Are Haiti pictures too graphic? (Listen to the discussion)

From the BBC Radio 4′s today program;

“Has the media’s coverage of the Haiti earthquake been too graphic and violated the dignity of the disaster’s victims? The chief executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee, Brendan Gormley, has warned against using material that “connives in the sort of disaster pornography that does exist” after newspapers published images of dead bodies being emptied out of trucks.”


My favourite, like so many other persons I feel is this one, it just portrays utter joy and relief. However , if you only show images like this, will the people donate so much, do we need to be shocked into giving?



Paper wins landmark web photos copyright battle

A very worrying development, in a landmark ruling a court has decided not to enforce the copyright of a photo..


“That judgement said a court would be entitled to refuse to enforce copyright of work if the work is immoral, scandalous or contrary to family life, incites or encourages others to act in such a way, or injurious to public life, public health and safety and administration of justice.”


The Full story is here: Paper wins landmark web photos copyright battle

The deputy editor stated: “As far as we know, it’s the first time it has ever involved a newspaper and that a paper has used the public interest defence in a copyright claim.”

Now I understand you may argue the the photographer was a squatter, breaking the law, trespassing or whatever but think about it for a moment. Think about the ruling. Think about the wording. How many other cases where photographers have bent the rules to get public interest stories? I’ll use Don McCullin as an example; he entered many derelict buildings in his famous 1989 work on London’s homeless. I am sure the same ruling could be applied to this critically aclaimed work.

I am not backing the law breakers here but the principle that “Public Interest”, “Scandalous”, “Immoral” (do not some persons still consider page 3 to be a scandal? ) has any bearing on the copyright of an image. My feeling is that the judge should just have blocked earnings from that image, if that is what he feels was the correct thing to do, not take away copyright.

Dangerous Precedent. very dangerous.

Stereophonics


Finally!

The first gig of the new year and it is great to kick it off with one of my favourite bands; The Stereophonics.

Kelly and the boys were performing one of 2 pre-tour warm up gigs in Portsmouth (the second is in Swindon). Based on this performance it is going to be a good tour, as they sounded great (I don’t think I have ever heard them sound otherwise).

So often now the lighting is making our job harder. I think maybe bands are opting for smaller lighter rigs (which are still very bright) with far more backlighting. For the audience this looks great, for the photographer it’s harder work.

If you read this often you will know I love taking Black and White images – especially of rock bands but the problem is nowadays, they just do not sell! That said, I cannot resist so, as the first of the year, and for your pleasure ;-)




And lastly, a colour image..

Mass Gathering of Photographers in Trafalgar square to protest against the police’s improper use of stop and search

23rd January and my first “real” posting. Mainly due to the fact I have done very little “public” type work, so far this year it has been corporate portraits.


Today there was a mass gathering of photographers to protest against the police miss-use of section 44 in the Uk (over using stop and search powers). I would quite like to see the number they think gathered but it was well over 1000…

I had decided before the event that I would not be working or filing any photos I took as the event would be well covered..

Here are a couple I did take;



Happy New Year

I hope you are all well and I wish you a Happy and Prosperous 2010.

For a round up of the last decade in images, The Boston Globe’s set of 50 images is fantastic, showing that in this digital, YouTube and Video age the power of still photography to capture all of the emotions and aspects of an event.

Some of these images are really shocking and remind me of how eventful and dramatic and bad for the planet the past 10 years have been. Let us hope that some of the world leaders take time to reflect on images like these and vow to make the next 10 years a happier time for us all…

Julie
xx