photojournalism.co.uk

Good job

 

You can see Craig F. Walker's Pulitzer-prize-winning feature here.

The bit in the video above that gets me is when Ostrom, the subject of the feature, hugs Walker and says, "you did a great job". To get that praise from someone whose darkest days you have photographed and presented to the world must feel amazing. I'd trade that for a Pulitzer, especially if I had two.

I think this is a great piece of work. It was only published online apparently, which makes me wonder how it was financed (sorry to be so materialistic). Walker is a staff photographer but did he get paid for the weeks or months spent on this work? If so how did the newspaper hope to get a return on the investment by publishing online? Now that the work is Pulitzer material I suppose the Denver Post will syndicate it all over...

I'm guessing Walker did this work out-of-hours, not as an assignment but with support from the Post. If so the Editor is asking a lot when he says, "It goes to show good work will be recognised, and we want to do a lot of good work... so do it again".

Image control

    © D.Tyler 2011

I photographed Rob Brydon for the Indy Magazine a couple of weeks ago for a slot called "My secret life". It's a one page feature with a Q&A format that runs with a single portrait and is usually about a celeb who is on the PR circuit at the time, promoting a book, film, TV show or whatever. You know the sort of thing.

A fair few of my portraits over the last few years have been shot for this or similar pages in the Indy. I like the jobs because each of them is a self-contained puzzle (a bit like photography soduku but without the one solution), you have a short time and a limited space to make an interesting image of this person.

Before the Brydon job even began I received two requests, the first from Penguin Books, publishers of Brydon's upcoming book and hosts for the shoot, and another from his PR company. Penguin required a copy of my "insurance certificate" before I'd be allowed to photograph in their offices. Unusual but OK, I thought, I supposed they meant my public liability cover and sent it over. The second request was more worrying. Brydon's PR asked me to sign a "Syndication Form" that confirmed my agreement not to use the images from the shoot for anything beyond the Indy's commission without their prior permission. This was entirely new to me, but apparently it's standard practice in the US and more and more common among PR companies here. On the face of it the contract (that's what it is right?) gives the PR company control over my images. If they or the Celeb don't like them, for whatever reason, they can make sure no-one ever sees them again. And not signing means I don't do the job. There was no mention of copyright but how am I supposed to feel about a third-party vetoing sales of my work? And of course there's the not-so-subtle implication that pictures they like, flattering, on-message, brand-conforming images, will be more likely to be allowed out than anything unflattering, off-message or brand-confounding. It's not like I shoot portraits to be unflattering but I do try to respond to what I see in the subject and not what the PR wants the image to be.

The power is in the hands of the agents and the celebs and the PRs. For now they call the shots because the commodity they offer, fame, sells papers. The big agents in the US basically dictate how and what content is used in the press and this will happen in the UK too unless the press join forces and refuse to accept the conditions. It would be a wonderful thing to see, the nations media outlets refusing to trade publicity for content, interviewing someone who doesn't have something to sell and ignoring the press releases and the brand guff.

I would like to show the image I shot of Rob Brydon but It's been requested that I wait until October when the Indy plan to publish so as to coincide with the availability of his autobiography: Small man in a Book, published by Penguin 13th October, priced £20 hardback, available in all good bookshops soon.

Update Oct31st 2011: I've added the image now. Brydon wasn't that keen on this coat hanger idea, when I suggested it he said "The question is "why?"... I always cringe when I see a comedian doing something wacky in a photo." But he let me try it before we moved on to a straighter set-up. Even if it did make him cringe, I like this image. I think it fits with his Q&A in the magazine, there's even a bit where he says "I'm always happy in a pink shirt", I mean, honestly, what could be a more perfect illustration for a comment like that?

Je suis un artiste

Returning from Paris Photo by the first Eurostar on sunday the awakening streets of the city were soon left behind as the train sliced into a misty french landscape illuminated by light as thin and pale as skimmed milk. Occasionally a tree or house rose out from the fog only to whip past the window and disappear. I thought it was the late night and early start that was having a similarly obscuring effect on my attempts to analyze what I might have learned from my first visit to the event but a good night's sleep later I still seem to be staring into a fog trying to work out what I now know about the art-photography world.

Paris Photo is a collection of exhibitions and a sort of photography gallery trade-show. The exhibitions are simple enough and worth the event in themselves, often showing in the many palais around the Seine or along the more elegant boulevards. There were many that I would have liked to see and those I did see (Edgar Martins, Larry Clark, Steidl, Anonymes) were excellent. The trade-show seemed more complicated, at least for photographers, because for many of us it's a glimpse into a world which is seductively unavaliable. A world that promises great rewards to a few, selected by criteria which are unwritten, unspoken, unknown, inconstant and possibly unhinged. Still, there seemed to be plenty of photographers at Paris Photo who, like me, were walking around the 120 or so stands asking two questions over and over: where is the door to this world and how do I open it?

It's not just that I would like to have my work sell for £10,000. It's not just that I would like the creative freedom to work on any project that interested me. It's not just that I would like to be taken seriously, you know, as an artist. It is all these things that make the art world look like a nice place to go.

So here's what I think I've learned from Paris Photo:

1. Gallery's don't sell images, they sell artists.
2. A photograph becomes a work of art by a combination of factors: The intention of the photographer, the contention of the gallery and the confirmation of the buyer.
3. Gallery's call inkjet prints "pigment" prints.
4. If in doubt: print it big.

Any cynicism I feel about the art market does not prevent me from recognizing that I saw some great works in Paris. Over and above the confusing machinations of a scene that clearly didn't want to tell me much, there were images that clearly did. I think that's got to be a good sign.

Visa pour...heart of darkness.

Perpignan passed me by again. In fact I didn't even think about it until a friend told me to check out Foto8's blog on the festival. Harry Hardie and Anna Pfab have done a wonderful job of condensing their experiences at this year's Visa. They identify a whole cast of familiar players from "Wolves" to "Shamans" with a keen eye. In fact it's so good I feel like I was there and I'm glad I really wasn't.

When to look away

      © Dominick Tyler

Pastor Jones saw the light and called off his Qur'an burning but according to reports there were others who decided to commemorate the 9/11 attacks by burning or ripping-up the book sacred to Muslims. Leaving aside the idiocy of these actions it's interesting to note that the US media seems to have agreed on a near complete black-out of images from any Qur'an burnings. There was already an understanding that had the event in Florida gone ahead the networks would not have covered it, I suppose the news media extended the decision. Lives have already been lost over this whole sorry affair and it's not hard to imagine how provocative the images would have been, it's quite possible that more people would have died in further protests and even possible that attacks against US targets would have been provoked.

So when do we decide to look away? And when does denying a crackpot the oxygen of publicity become preemptive appeasement? Should I refrain from photographing something that someone will find offensive if that offense might lead to violence?

In the case of the Qur'an burning it seems like the media had already magnified the significance of the story to the point where any reporting of the actual event would be dangerously charged. The frenzy surrounding the personal opinions of a pastor with a congregation of under 100 built like a perfect media storm over the last few weeks, feeding off the reactions of outraged Muslims and counter-outraged islamophobes. In these circumstances I wouldn't have wanted to shoot it, not just because of the effect of the images but because the story was no longer about the burning, the story was about the story. Had there not been the crazy build-up I think I would have felt differently, then the story would have been about a marginal anti-Islam extremism in small-town Christian America, a loon and his bonfire.

This case shows up one of the problems with the way that news clusters around stories: how can you report on the insignificance of something when everyone is looking at it? One of my working maxims is "illustrate the general with the particular" but this can lead to minorities representing more than they should. Pastor Jones surely does represent a part of the American population, hopefully a very small part, but the coverage he got might lead you to believe he spoke with the voices of millions.

In Memoriam

from "Foaie Verde"

My NUJ press card says that I'm a photojournalist because that's what I first called myself when I applied for it nearly 20 years ago, but when I renew it I'm going to change it to "Photographer" for three reasons:

1. It better describes my work.
2. It's needs no explanation.
3. Photojournalism is dead.

Photojournalism has often been declared dead. When I started taking pictures many voices were already lamenting the end, some had been at it for a long time already. It's an established part of photographers' lore now that photojournalism is dead. It certainly makes for some good anthropomorphism: Our beloved and honorable friend, who fought the good fight against the disease of public indifference and corporate greed, seeking to shine a light of truth on injustice and war and poverty and all bad stuff, has sadly passed away after a heartbreaking decline into decrepitude. We mourn the passing of the one true art.

Neil Burgess' recent opinion piece on the Editorial Photographers UK website "For God's sake, somebody call it!" has renewed the mourning, pointing out that most of what is now called photojournalism is actually photo-illustration and that news media have no interest in paying photographers to act as reporters.

Despite the title of this blog I'm not really in the photojournalism world, although I have skirted the fringes in the past. I was never focused or driven enough to pursue the traditional path of the photojournalist and I'm really more interested in a different kind of story-telling; but I still love photojournalism, it remains, for me, a powerful visual medium. So how is it that I feel strangely unmoved now that this powerful communicator has been silenced? Am I in denial? I don't think so.

I care that journalism is being corroded and that the information we receive as news is often regurgitated PR. I care that the news media seems complicit in continued dumbing-down and an obsession with banal celebrity. I care that advertisers have a passive veto on ugly stories and that we seem to care more about buying stuff than learning stuff. I care about all that and yet I'm not sure I care that photojournalism is dead.

Perhaps we have spent too much energy trying to preserve an ideal of photojournalism, an image so seductive it draws thousands of students into courses each year despite the dire prospects for graduates. When I first found photography it was the excitement of photojournalism that captured me, I imagined a life filled with physical danger, creativity and humanitarianism. There was a mythical quality to the work and to my photographic heroes and heroines. Over time my feelings about the work have become more complex, maybe more grown-up, and I can now strip away a lot of that mythology. What I find underneath is more ambiguous. I look at photojournalism and wonder what it's for. The images that fill the World Press Photo yearbook are honored as great photojournalism but where is the journalism if they aren't in the magazines? What is the point if only a handful of people see the work and even then it's presented not so much to tell the story as to celebrate the telling of it?

Given that we all know there's no space for photo-stories in the mass media, why are they still the focus of our ambitions and attentions? Are they all destined for niche photo-magazines, hopeful candidates for book deals, exhibitions and awards? Is it possible that we are all so in love with the mythology of photojournalism that we want to do it even when it no longer fulfills it's main purpose? It's like continuing to run a radio station after the transmitter has been removed because you like twiddling the knobs.

So, let's take a moment to give thanks for photojournalism and lay it to rest in the hope that, before long, we might use the energy we once expended trying desperately to keep it alive to find new ways of communicating important stories to the world.

Autumn leaves

Dominick Tyler - Autumn Leaves

News that Grazia Neri has gone into liquidation after 42 years at the forefront of photojournalism is just the latest in a series of deaths that begins to seem like the falling of autumn leaves. And for the first time I'm feeling a little panicky. I'm not by nature an optimist, even so I've resisted the urge to mourn the death of photojournalism and until now I've held to the conviction that photography is just too powerful a medium to fall victim to market forces (or media trends, or social trends or whatever...). But for heaven's sake, things do look bleak when great agencies like Grazia Neri find their incomes nearly halved in less than a year.

This Editorial over at The Digital Journalist has an novel suggestion about how to save photojournalism (a kind of pump-priming from philanthropic donations until the public awaken from their slumber and become interested in news again) the comments make interesting reading too. Another post I read recently on Photo-Muse bemoans the invisibility of the heirs to Don McCullin, James Nachtwey and Gilles Peres: "Who [now] is doing work of a similar calibre, work as powerful and searing as this and getting it published?"

Everywhere you look there are signs that winter's coming, and it might be a harsh one.

Perpignan survival guide

Dominick Tyler - Fag Ends

Perpignan week is just around the corner, offering its usual intoxicating blend of awkward portfolio moments (is a urinal an inappropriate place for a viewing?), awkward badge-reading moments (Q: What does a black stripe mean this year? A: My agency just died) and, erm, intoxication. Somehow, despite the regular sponsorship crises and constant mutterings about how much more civilized Arles is, Perpignan keeps drawing us back, year after year.

Except this year I'm not going, for a number of reasons to do with family commitments, needing to get some work done and all that but also (and to be honest this is probably the main reason) because I don't like it. And I know we all say that sometimes and then we go and we have a great time, and I have gone, and I have had a great time but I also think I wouldn't mind never going again. It's a Perpignan paradox of attraction and revulsion, an annual gathering of otherwise solitary animals at an overcrowded water-hole to fight for Alpha status and mating (i.e. syndication) rights before limping back to their lonely hunting grounds to lick their wounds and re-do their portfolios. So for this year at least I declare myself out of the photographic gene pool, but for those of you who feel the thrum of hot, heavy blood in your veins and taste the bitter, metal tang of adrenalin as you prepare yourselves, especially if for the first time, to enter the arena, I would like to humbly offer a few tips on how to survive, if not enjoy, the experience.

1. Take a very small portfolio, or better yet none at all: It's an often observed but rarely acted-upon fact that Perpignan must be one of the worst environments to show work. The frenetic pace and awesome quantities of images will take their toll on the most experienced picture editor and presenting a massive portfolio is like dishing up a whole lasagna to someone in the middle of a 12 course banquet. Better to take a small, perfectly formed taste of your work or a single story you want to sell. Make your work the sharp sorbet that clears their palate before they have to wade back into the stodge and you are more likely to be remembered and appreciated. You might reasonably decide not to show anything and use the opportunity to gather contacts to follow up on later, when your work will have a better chance of getting through. You'll have more time to look at the exhibitions too.

2. You won't need all your camera kit: It might seem like carrying 20kg of gear around makes you appear "ready for anything" but, curiously, it often gives the opposite impression.

3. Try to eat well: I'm always mystified by how crap my diet becomes in Perpignan, this is still France for ****'s sake and yet here is another limp sandwich-jambon-fromage and god-awful coffee. It's something to do with the timing of things I think, with the projections cutting into good eating hours in the evenings and the good lunch places packed out. I have tended to choose food and good conversation over photography in the evenings in recent years and as a result I've had a much more productive time. Last year I also found a really good pizza place just over the river from La Poste, got a takeaway and took it into the one evening projection I saw (the Gendarmes on the gate took a couple of slices as "payage" but hey). Also, it's peach season so get your five-a-day, your mum would agree.

4. Don't expect too much: If the most that comes out of it is some inspiration from other works, getting to see a few editors' faces and building up your contacts that's probably pretty good going.

5. Beware the agencies: In recent years the agencies have been chucking around syndication contracts like confetti because, I guess, quantity of images is now almost as important as quality of images. There were a lot of shiny eyed graduates last year signing up as though their dreams had been answered but I wonder whether the deals they got really delivered what they were expecting. If it's a good deal it will still be a good deal the week after the excitement when you've had a chance to study it.

6. Don't order a Negroni at La Poste: I did, it cost €12.

Please add your own tips by commenting.

No pot of gold...this time

Dominick Tyler - Rainbow

I just found out that the BAJ (Big Advertising Job) has fallen through. Apparently there is a different meaning to the phrase "100% certain" in the ad world, well of course there is now that I think about it but I suppose I thought that inaccurate claims and wild exaggerations were only part of the product of ad agencies rather than part of their working practices. Still it doesn't do to bite the hand that may, one day, actually feed, so I shouldn't criticize too much. Live and learn...

Where it's at

Phil Coomes' blog on the BBC website has a really good Q&A with industry people about "Photojournalism Today", prompted in part by the trouble at Gamma.

It's hard to unknit the regular, perennial discussions about the way things have gone downhill since the "golden age" of photojournalism from the real concerns about the way traditional business models have been challenged by the digital media age. The bottom line is that in an age of unrestricted digital diffusion  the image has become more used and less valued. The potential audience for an image I shoot for a magazine today is bigger than ever, thanks to the internet (and the single figure "web fee" attached on to my invoice). The problem is that most of those people are seeing my images for free (and that's why the "web fee" is in single figures).

There's lots of nonsense theorizing about how business models might evolve in this climate, this review of the recent book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price" by Chris Anderson, effectively counters a lot of the more alarming ideas about the value of "content" that used to be called word and pictures. Even so, as a creative professional it's hard to feel comfortable with phrases like "information wants to be free" fighting to become part of the new business lexicon and the vague idea that by charging someone to use your photography you are foolishly clinging to ideas of information ownership that are so outdated as to be laughable.