SionPhoto

Battery Charger...

"I'm detaining you mate."

"No you're not."

Good to see the British pantomime tradition isn't dead, with some security idiot thinking it's quite acceptable to commit assault, battery and false imprisonment upon two men for taking pictures in a public place.

According to the story, the men were attacked by up to 7 people before a Police officer arrived, and even she had to get confirmation of the legal rights the photographers already knew they had, before she was willing to release them.

Assault: An assault is committed when a person intentionally or recklessly causes another to apprehend the immediate infliction of unlawful force. (Archbold 19-166 and 19-172)

If the assault is followed by the physical act, the physical act is called Battery.

Hence the term Assault and Battery.

Battery: A battery is committed when a person intentionally and recklessly applies unlawful force to another. (Archbold 19-166a and 19-174 to 19-175).

For the most part, Trespass is a civil, not criminal offence. If the land is private, the owner or their representatives have the right to ask you to cease photographing and leave. But no more than that.

Any developments from then on need to be handled by the Police.

The security guard did have the right to detain someone (as long as he thought they had or were committing a crime - which they weren't - so it was assault) while the Police made their way to the scene. It's commonly known as a 'Citizens Arrest'.

But this is a right available to EVERYONE - so as one Flickr commenter suggests, if this ever happens to you...if some paedo-obsessed moron, Andy McNab-reading security goon, or any other 'have a go hero' tries it on and starts pushing you round, giving you grief, demanding you erase pictures, damaging your kit?

Get your phone out, dial 999 and detain THEM, especially if they've assaulted you.

It's your right.

End of an Era...

10 episodes later and you still Suck at Photoshop.

You do.

You're awful.

Bilal Hussein Released.

Bilal Hussein is free.

Sadly though, its often one step forward, two steps back, when it comes to journalists, photographers and cameramen being arbitrarily targetted while covering conflict.

Photography - Born, 1826. Died of Scarlet Fever, 2009.

I've written about this issue on more than one occasion, so no point going over old ground, but surely this camcorder - basically a Canon 5D that shoots raw files at up to 180 frames per second - rolling off the production line next year, is gonna be hammering in some nails into some coffins.

For example, I can't see the 100-metre final at the 2012 London Olympics being covered by stills cameras, at all.

There'll be no need.

Blingapore 1x1...

A stroll down Orchard Road in Singapore, using a Canon G9 shooting timelapse video at one frame per second.

Edited in Final Cut Pro, graded with Adobe After Effects.

Music ' 'Tongue in Chic' by Banco de Gaia.

Who Watches the Watchers?

My friend and colleague Marc Vallee has sent me a heads up:

Photo Call – Press Freedom Protest! New Scotland Yard.

Date: Friday 28th March 2008.

Time: 2-3pm.

Place: New Scotland Yard, London, SW1H

Restrictions on the right to protest have gone hand in hand with attacks on those of us who cover protests.  In recent months there have been attacks on photographers, people have had equipment seized and access has been denied. Police officers routinely stand in front of photographers, hold a hand in front of lenses, preventing decent shots being taken by deadline.

Our lawful right to do our job is increasingly under threat.

To highlight such attacks on the freedom of the media, NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear will stage a lone protest outside New Scotland Yard.

 

Whilst the law puts restrictions on how many protesters and the nature of any protest, photographers have a right to cover protests - lawful or otherwise.

Yet that right is all too often being denied.

Show your support for the right to photograph protests free from threats or intimidation.

Simon Davies, Privacy International and the LSE:

"We have reached that stage now where we have gone almost as far as it is possible to go in establishing the infrastructures of control and surveillance within an open and free environment.

That architecture only has to work and the citizens only have to become compliant for the Government to have control.

That compliance is what scares me the most. People are resigned to their fate. They've bought the Governments arguments for the public good.

There is a generational failure of memory about individual rights. 

Whenever Government says that some intrusion is necessary in the public interest, an entire generation has no clue how to respond, not even intuitively."

Well, maybe they need reminding:

Hermann Goering, 18th April 1946:

"...voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.

All you have to do, is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

It works the same in any country"

Photospook CS3...

If you really don't suck at Photoshop, maybe you might think about applying for this job.

I expect the quality of Al-Qaeda photos and forged diplomatic passports will improve hugely once this position is filled...

Osama Bin Shrunken?

'Authentic' pic of OBL
released online to the
media in 2006.

As Time Goes By....

It's the Easter Bank Holiday, which means of course, it's cold enough to snap the nose off a polar bear.

So chuck another log on the fire, get comfy with the reviving beverage of your choice and get stuck into this:

Play it Again Sam...

Hwyl Fawr, PJG.

I've been visiting my folks in Wales, so ironically missed news of the death of Philip Jones Griffiths, as the Land of My Fathers was too busy patting itself on the back after winning the Grand Slam, so didn't find much time to pay tribute to arguably the greatest Welsh visual artist of the 20th Century, and one of the Worlds pre-eminent photojournalists.

He was most widely known for his epic work Vietnam Inc, which to this day, still stands head and shoulders above the simplistic hand-wringing-war-is-bad-boo-hoo-stating-the-bleedin'-obvious brand of photography that's dominated conflict coverage, and which has now for the most part reached a craven nadir in Iraq and Afghanistan.

PJG: "I think the one thing that few people understand, is that the journalists en-masse, who covered the Vietnam war, I would say 98 percent of them were in favour of the war - every aspect of the war.

About 1.99 percent were in favour of the war, but critical of the tactics being used.

And there was me and a couple of French people, who said no, the whole thing was bloody immoral and wrong."

Philip Jones Griffiths died on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of  Iraq, the most photographed conflict in history, but the one about which we seem to know the least. There is a direct correlation there, and Jones Griffiths would have spotted it in an instant:

PJG: "One is denying oneself what photography is about, if you just believe in 'The Media', 'The System' out there, the magazines and newspapers.

The 'Freedom of the Press' belongs to he who owns one, and I don't own one....I've never had that faith in 'The System' to get the message out...

...I think a lot of the photographers who have come along since, DO believe in 'The System'. They do believe that double page spread in Time Magazine is of value..."

Philip Jones Griffiths documented cultural, social and economic conflict, with a coruscating analysis of the forces fuelling it, alongside unrepentant support for its opponents and victims - not just back-slapping 'bang-bang' war-porn which often wallows in the destruction it purports to condemn, and is happy to exist in a journalistic and moral void.

PJG: "I want to know why. Why is what is most important to me.

Why is this child starving? Not 'let us for the umpteenth time, capture the pathos of the starving child'.

You've got to say why.

...I think its important to say that - otherwise, there's a sort of unresolved mass of imagery which in the end, sort of floats over people."

Philip Jones Griffiths might not have recognised Wales now. In Cardiff, the statue of Nye Bevan looks over a shopping precinct where stores sell Chinese-made rugby shirts and trinkets. Like many small nations, its identity has been largely subsumed by globalised consumer culture, a phenomenon Jones Griffiths had documented for decades before 'Globalisation' became a buzzword.

PJG: "One question I ask myself is why my radicalism is not fading with age. Traditionally it is the way to go, yet mine gets stronger every day.

Fortunately there are still photojournalists to record what is happening.

Let their pictures provide power to the people!"

Bwyso I Mewn Dangnefedd, Philip Jones Griffiths 1936 - 2008.

Canon G9...I Leica Very Much.

After eBaying my gallbladder I went out and got a Canon G9, which is turning out to be a lovely little beastie, so lovely in fact, that tomorrow I'll be using it to ahem, shoot video.

Hi Def video.

As for stills? Like all compacts, it starts shovellin' in da noize once you get past about 400 ISO, but I can't remember the last time I went above that anyway, and so far, the raw files (hoo yeah, baby) from the camera are lookin' alright.

Cartier-Bresson FAIL

The downside is the viewfinder is complete rubbish, and the external finder I bought ain't much better either, so I might have to get used to using it in either screen-gawp or point 'n' pray mode.

In the meantime, G9 newbies will be doing themselves a favour if they check out the Lifespy with a G9 'blog, which has plenty of practical info on the machine, with links to various handy camera nick-nacks.