Filed under: Buying Advice, Equipment highlight | Tags: Canon 580ex mk2, Ray Flash, Ringflash
I recently purchased a Ray Flash with my Canon 580EX mk2. Expect some kind of a review soon. 
Filed under: Opinion, civil liberties | Tags: civil liberties, police, the independent, twitter, war on terror
When stuff like this happens, the terrorists are winning.
Granted the Police has to investigate all threats, but seriously the reaction to his twitter post is too heavy handed.
Unfortunately for Mr Chambers, the police didn’t see the funny side. A week after posting the message on the social networking site, he was arrested under the Terrorism Act and questioned for almost seven hours by detectives who interpreted his post as a security threat. After he was released on bail, he was suspended from work pending an internal investigation, and has, he says, been banned from the Doncaster airport for life. “I would never have thought, in a thousand years, that any of this would have happened because of a Twitter post,” said Mr Chambers, 26. “I’m the most mild-mannered guy you could imagine.” – The Independent/Mark Hughes and Jason Walsh
This was an interesting comment beneath the article:
Although it is easy to say now, Mr. Chambers should have immediately asked for a solicitor to be present during his questioning. There is also the question of whether the police had a warrant for his arrest (who authorised the warrant?) and acted correctly. Additionally, there is the question of the confiscation of his property and him being ‘banned’ from an airport. All of this has been done by the police without any presentation of their evidence before a court and without any scrutiny of their conduct. Additionally, Mr. Chambers has been suspended from work? On what grounds and by whom? There is also the certainty that, from now, he will be unable to travel to the United States and will be permanently on a watch list for any other other travel outside the UK. This has been a very serious aussault on Mr. Chambers’ personal liberty and it should not go uncommented. The reaction of Tessa Mayes was much too low key, she sounds like a student. If Mr. Chambers does not now have legal counsel, he should not delay getting it. He cannot rely on the idea ‘I do not need a lawyer, I’ve done nothing wrong’. This is a very serious matter which affects the whole population.
Granted the guy who twittered should have thought more about his ‘joke’, but more seriously the Police should be thinking as well for setting such precedents.
Filed under: Jonathan's Photography, Links, Photographer Spotlight, Photography Links | Tags: magazine, photographers, photography, tag
A few months back I submitted some images for a new magazine publication that was coming out. Tag Magazine is the name and user generated content was their aim. The best of the submissions are voted for and then published.
Tag’s 1st issue is now online and its also available soon on Newsstands in New York and Los Angeles. A digital version can be found here online.
Why do I mention it? I made the first issue, page 76! But there are some great images in the magazine, especially the series from Africa by David Hampton. My own work can be found here.
Filed under: Opinion | Tags: alex roman, photographers, photography, police, Stop and Search, tablet, tenonedesign, UK, wacom
Stop and Search ruled illegal in the UK by the European Court.
Software to turn the MacBook and MacBook Pro’s trackpad into a Wacom tablet of sorts.
The Third and the Seventh by Alex Roman.
Filed under: Castle, Jonathan's Photography, Square, Swansea, Swansea Castle Square, Wales, culture, teens, welsh, youth | Tags: Geographies, Geography, interview, People's, Young, YPG
I was recently interviewed by The Geographical Association for their Young People’s Geographies (YPG) project. From their site:
The Young People’s Geographies project is a five year (2006-11) curriculum development and research programme investigating how school students and teachers working together can effectively develop the school geography curriculum and students’ geographical learning.
The work is relevant to YPG because they were interested in the youths I documented. Interested in how the youths had made a space for themselves in the city centre, my research methods (because I integrated into the group of over 300+ youths for over a year) and looking at how far the youths travelled in order to meet up in the City centre. Again from their site:
Young People’s Geographies is about making school geography more exciting and relevant to students by involving them in curriculum making and by focusing on their own lived geographies. Young people have their own distinct geographies, often very different to those of adults, and the YPG team believes the learning process will be much richer for students if these geographies are taken into account.
Of course some of my images are found in the interview (with a pdf to download) and the rest of them can be found here on my website.
Filed under: Links | Tags: 2009, articles, New York Times, photojournalism, Photojournalist, theatlantic.com, wall street journal, worst jobs
New Page: Photojournalism Articles
I’ve set up a new page about articles I’ve come across which interest me and are related to Photojournalism. If there is a short description, it is because I’ve read it.
“Cut this Story!”
Interesting article from theatlantic.com which discusses and provides examples about how newspaper articles are too long and argues they should be shortened. Not in the sense to dumb down the piece being written, but to use less unnecessary language. Making that point that these particular writing styles are becoming dated in the Internet Age.
Worst jobs of 2009: Photojournalist
The Wall Street Journal have published their list of the Best and Worst jobs of 2009. At the 189th position is Photojournalist, there are supposedly only 11 jobs that are worse. This chart is based on salary. (the linked articles does state 2010 but I don’t understand when you’re less than a week into our new year).
Filed under: Links, Opinion, culture | Tags: chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, stereotypes
‘I look forward very much to a time when magazines and newspapers will stop publishing a certain kind of photograph. A photograph of starving or sick children as a back drop. It is not only a cliche; you know the person usual famous, usually a westerner in the midst of hollow eyed starving children, but it is dehumanising to the children. Surely we can do acts of kind charity….. without making a fetish of our own moral goodness by taking photographs surrounded by starving children who have no say. Surely can help people by leaving them with their basic human dignity intact.’
Nigerian writer and Orange Prize-winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An informative talk that I found I could relate too right away; as the work I’ve assigned myself deals with the issue of Stereotypes. It has become important to me in my work to understand how we grow accustomed to stereotypes and how they live on in society as we reuse them in other discussions and other forms of media. Stereotypes though they are a generalisation have their uses of course, but continually replying on them is eventually going to damage the perception of those people being presented. I’m not always clever with my words so listen to her instead, she is a joy to listen to and funny.
Original Source Duckrabbit.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amanpour, BBC, Links, photography, photojournalism, the economist, zoriah
Here is a link to Zoriah’s website, he has amassed a huge amount of links all relating to photojournalism and while I haven’t look at them all, they cover a lot of ground and Zoriah pretty much explains why he’s chosen them.
Enjoy.
But also speaking of links, here are a few from iTunes which I recently discovered:
Amanpour. – CNN podcast, ‘hosted by CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour, taking on the most pressing news and issues.’ Videos produced in 25 minute segments.
BBC Documentaries. – From the BBC world service, offering a wide range of documentaries and factual programmes. (Note, I’m not sure if these BBC documentaries are restricted to UK citizens only).
BBC Global News. – ‘Interviews and on the spot reporting from around the world including highlights from Newshour…’ (Again from the BBC so might be restricted).
The Economist. – Audio content from The Economist magazine, including interviews with journalists and experts on world politics, business, finance, economics, science, technology, culture and the arts.
Actual questions asked of the Getty images library. Humorous video with some clever editing techniques.
Recent article from the The Independent:
Martin Parr, a photojournalist who was threatened with arrest after he took pictures of revellers in Liverpool city centre, said: “Unless we do something to stop this trend it will become virtually impossible to take photographs on a British street.”
The British Journal of Photography says it has received a steadily increasing number of complaints this year. Olivier Laurent, the magazine’s news editor, said: “The person will normally be taking a photograph of something perfectly mundane and a police officer will approach them and either claim that they can’t take photos in that particular place or they will ask the photographer to explain what they are up to and record their details.
“Those who refuse to co-operate have been threatened with arrest for either breaching the peace or impeding the public highway. We find that a lot of the time police officers are not even aware of the rules governing photography in a public place.”
Reading the whole article I wonder how long it takes for our Police Officers to be “retrained,” as this has been going on for a while now when Officers abuse the power granted to them by Section 44. My guess is there is no immediate reason for the time being on “retraining” officers.
