Here’s a few interesting photography related items for May 19th:
Here’s a few interesting photography related items, some entertaining, some not so much but all generally informative and worth a read:
Here’s a few interesting photography related items for April 21st:
Here’s a few interesting photography related items for April 14th:
Here’s a few interesting photography related items for April 8th:
Photography courtesy of Antony Bennison.
Further to my previous post on Photographer’s Rights, yesterday (Monday 16th Feb), an addendum to the Counter Terrorism Act 2000 came into force, which was bad enough on its own, with the number of abuses of Section 44 on the rise. As photographers, not only are we angry at the introduction of Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act and believe it will be used by police to stop and search us in any situation, but also that our civil liberties are slowly being eroded away, and very few people seem to realise or even care. To quote Gordon Brown shortly after he came to power:-
“Too often in recent years the public dialogue in our country has undervalued the importance of liberty,” Mr Brown said. “Now is the time to reaffirm our distinctive British story of liberty – to show it is as rich, powerful and relevant to the life of the nation today as ever; to apply its lessons to the new tests of our time.”
70 years ago, this once great nation sacrificed tens of thousands of lives to prevent the country falling into the hands of a group of individuals who would have done exactly that and removed our liberty in its entirety, but as this is an elected government introducing these draconian powers, The People don’t believe that their own government could not have their best interests at heart. Unfortunately it just doesn’t work like that anymore, not in the UK anyway. The new legislation makes it an offence to “elicit, publish or communicate information” relating to any current or ex- members of the Armed Forces, intelligence services and police, which is “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.
Andrew Carter, a plumber from Bedminster, near Bristol, took a photograph of an officer who had ignored a no-entry road sign while driving a police van. This might have appeared a somewhat petulant thing to do, but taking a photograph in a public place is not a crime. Yet the policeman smashed the camera from Mr Carter’s hand, handcuffed him, put him in the back of the van and took him to the police station, where he was kept for five hours. When he returned to answer bail the following week, he was kept at the station for another five hours. He was released without charge, despite an attempt by the police to claim some spurious offence of “assault with a camera”.
This is not an isolated incident. Message boards and Internet forums have been inundated with stories of PCSOs, security guards and Police Officers over-stepping and abusing their powers, and its only going to get worse with the introduction of Section 76.
The exact wording of the new legislation can be found here, and the original Counter Terrorism Act 2000 can be found here.
In fact, even Stella Rimington, the ex-head of MI5 has outwardly criticised Ministers for exploiting the fear of terrorism to restrict civil liberties.
“It would be better that the government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism – that we live in fear and under a police state,” she said. Read more here.
Mark Thomas who was also at the event outside Scotland Yard has produced a “Stop and Search” card, which can be downloaded here.
More links here:
Photographers angry at terror law – BBC News
Why can’t we take pictures of policemen? – Daily Telegraph News
Is it a crime to take pictures? – BBC News
Hundreds demonstrate their freedom to photograph. – NUJ
Photographers’ Rights and the new UK Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 – Photonetcast podcast
I’ve been trying to focus this blog more on the photographic content and fewer articles. Mainly as a result of not enough time, too many other areas vying for my attention, and often by the time I get round to posting a news item, most of the other photography blogs have already beaten me to it. Today though, I’m going to break from that as I’ve a few new news articles to post.
I’ve just had some photographs in print. Manchester United Supporters Trust have used 9 of the images I shot outside Old Trafford on the night of the Champions League final in May. They’ve used a selection of these images.
Calumet have announced a new service via their website whereby you can order online and collect in-store. Thus saving yourself delivery costs, and waiting around for the delivery van (that never arrives when you need it to). www.calumetphoto.co.uk
Magnum have gathered together some “advice” for some of their members for new and aspiring photographers. Quite an interesting read. Thoughts from Martin Parr, Alex Soth and many others. Read it here
A new forum has launched for film and darkroom enthusiasts. www.fadu.co.uk already has a great many informed posters detailing thoughts on everything from darkroom process to gear reviews.
The Royal Photographic Society has announced a new competition based on Rejlander’s “Two ways of life”. When this work appeared in Victorian times, the 32 negative “debauched” composite caused a scandal. One of it’s few alleged admirers was Queen Victoria herself. The RPS’s competition asks entrants to combine and alter images to create a modern interpretation of this masterpiece. www.rps.org
Having managed to squeeze a flurry of back-processing and printing a week or so ago, this week time has once again got the better of me.
I have followed on from an idea I picked up from another blog which was to turn one room that you use relatively frequently into a small preview gallery. So I’ve just taken delivery of a stack load of A4 aluminium frames from Trade Frames and hung them all in my downstairs bathroom. It’s not exactly the Tate Modern, but it works for me. In case you’re wondering, I’ve done this for two reasons: As any photographer will tell you, you don’t really get to appreciate your work unless you print it. Whether its film or digital, you’ve really got to make prints and reasonable size prints in order to properly appreciate and critique what you’re doing. I also find that once I’ve got an image printed and I see it every day on the wall, it gives me ideas on how I can improve on the print – be it by a different slightly crop, maybe a little dodging or burning here and there, or possibly a tweak in the toning. I’m also really getting into the Epson R2400 at last, and really loving it. The quality of the black and white prints it produces are really phenomenal, and the colour ain’t too bad either. One of these days when I fire up the wet darkroom again, I must make a couple of prints to compare – one wet printed direct from the neg, and one digitally printed on the 2400 from the scanned neg – would be interesting to compare the two.
On a slightly different tack, readers will be aware that I’ve been struggling with off-site backups and a stream lined method of being able to work on files at home and in the office. To this end, I pocketed a Western digital 400 GB pocket hard drive from PC World earlier this week which I can use to transfer files around and I can also work directly on Lightroom galleries from the drive at home. It remains to be seen just whether the access speeds will be quick enough for Lightroom or whether I’ll have to copy data off the drive first, but it looks neat, its small and it holds 400 Gb which should be large enough as a temporary carry around drive for the time being. And as long as it last longer than that crappy 32 Gb memory stick, it’ll be worthwhile. It also comes bundled with some auto-syncing software which I am just investigating.
Anyway, that’s it for the time being. Time to get back on the M6 again. I’ll just leave you with this – Martin Bailey over at MBP is running another of his fantastic workshops in Japan in February next year. Check out the details here – http://www.mbpworkshops.com/ . If there were 13 months in the year and my little ones were just that little bit older, I’d be there. Last year’s workshop looked a real corker – much fun was had by all and some of the work they produced was outstanding.
