Rob Haggart at APhotoEditor.com has been on a roll lately: Ask Anything – Does a photographer need a rep and do they really get you work?, The Value Of A News Photograph, Ask Anything – Should You Tell Your Clients If You Are Pregnant Or Have A Life Threatening Illness?, the editorial staff’s perspective on Negotiating The Editorial Contract, Ask Anything – How Do You Get Started Photographing Fashion?, Photographers- How To Deal With Infringements, a survey of Commercial Photographer Income, Ad Agency Guide To Photography Usage Terms, Ask Anything – Should Photographers be Unionized?, Ask Anything With Amanda And Suzanne – How Not To Blow The Face To Face Meeting, Ask anything with Amanda and Suzanne – How Much Money Do Commercial Photographers Make?, and especially the most recent post, Stop Accepting $200 Assignments. All well worth a read, discussion in the comments usually is worth a look, too.

The NYT Lens Blog posted today some of the only unembedded conflict photography from Iraq or Afghanistan that I can remember seeing in awhile (can you think of other examples? send them my way). Moises Saman was on assignment for the New York Times in the town of Marja in the aftermath of a recent offensive. It is strong work and provides something of a different view of the conflict there, though quite a few images do feature soldiers in the field. The perspective though, as the photographer is not working with them, is an interesting wrinkle and Saman explains how he got some of the images in the accompanying text.

This piece on Lens is a nice counterpoint to a piece published a few days ago with NYT Photographer Tyler Hicks who was embedded with a US unit which was conducting the operation/offensive in the same town days before Saman arrived. I think it is great that there are two angles on the same story by the same publication, especially from the perspective of being with and outside the military. I hope to see more, especially from the ‘outside’ perspective. I wonder how they played off of each other in the actual editions (online and print) of the paper. Again, anyone know?

The Copyright Corner

I haven’t gotten a chance to look through the site too much, but it looks like The Copyright Corner will be a useful resource. From the site:

As an artist or designer, you are passionate and serious about your work. You should be just as serious about learning about copyright, because copyright allows you to protect your work, or to share it with others, if that is your preference. This site, dedicated to the creative spirit, aims to be a source of accurate information, and a corner for debate and dialogue about copyright and other important intellectual property issues.

File this next to Stanford’s Copyright and Fair Use Information Center, Carolyn E. Wright’s Photo Attorney blog (and see her recent guest post at A Photo Editor on dealing with infringements), The Copyright Zone, and Matt Slaby’s Legal Left, Meet Creative Right column.

A photographer who, last April, invoked California State Shield Law protections revealed one photo and his own name by entering and winning an award in the College Photographer of the Year competition. Alex Welsh, whose work we mentioned previously when it won the Gold Medal in Documentary Photography, photographed a murder scene while working on the Hunters Point story which has been widely recognized this year. Police investigating the crime asked Welsh to hand over images of the crime scene, but Welsh refused to do so, citing protections against releasing journalists’ unpublished material and notes. A San Francisco Superior Court judge sided with the photographer, deciding that Shield Laws applied in this case, and kept the photographer’s name withheld from other media and court documents for the photographer’s safety. The photographer, it turns out, had already released his name and at least one of the images in question to the College Photographer of the Year competition. Now, police again are trying to get Welsh’s cooperation in their investigation. The San Francisco Weekly has more.

As we get a little further away from the initial shock of Haiti I’m finding more perspectives on the tragedy and the media’s role in reporting on it. Here are a few links I can recommend that have kept us thinking.

(c) Jan Grarup / NOOR

First, a few days ago our friend Scott Strazzante published a beautifully honest post on his blog about his feelings of being a newspaper photographer in Chicago looking out on a world of “big stories”. It reflects the inner thoughts almost all photographers have about their place in the industry, the world and the importance of the work they’re producing.

This was echoed by another talented and thoughtful friend on his blog: Chip Litherland lays out his view on the situation and the importance of the photography emerging from this and other events to his relationship to the world. He has one passage that speaks to his optimism on the importance of the still photographs being produced in Haiti right now:

Soon, headlines will start creeping back to normal type and smaller fonts. Photos will run smaller. Media agencies will pull out of the country. One thing I haven’t felt in a while, though, is a renewed sense of the importance of photojournalism and what we do. I had that thought this morning when I realized I never wanted to watch a television news broadcast again. It’s so watered down, so filtered, so crafted and manufactured it makes me sick. I seek refuge in the glowing screen of my computer and photo galleries, newspapers, magazines and blogs which are putting these photos everywhere. The photos are what people are sharing. Twitter posts about journalists’ posts from the ground. Facebook postings with links to photo galleries. Photos. Not video. Not multimedia. Not a talking head in front of rubble waxing poetic about what a producer saw earlier in the day. Not showing up to the airport, setting up a live shot, saying you’re there covering the story and leaving. Photos. Photos that need no text. Just space to breathe and be seen.

This segues to my rant about American television media and a Washington Post article about the rise of reporter-doctors. Many of us have grown increasingly frustrated with the tactics and presentation of the broadcast media and a situation like this brings out the worst in that institution, insofar as them featuring these acts (performances?) in their broadcasts. I’ve been glancing at CNN’s website a few times since the disaster began and I’m almost certain that there has always been at least one self-congratulatory article or link about the good work (“Anderson Cooper saves injured boy”, “CNN vehicle drafted in rescue”) the broadcast team is doing down there. Are they trying to justify their presence? Are they (subconsciously?) covering their backs from criticism of their presence? Or does their viewership hunger for stories of their pretty reporters helping out, thus feeding ratings… and is this then entertainment (are they actors?)? Of course TV News is in the ratings/entertainment business but are they really playing this out with peoples’ lives in such a crisis? I guess so.

Of course, as with the article above, I am quite happy to see journalists helping out whenever they can (see for instance Christopher Anderson in Lebanon), just keep it the hell out of your ledes and headlines. You are not the story. But it seems this exactly is what the broadcast media is aiming for and it is not a good thing. Especially when so many people get their “news” from these sources, perhaps exclusively.

There are also harder questions to ask, for starters whether or not it is appropriate to arrange a workshop on crisis photography in Haiti. 100eyes founder Andy Levin posted on Sunday his plans to arrange a February workshop in Haiti that will in part “transport food and medicine” and “also offer our services to NGOs who are in need of photographs”. duckrabbit beat us to print with a smart and fair post expressing their outrage and bewilderment at the timing and tact of this proposal. Levin responded to the post with some clarifications, but I am with the majority of commentators on duckrabbit that think this is a bad idea presented even more poorly. They also picked up a metafilter post about burden of enthusiastic but untrained volunteers in Sarajevo that Scott linked to in our first commentary on Haiti (“Like moths to a flame – so many cameras in Haiti”). It is an important and informed counter-point (along with many others brought up by duckrabbits’ commentators) to the idea of sending even more photographers, especially untrained and potentially vulnerable ones, to Haiti’s disaster zone.

Our friend Pete Brook at Prison Photography takes up this issue with Levin and many many more topics in the exhaustive post “Staring at Death: Photographing Haiti”. Catch up on the humanitarian and media situation in Haiti, the galleries of images being assembled and the section titled “How many photographers does it take to photograph a humanitarian disaster?” (which runs down the known photographers working there now).

Seriously, visit Brook’s site for the best up-to-date set of links around. We’re indebted.

Of all the words and pictures I’ve seen from Haiti over the last week this interview with New York Times Staff Photographer Damon Winter on the NYT’s Lens Blog is the most heartbreaking and provoking. In light of our recent discussions I think this is an important read for context and understanding of important work being done by photographers and news organizations on the ground. Winter is a class act and wonderful photographer, and this situation and what he has seen (as with everyone in Haiti) will likely haunt them for a long time. Important to remember, even as we assess how the world is reacting to and speaking about this disaster. The images are disturbing, but such is this reality.

Changing Ideas - Getting photographers and NGOs together

‘You must also ensure you show the effect of the NGO’s work rather than just the vulnerable members of society and their stories,’ [David Graham] says. ‘Providing such context is extremely important as otherwise you are just picturing misery without suggesting a solution – which in this case is the work of the NGO.’ -Telegraph “Common Goals“

The Telegraph has an interview/feature with David Graham, the photographer behind Changing Ideas, an organization which works with NGOs and photographers to develop communications strategies for the organizations. As we’ve mentioned previously photographers working with NGOs is relatively new and unexplored terrain. As NGOs fill the gap left by news media in funding and using photojournalism, Changing Ideas‘ mission will become more important.

With all the layoffs we’ve seen in the industry in the past few years, what surprises me most, however, is how common it is for a staff photographer to be “surprised” with the news of their own layoff. They are very often leaving themselves totally unprepared for life as a freelancer. -Grover Sanschagrin/Photoshelter

Photoshelter’s recently posted a useful list of 10 things all staff photographers need to do right now (and also 10 things a recently laid-off photographer needs to do right now), covering the basics of getting ready for life outside a newsroom. It’s some common sense information–get your own gear, grab copies of your clips, establish your freelance rates, decide if freelancing is right for you–but it’s worth repeating. Be sure to watch Photoshelter’s blog; they periodically post practical and useful information and tips for working and aspiring-to-be-working photographers.

Freelance Switch is another great resource for making a freelance business work.

• Banjo extraordinaire Danny Barnes (I don’t know his music) has a great essay on “How to Make a Living Playing Music,” and he might as well be writing about making a living taking pictures. He starts “if you are a very materialistic person, skip this article, i don’t think you are going to like what it says.” The article is partly philosophical–don’t gossip, avoid people who talk about gear, “all the trouble in the world is going to come for you in two ways. the things you say, and the things you agree to do. be very careful about these items.”–but mostly practical–”the main business strategy is to build your own audience,” “don’t be afraid to do other things to make money in the short term,” and
  

  “be totally square on your taxes. render unto caesar that which is caesar’s. if you try to fudge on this, it will come back to bite you every time. get receipts for everything, 1099 everyone no matter what, unless they are a corporation.”

  The whole thing’s a fascinating insight into what allows a successful musician to keep doing what he loves, and has many parallels to photographers working on a career.

• Kenneth Jarecke’s “2009 – Year of Transition” has a great analysis of what 2009 meant to many freelancers. He explains why he turned down editorial work (a first for Jarecke), talks about new strategies for distribution, cogently analyzes the havoc caused by editorial layoffs and how it will affect the future, and the stupidity of photographers signing “work for hire” contracts for $1200 a day with big clients.
• PDN talks with the Aftermath Project jurors to find out “What It Takes To Win An Aftermath Project Grant“
• Joerg Colberg’s excellent “We’re all Zapruders now (but that doesn’t make us journalists)” examines what it means when everyone has a camera and how that’s different from journalism.
  

  “I don’t ever recall hearing or seeing anyone describe Abraham Zapruder as a “citizen journalist”. He was seen as what we was: A chance bystander who happened to have a camera (and use it) the moment the American president was shot and killed.”

  The piece ends with strong argument for what society stands to lose by getting rid of professional journalists.

• Magtastic Blogsplosion surveys many perspectives on upcoming tablet devices and what they may mean for magazines in “The revolution to come.”
  

  “The industry also wants to avoid the newspaper dilemma – publishers were so excited to give away their content for free in the early days of the web, that there was no thought to an industry business model – and the toothpaste is proving difficult to push back into the tube.”

  And check out Magtastic’s collection of groups using the newspaper format in innovative ways in “What Newspapers Did Next” and “What Newspapers Did Next (2).”

• The New York Times covers big media companies’ likely plan to begin charging for online content in “Adding Fees and Fences on Media Sites.” Among the problems faced by the old guard,
  

  “It is the established media, with their legacy of high operating costs and outdated technology, that face this problem. Leaner, newer online competitors will continue to be free, avidly picking up the users lost by sites that begin to charge.”

• PDNPulse talks with the Wall Street Journal photo department and examines how the newspaper’s attitude toward visual journalism has changed under Murdoch. PDN reports: “The good news for photography is that our editor, Robert Thomson, is a very visual person,” says Jack Van Antwerp, the paper’s photography director. And while you’re at it, check out the Wall Street Journal’s 2009 Year in Photos, which includes many friends.

In early 2009, the think tank POLIS together with Oxfam published a report warning that international coverage is likely to decrease under the new public service broadcasting regime being worked out in the U.K. And in 2008, the U.K. tabloid the Daily Mirror said as part of the latest round of job cuts they were abolishing the post of foreign editor altogether. Meanwhile, citizen journalists and NGOs have been rushing to fill the gap. The mainstream media, getting free filmed reports and words, often sees this as a win-win situation. This raises three key issues:

• Do these new entrants to humanitarian reporting mean that we are seeing more diverse stories being told and more diverse voices being heard? Does the fundamental logic of reporting change?
• Are viewers/readers aware of the potential blurring of the lines between aid agencies and the media when NGOs act as reporters?
• How are aid agencies being affected by citizen journalists acting increasingly as watchdogs?

-Glenda Cooper in When lines between NGO and news organization blur

The Nieman Journalism Lab has recently been publishing an intriguing series of articles exploring the relationship between the media, NGOs, and journalists, especially as more and more international and investigative journalism is produced, funded, and distributed initially or in cooperation with NGOs and charities. There’s much to read here, and I’ve only just started, but it’s a necessary conversation to have as news organizations drop foreign and investigative bureaus and turn to advocacy organizations for reporting. Be sure to check out all the articles:

• NGOs as newsmakers: A new series on the evolving news ecosystem
• Kimberly Abbott: Working together, NGOs and journalists can create stronger international reporting
• Simon Cottle and David Nolan: How the media’s codes and rules influence the ways NGOs work
• Natalie Fenton: Has the Internet changed how NGOs work with established media? Not enough
• Saving us from noise that kills: NGOs as news coordinators in a networked public sphere
• Bringing NGO news into the mainstream: The case of OneWorld.net and Yahoo News
• Glenda Cooper: When lines between NGO and news organization blur

This is a touchy subject, because of the moral ambiguities inherent in partnerships between NGOs (which generally advocate particular agendas/causes) and journalists or journalism organizations (which strive for editorial independence and objectivity). In the past few years mainstream NGOs have been producing some stellar work. Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has been producing strong photography, for instance, and VII recently partnered with the International Committee of the Red Cross for a compelling global documentary effort. A Developing Story chronicles more journalism produced by NGOs. Ultimately, I think the responsibility for journalistically-sound reporting funded by NGOs will rest on the shoulders of the journalists working with the NGOs, who must make sure that their reporting is a truthful representation of the subject being reported according to long-established rules of journalism ethics.