Well it looks like we are going to have more racial tension over stupid laws. Its not as if the same law is going to affect nuns, monks, vicars or priests to hang up their religious garments is it?

Quote Radical Images

Yahoo! 360° - Radical Images's Blog

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Denmark: Journalists on trial for printing classified information - Editors Weblog

 EPUK'er and photographer "Kash"  better known to the rest of the world as Gabriele Torsello has been released after being held kidnapped in Afghanistan. There is no news of what has happened to his translator who was also abducted with him

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BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Italian 'released in Afghanistan'

 Well at least one photographer was arrested on the day of the mass protests for having weapons! Apparently he had his tool box with tools in the boot of his car so the old bill nicked him to be on the safe side, they didn't want him cutting down the fence with his pliers

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Hot Black Magazine

 Hi All,

Well after doing V Festival in Staffordshire I am of to Yorkshire soon to cover the Climate Camp for my agency and I will be doing daily wires back to their London office

The camp is expected to have some two thousand protesters with a mass protest against the Drax power station Nr Selby, Yorkshire.

So watch out for some daily blogs of what has happened 

Source:

Camp for Climate Action

 A new company on the block for Citizen Journalists, with pictures of news or celebrities has arrived on the net. More than that however they are also looking for creative images and will be adding community sections so people can record their local scene. There are no limits on uploading images or costs to the photographer and commission is split 50/50 with the agency

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Citizen Image :: Every Great Image Has Its Day
So I have set up a page for myself too to see how they do

Click to view

 A big congratulations go out to the Digital Journalist on their 100th issue

Well Done on an exelent Digital Magazine!

Check it out

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Dirck Halstead presents The Digital Journalist - A Multimedia Magazine for Photojournalism in the Di

 Just thought to add this as it is a valuable resource for all photographers.

You can also add rss feeds from digital railroad and flicker and it's free too

when you register you can add up to 30 pictures in your gallery

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Lightstalkers :: Networking and discussion tools for professional travelers, photographers, media wo

• Some basic ideas are to make sure photographers have come from an activist background or are very well known by activists.
• The main idea is to be able to get the activists and campaigners messages across in a supporting way, this may include dealing with the main stream media or doing publicity
• We can also facilitate press release syndication etc. and can already syndicate to the main stream media
• Profits are split in a percentage; the agency taking something in the region of 40% the rest goes to the photographer
• Creative commons and open source publishing will be supported, with the photographer owning copyright
• Profits that the agency makes will fund photographers projects and/or help with travel costs
• The main idea is to keep costs to a minimum and we have a basic website in test mode at the moment but are not really happy with it!

Photographic needs are a camera with about 4 million pixels and above would be good but is not gospel, training could be made available. We could also do video and text

Any additional info, get in touch and we would welcome any ideas

Ta

 At 09.00am on the 7th July 2005 a picture appeared on a mobloggers website of the inside of a smoke filled underground, (/Alfies Moblog) but what is truely remarkable about this is it was on public display before the mainstream media had a chance to get their similar images up. As expected within a few hours the internet was swarming with images of the London bombings, most taken by the public on small cameras or mobile camera phones, the BBC website recieved over a 1000 pictures alone. It was probably no suprise to the general public when they got the papers the next day that they had already seen most of the pictures the day before on a host of websites, thus, showing the need to get the images out as quick as possible, which has been made possible with the digital image.

But has a new era of news reporting begun?

I think so, on the attack of the 21st, I was at home and I watched all the news unfold before my eyes on my PC. On it, I have Awusu and a beta version of MSN screensaver that accepts rss feeds that  have set up for AP, Reuters, Sky News and BBC etc. and has optional news links to MSNBC, so when new news happens I see it. but what I realised on this day was although there was a TV in the next room I didn't watch it because it was so out of date, the web was happening realy fast, and although some wittness reports were missleading, it added to the viewing, almost being part of the tragick event itself.

Decline of staffers

A lot of the public images made it into the media partly due to the public having camera phones on them and partly due to a big decline in Staffers, the news papers photographers that they employed in large numbers during the 70's and 80's. This decline is largly due to the digital image and modern post production methods and the availability of online image librarys have all taken there toll on the Staffer. Freelance work has also increased, but the same rates of pay are still being offered to them as it was about 10 years ago

Your own picture desk

There is some powerfull software (mediawiki, Blog sites, Wikinews etc.)  that alows you to be an independent news provider and projects that are already up and running that will alow you to contribute as an individual (indymedia, Wikinews  )

Agency for camera phones

So what are you going to do now you have an amazing scoop on your camera phone do you start ringing the papers to see who will buy it, you do have ALL their numbers don't you? What about the different formats of video? can they handle it?

It may come as a shock to you all, but there is an agency specialising in just this, called Scoopt, dedicated to selling images from camera phones Kyle MacRae, the founder says contibuters need to register with us first and describes it as "the first picture agency set up specifically and exlusivly to help amatures citizen reporters to sell their pictures taken on cameraphones to the media.

Maybe we all need to move with the times!

Scoopt can be found here 

Scoopt

Why use pictures instead of words or video?

Well apart from the availability of the delivery method (you need some sort of screen like a TV for video as opposed to a paper for words and pictures) a picture destroys almost all barriers of communication, in the time it takes to scan an image with the eye (humans are highly visualy orientated) the person viewing the image has absorbed the information and formed an opinion or insight, regardles of their inteligence level, what language they speak, litracy level or age limits. It destroys almost all bariers the exeption being the vissualy impaired.

Video is moving images, with or without sound. With a moving image, esspecialy when the movment is rappid or there is a lot of vissual information, it is harder for the mind to retain, with spoken words as well, there is a further sense for the mind to absorb.

With words, we have no prrof to what we are reading and we have to trust the integraty of the writer or medium that has supplied the information.

With audio again trust is a factor, we have all encountered embelishment of the truth and tall stories from people we have met!

Trust in the image

With digital manipulation there has been questionable images pushed onto the public through the media as fact and this has had damaging impact on the integrity of photojournalists who work in an ethical manner.

A photojournalist is a visual reporter of facts. The public expects the reporters to tell the truth. This same trust is extended to photojournalist as a visual reporter. This responserbility is paramount to a photojournalist, at all times he or she may have many thousands of people seeing through his/her eyes and seeing the truth.

In today's world of tabloids full of images of food and celeb's (celebrities) and digitaly manipulated images the photojournalist must still tell the truth and protect their images from being distorted and pushed on the public as being the truth.

A photojournalist dose not set up pictures, they do not set up shootings or stabbings so why set up pictures of presentations or sport? There is no need to set up reality. There is no need to lie to a community that has bestowed its trust in you. 

A photojournalist may try to simplify what is in a scene, to make it easier to understand what is happening, what the focus is. This is done by quirkes of the lens and camera, a fast apature droping the background out of focus, by moving his/her point of view (never moving or asking the subject to move ) by selctive cropping in the camera, by using a slow shutter speed to convey movment and the reverse of these techniques too (example, slow apature to record more detail in a scene) The removal of colour (black and white) from an image is a simplification.

But to falsly change the mood or take the subject being recroded out of context is a serious crime in photojournalism

"The camera never lies, but you do have to point it at the truth"

Introduction

Ethics

what is photojournalism?

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