Category Archives: viewpoint

War Exhibition At The Barbican

Posted on October 23, 2008 | Leave a comment

I had a chance to have a very quick look at the war exhibitions at the Barbican yesterday afternoon. I’ll definitely pop back as I only had 30 minutes before the place shut! Must say, that they are all worth a lengthy and thorough visit.


Robert Capa’s work was, as always, good to see again. There were a lot of images I hadn’t seen though, and some new prints from the recently discovered negatives have been exhibited. There’s an interesting section on the “Fallen Soldier” image, as well as some press cards and letters by Capa. My favourite has to be a letter he wrote to his mother and brother after the D-Day landings in which he said “Yesterday I had a bit of an adventure”!! Talk about an under statement!

I found Gerda Taro’s work really interesting too. Its such a shame that both Capa and Taro died so early in their careers. It would have been a joy and an education to see life through their cameras.

Geert van Kesteren also had an interesting collection of images worth checking out too.

Check here for some images.

The exhibition is on until 25 January 2009.

Barbican Art Gallery opening times:
Daily 11.00am – 8.00pm 
Except Tue & Wed 11.00am – 6.00pm 
Barbican Art Gallery is open late every Thu until 10pm.

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DRM on Music

Posted on October 21, 2008 | Leave a comment

DRM….Digital Rights Management. Anyone who knows me or has read this blog knows how strongly I feel on issues of copyright. I parted ways with a big wire agency after many years of working for them as they tried to bully me into signing over my intellectual rights to my work. My income has since less than halved as a direct result.


As photographers, we take great pride in the quality of our work; not just the content, but the physical quality too. The image has to be presented in its best form. I’m sure musicians take equal pride in the quality of their recordings, and find it paramount that listeners enjoy it at a high level of quality. This leads me onto DRM.

Whilst I 100% back the music industry in their efforts to protect their copyright, for us, the members of the listening audience who are quite happy to pay for music, DRM gets rather annoying. As an example, I can play MP3 CDs in my car. However, if I buy an album on iTunes, I need to make an audio copy of this in iTunes, then re-import it and make another lossy MP3 copy of it. In effect, running the MP3 compression twice. If you try and listen to any complex piece of music which has been compressed twice, you can definitely hear the difference. As I’m sure musicians care about the quality of their music, surely they need to apply pressure on their recording labels and the distributors to get rid of this DRM?

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Behind The Scenes Of Laforet’s Video

Posted on September 23, 2008 | Leave a comment

Incent Laforet’s kindly posted a behind the scenes’ look at how he made the video. Its very interesting viewing.

However, the aspect which is astonishing is how brilliant the footage of the 5D MkII video (from a pre-production body) looks compared to a “proper” professional video camera (the XH A1) which just looks drab and lifeless! I’ve never been enthused about video; now things have changed.

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Posted in Video, viewpoint

Righteous Kill UK Premiere 01

Posted on September 15, 2008 | Leave a comment

I tend not to do too many celebrity oriented things. Mainly because these days everyone’s a celebrity; talented or not, and also there are so many photographers and PRs, that the chances of getting a creative shot becomes next to impossible.
However, when AP asked if I’d like to cover the UK premiere of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino’s new film, I jumped at the opportunity. These gents are probably my favourite actors. They are truly talented and I’ve been hooked on their films for many years. I would love to photograph these gents properly in a one on one situation, but alas the situation has yet to present itself.
So, the next best thing, was a movie premiere. As I mentioned already, there are many issues in this environment. Far too many photographers being one of them (which results in too many screams to get “eye line” and practically no chance of directing the subject. On top of this, we’re all squashed into a pen like sardines and on ladders). I didn’t do a count, but in the photographers’ pen at the end of the red carpet there must have been at least 35. I was relatively lucky in getting a central spot on the second row, so my trusty step ladder came into play.
Alas, as De Niro and Pacino appeared, it all went wrong! Naturally they did the rounds signing autographs for the fans and then the line of ever increasing TV interviews. They kept criss-crossing in front of us (which gave an opportunity for a few “candid” frames, but nothing amazing as there were people in the way and messy backgrounds). Finally it was our turn. Whilst the PRs controlling the event had dutifully got several “celebrities” to pose for us, when it came to the reason most of us were there, they managed a group shot! This included De Niro and Pacino, but also “50 Cent” and the film’s director Jon Avnet. Whilst these are definitely pictures worth having, for me, the main picture was of Robert and Al. I kept thinking how hard could it be to have these gents walk down the red carpet towards the photographers? All they would need to do was walk ten meters whilst talking with each other and then do a minute or two’s worth of posing and working the line.
This simple thing wasn’t to happen though and a group shot was all we got. This is pretty typical though of these huge photo calls. Too many photographers, too much shouting, too many agents, carers and PRs. Luckily the situation was half saved when the actors appeared on the cinema’s balcony, first individually and then as a group.

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Posted in Photography, viewpoint

Righteous Kill UK Premiere 02

Posted on September 15, 2008 | Leave a comment

Al Pacino waves to the crowd as he enters the cinema

My favourite shot from the day; Al Pacino makes
an appearance on the balcony of the cinema

…shortly followed by Robert De Niro

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"Get Modern" Says Martin Parr

Posted on August 1, 2008 | Leave a comment

Magnum photographer Martin Parr says that photojournalism has to get modern to survive in the magazine market. Although I’m not a big fan of his work, I am a big fan of his though process. PDN Online has an interesting interview with him.

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