Veteran Fleet Street photographer and founder member of The BPPA Brian Harris has just published his long-awaited book “…and then the Prime Minister hit me”. You can follow the story of how the book came into being on Brian’s blog. When Brian Harris decided as a boy to give up his dream of being a newspaper cartoonist and instead
Pete Maclaine has photographed the Notting Hill Carnival many times. Here he describes one particular aspect of his quest: Winston Churchill said, “If you find a job you love, you’ll never work again.” For me, the combination of press photography and the Notting Hill Carnival bring this quote to life. A love of photography coupled with the vibrant imagery created by
Back in 2005 The BPPA put together a project called “Never Mind The Ballots” which was a response to the “most stage managed, spin driven and least visually interesting elections in modern times”. Press photographers faced a month of ten minute photocalls and long frustrating waits whilst trying to find interesting and journalistically significant images. Ten years later the sense of
It has been a while since we ran a major project. At a recent meeting of The Association’s Board we decided that the upcoming UK General Election would be the perfect opportunity to right that wrong. We are inviting all members of The BPPA to get ready to submit photographs for this project which will start off as a web gallery
I was covering The opening of The Field of Remembrance (the crosses with poppies laid every year by The British Legion) at Westminster Abbey, which this year was by Prince Harry, when I first heard about his trip to Oman and Dubai.The Telegraph’s Royal correspondent Gordon Rayner was down to go and I explained how happy I’d be to accompany
On the left we have a Snapper, it’s a type of fish, on the right we have a photographer – please learn the difference. Would you like to demean everything I have achieved in my career with one word? Great! Then just call me a snapper – you won’t be the first or the last person to do it. With
In another of our occasional series of guest posts Max Cisotti CEO at Xclusivepix.com. A hugely experienced agent and photographer, he has allowed us to re-post something that he wrote around the time of the Leveson Inquiry about who and what the paparazzi are and about the symbiotic relationship between good photographers and the celebrity industry. I believe that as an
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
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
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
