, to be moved – and raises the legitimate question is Pryce receiving preferential treatment?
Five newspapers dispatched staff / regular freelances to the prison to try to obtain pictures of Pryce in her new surroundings. All of the photographers were news photographers, not paps, on wages for the day and acting under instruction of their respective picture desks.
(For clarity I define news photographers as those who photograph individuals in the news, as opposed to paparazzi who concentrate on celebrities. These may overlap but it is a good general distinction).
There are several points where pictures could be taken at Sutton Park, without the need to trespass on private property. The easiest of these is from the grounds of the church which overlook the rear of the prison.
Security staff at the prison became aware of photographers presence fairly early on the sunday, and came over to ask who they were and what they were doing. They were asked to not enter the prison grounds and to be relatively open with their activity so as not to cause security concerns. No request was made for them to leave.
On the Monday they were joined by two more photographers from Fame/Flynet – who joined the existing crowd in the church yard and on a footpath that provides a view of the front drive.
Photographers also met a man wearing a dog collar, who they assume to be the vicar. He passed the time of day with them but again did not at any time express concerns at their presence or request that they leave.
The photographers were openly present in the church grounds, in full view, and with the knowledge of both prison and church authorities.
On Wednesday 20th photographers spotted Pryce being escorted to an outbuilding which they took to be a library or education centre, roughly a hundred yards from the church yard – and took pictures which subsequently appeared online and in the next days Sun, Mirror, Mail and Telegraph. All photographers present got images. Flynet were fortunate to get the best angle, and subsequently the majority of the publications.
These pictures were taken openly from from the churchyard, with the knowledge of church and prison authorities – neither newspaper or agency photographer used subterfuge or trespassed on prison property. Very long lenses were not used, the distance being relatively short.
After the first of these picture appeared online the PCC forwarded a letter from Pryces family asking that photographers withdraw. The photographers had infact already pulled back, having got their picture. To the best of my knowledge none has returned to the prison since.
I know this account to be true – as I was there. I understand that Jim Bennett has also explained much of this to you in person.
ADDRESSING THE CRITICISM
In your first article you publish a series of untruths and make a number of suppositions as well as posing a number of questions.
You state that prison officers “prison officers asked the paparazzi to go away and allow the woman to serve her eight-month sentence for perverting the course of justice in peace” – This is factually untrue, no such request was made at any stage, either by prison officers or by the prison officers press liaison officer who came over for a chat.
You state that – “There is, of course, no proof that any newspaper commissioned the photographers. It is highly likely that the snappers turned up on their own initiative.” This supposition is untrue, at the point when this article was written the ONLY photographers in attendance were in fact working directly for papers.
You also pose the questions:
Is it in the public interest to take pictures of a person in jail?
Is it against the editors’ code of practice?
Is there a law against it?
Photographers working for papers do not as a rule get asked for their views on ethics, these being generally reserved for greater minds in nice warm offices. We tend instead to deal with the practical application of the rules on the ground.
But in answer to your first question “Is it in the public interest to take pictures of a person in jail?” the consensus between those on the ground was that it was questionable whether Pryce was receiving preferential treatment – and as such was a valid news story. The majority of editors with access to the pictures agreed.
In answer to your second question “Is it against the editors’ code of practice?”
You yourself admit that you are unclear as to which part of the code this would breach. The PCC advisory draws newspapers attention to section 4 harassment which states “ii) They must not persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing individuals once asked to desist.”
As I have explained nobody at any stage asked photographers to desist or leave – until the advisory was issued by the PCC, by which time the photographers had already got their pictures and departed.
SO in answer to your question – In our opinion the PCC code was studiously observed.
As to your third question “Is there a law against it?”
No there isn’t
So to sum up the pictures are arguably in the public interest, do not breach the PCC and are not against the law. You have every right to debate this view – but you should make clear that these decisions are made by our bosses, rather that choosing to stereotype and vilify your news gathering colleagues.
When your original article was published a number of photographers commented on your blog that you had the facts wrong which you chose to ignore – choosing instead to repeat your allegations a day or so later, but this time disabling comments to prevent anyone challenging your inaccurate and biassed account.
Furthermore, while we are debating journalism ethics, may I take the opportunity to deplore your decision to publish an unattributed and cowardly attack from an “anonymous” press photographer. An attack full of inaccuracies, from someone who wasn’t even there.
(we all know an anonymous source usually means “my mate in the office” or “I made up these quotes”).
How can you justify publishing a cowardly attack without verification while censoring responses from photographers who were there?

The Copyright Fight

As the song goes ‘There may be trouble ahead’…except this time there is no ‘maybe’ about it. For those that recall the less-than-wonderful “Clause 43” of Labour’s “Digital Economy Bill” which proposed to legalise the use of Orphan Works and Extended Collective Licensing – well, despite its defeat it’s back and this time it’s personal.
Hidden away in a completely unrelated Bill – namely the ERRB (the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill) – are pretty much the same clauses that got thrown out before. The IPO (Intellectual Property Office) – a bunch of Patent-based Civil Servants in the fashion of Sir Humphrey from “Yes Minister” – were so miffed at their attempt to undermine photographer’s copyright being defeated that they’ve snuck their insidious plans back into Parliament hidden in a bill that has absolutely nothing to do with copyright.
There are many reasons why every photographer should be up in arms about this and we’ll list them below summarized by people who know far more about this than myself. The really, really important thing is that we still have the opportunity to send Sir Humphrey back to his Gentleman’s club in Pall Mall with a flea in his ear. They think it’s all over but it bloody well isn’t.
We still have time to effect change to the bill and even get the clauses thrown out (they shouldn’t be there anyway) but we have to act fast. We have to lobby the Lords and then we need to start a firestorm on our MP’s.
Interestingly we have some strange bedfellows as allies on this one including The Associated Press, Getty Images, Reuters, British Pathe, The Press Association, and the Federation of Commercial and Audiovisual Libraries, who have formed the International Media & Archive Consortium. They are threatening a judicial review should the bill become law, but it would be in everyone’s interest if it didn’t get that far.
This affects everyone who works in this country with a camera in their hands.
You all have to take the time to read what it means for you. Even if you just read the summary we’ve provided you’ll garner enough information to include in a letter to your MP or one of the Lords listed.
But it really is in our/your hands to do something for the good of all photographers working in the United Kingdom whether they know it or not.
Eddie Mulholland.
The proposals hidden in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill would do very serious damage to the livelihoods of UK photographers if adopted. We believe that the clauses should be removed rather than amended because:

    1. They should be subject to full parliamentary debate, not buried in someone else’s bill and secondary legislation.
    2. They rob photographers of their rights.
    3. They would not create economic growth, they would damage it.
    4. They break international law.
    5. They would be subject to judicial review even as they are passing through the Commons.
    6. They allow no room for the new “Copyright Hub” concept which, given time to get working, would deal with most of the problems.
    7. They are no substitute for a dedicated and properly considered Copyright Bill – this is nothing more than a rights-damaging fudge proposed by the Intellectual Property Office.

At some point the IPO should learn to realize that the intellectual property that they are supposed to look after is not only that of big business, inventors but that of hundreds of thousands of small businesses and sole traders whose combined worth to the UK’s economy is substantial.
See a fuller explanation on The BPPA’s website
Follow Stop 43 the campaigning group who did most to stop the orphan works clauses in the Digital Economy Act

An Open Letter to Sir George Young MP

Dear Sir George
One of the easiest ways for a backbench Member of Parliament to get noticed and to acquire a platform is to jump onto passing populist bandwagons. Over the years we have seen it many times but Nadine Dorries MP has just joined a very select club; those whose chasing of popularity and notoriety has become something more than a means to an end.
Nobody can possibly think that the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha was anything other than an absolute tragedy. Nobody apart, it seems, from Nadine Dorries. Not content with expressing normal human emotions and offering her sincere condolences to Ms Saldanha’s family and friends the MP for Mid Bedfordshire has done her best to try to blame members of the media in the United Kingdom for the tragedy. Writing on Twitter the former “I’m a Celebrity” contestant suggested that “paps” had driven the nurse to take her own life. This would seem like an attempt to attach the death to one of her own hobby-horses and put some pressure onto her Parliamentary colleagues to force greater restrictions on the press during the Leveson process.
Whether or not the Conservative Whip is returned to Mrs Dorries on a permanent basis, her actions on Twitter go way beyond Parliamentary Privilege and cross the line into ignorant defamation dressed up as human reaction.
The Board of The British Press Photographers’ Association would ask you to take Nadine Dorries MP’s activities on Twitter into account when you review her status as a Conservative MP and to remind her that her tweets could have consequences every bit as damaging as those of the two Australian disc jockeys whose unthinking actions led to Ms Saldanha’s death.
Yours Sincerely
The Board of The British Press Photographers’ Association

The BPPA gets its say at The Leveson Inquiry

Here’s a date for your diary: Tuesday the 7th of February. “Why?” I hear you ask, well it is the day when The BPPA will finally get to appear before the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practice & ethics of the press.
In our main submission to Lord Justice Leveson’s Inquiry we proposed a four-pronged solution to the issues raised in connection to photography at the hearings to date:

  • Make the publishers of websites, blogs, magazines and newspapers and their editors financially and professionally responsible for any lack of due diligence in checking how, where and why pictures that they are publishing were taken. Photographs acquired from citizen journalists, CCTV systems and inexperienced photographers should have a clear and strict series of tests applied before publication to verify their provenance
  • Images purchased from holders of UK Press Cards or from reputable agencies that are members of a United Kingdom Press Card Authority member body would require a lower standard of checking and proof because the photographer holding the press card would, according to the new ethical code, already have performed tests as they were shot. Should the images turn out to have been acquired irresponsibly, that would constitute a breach of the code of ethics that they sign up to when receiving their new UK Press Card
  • Strengthening of the UK Press Card scheme with an enforceable code of conduct including the suspensions and cancellations of cards. This obviously will not stop the cowboys who don’t have genuine press cards but it will provide a framework within which to work
  • Agree a simple outline about exactly which laws apply to photographers when they are going about their legitimate business: trespass, assault, intimidation, harassment and so on. It would also be advisable to clarify where and when the various elements of the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of The Child become applicable without allowing rich and powerful vested interests to slip a de-facto privacy law in by the back door

We started the ball rolling back in November when the association’s AGM took place and we started to discuss what we could do about the beating that press photographers were taking during the first couple of weeks worth of evidence at The Inquiry. Like most people, we had thought that the early stages of Lord Justice Leveson’s hearings would be about phone hacking but time-after-time the actions of photographers seemed to get more coverage than those of private detectives and over-zealous reporters.
Within days we had made our first submission in the form of an open letter to The Inquiry where we outlined our objections and sought to be awarded “core participant” status for the proceedings. The legal team behind the Leveson hearings took a couple of weeks to get back to us to let us know that we would not be offered that status they invited us to make a second and much more detailed submission by the beginning of January. We put the 18 page document in on time and following a few emails back and forth asking for clarification of one of our points we finally learned this week that it is all systems go for Tuesday, the 7th of February.
The BPPA wants to be there at the table when solutions are discussed and when decisions are made. The BPPA wants the voices of press photographers to be heard. Most importantly, The BPPA wants to make sure that the profession comes out of this process with its reputation enhanced, with its future as secure as it can be and with improved media and public perceptions of who we are and what we do.
These are simultaneously worrying and exciting times for press photographers. As a profession we have worked hard to create some momentum towards those goals and it is our aim to keep that momentum going on February 7th.
Visit The BPPA’s website.