Commended in the UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards

Posted on February 26, 2016 | 2 comments

Videographer Of The Year

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Edmond Terakopian wins a commended award in the Videographer of the Year category for his short film “Taxi Driver” in the UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, Honourable Artillery COmpany, City Road, London. February 25, 2016. Photo: Bruce Adams

Thrilled to share that I was awarded a commendation for my short film, Taxi Driver, by the UK Picture Editor’s Awards.

The awards dinner was held at the Honourable Artillery Company on City Road and attended by the best of the best press photographers and picture editors in the UK. As always, a great evening to catch up with friends and colleagues, drink some wine, and have conversations ranging from equipment, anecdotes and ending up with the inevitable “good old days” tales.

Drinks reception ahead of the UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, Honourable Artillery Company, City Road, London. February 25, 2016. Photo: Ben Fitzpatrick
Alan Sparrow, Chairman of the UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, Honourable Artillery Company, City Road, London. February 25, 2016. Photo: Ben Fitzpatrick
Andrew Parsons speaks at the UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, Honourable Artillery Company, City Road, London. February 25, 2016. Photo: Ben Fitzpatrick
UK PICTURE EDITORS’ GUILD CHAIRMAN’S AWARD. Ken Lennox, former picture editor of the News of the World and The Sun. UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, Honourable Artillery Company, City Road, London. February 25, 2016. Photo: Ben Fitzpatrick
UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, Honourable Artillery Company, City Road, London. February 25, 2016. Photo: Ben Fitzpatrick
MP Sadiq Khan co-presented teh awards. UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, Honourable Artillery Company, City Road, London. February 25, 2016. Photo: Ben Fitzpatrick
Journalist and TV presenter Kate Silverton prsents the awards. UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, Honourable Artillery Company, City Road, London. February 25, 2016. Photo: Ben Fitzpatrick
James Glossop, The Times, SHUTTERSTOCK PRESS PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2015. UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, Honourable Artillery Company, City Road, London. February 25, 2016. Photo: Ben Fitzpatrick

I’d like to extend my thanks to chairman of the awards Alan Sparrow and all the picture editors who formed the judging panel.

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(L-R) Edmond Terakopian, Jessica Mann (Alamy News Team) and Bruce Adams at the UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, Honourable Artillery COmpany, City Road, London. February 25, 2016. Photo: ©

The film was shot using two Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II cameras and various Olympus M.Zuiko lenses. The audio was recorded on an Olympus LS-100 audio recorder. I used a variety of Rode microphones, ranging from the Lavalier and VideoMic Pro, to the Stereo VideoMic X.

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II

The Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II fitted with the HLD-8 Power Battery Grip and Rode Stereo VideoMic X. February 05, 2015. Photo: © Edmond Terakopian

Olympus LS-100

The Olympus LS-100 audio recorder and Rode NTG3 microphone.. February 05, 2015. Photo: © Edmond Terakopian

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World Press Photo of the Year 2016

Posted on February 18, 2016 | Leave a comment

WPPH_LOGO_RED_R171G0B39(AdobeRGB1998)

An image by Australian photographer Warren Richardson is the World Press Photo of the Year

© Warren Richardson - Hope for a New Life

Hope for a New Life. A man passes a baby through the fence at the Serbia/Hungary border in Röszke, Hungary, 28 August 2015. Photo: ©Warren Richardson

When I logged on to the World Press Photo website and saw the the winning image, I found myself uncontrollably saying “wow” out loud. It’s an amazingly powerful image, highlighting an extremely important issue, photographed with such skill and empathy. Many congratulations to Warren Richardson for his stunning image and for the judges in choosing it out of the submitted 82,951 photographs.

Richardson is a freelance photographer, currently based in Budapest, Hungary. He explained how the picture was made:

“I camped with the refugees for five days on the border. A group of about 200 people arrived, and they moved under the trees along the fence line. They sent women and children, then fathers and elderly men first. I must have been with this crew for about five hours and we played cat and mouse with the police the whole night. I was exhausted by the time I took the picture. It was around three o’clock in the morning and you can’t use a flash while the police are trying to find these people, because I would just give them away. So I had to use the moonlight alone”.

View the entire collection of winning images from the 59th World Press Photo Contest. They were selected from 82,951 photos made by 5,775 photographers from 128 different countries.

For any photographers wondering about the technical aspects of the winning image; the shot was made on a Canon 5D MkII using a Canon 24mm f1.4L lens at 6400ISO, f1.4 with a shutter speed of 1/5 of a second.

Here are a selection of my favourite images from the contest

(in no particular order):

— AFP PICTURES OF THE YEAR 2015 — A Syrian man carries the body of a child killed in a reported air strike by government forces in the rebel-held area of Douma, east of the capital Damascus, on November 7, 2015. AFP PHOTO / ABD DOUMANY === GRAPHIC CONTENT ===
A wounded Syrian girl cries at a make-shift hospital in the rebel-held area of Douma, east of the capital Damascus, following reported air strikes by regime forces, on August 12, 2015. At least 27 civilians were killed in Syrian government air strikes on the Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus according to a monitoring group. AFP PHOTO / ABD DOUMANY
— AFP PICTURES OF THE YEAR 2015 — A wounded Syrian girl looks on at a make shift hospital in the rebel-held area of Douma, east of the capital Damascus, following shelling and air raids by Syrian government forces on August 22, 2015. At least 20 civilians and wounded or trapped 200 in Douma, a monitoring group said, just six days after regime air strikes killed more than 100 people and sparked international condemnation of one of the bloodiest government attacks in Syria’s war. AFP PHOTO / ABD DOUMANY
Adam Abdel, age 7, was badly burned when a bomb, dropped on February 12 by a Sudanese government’s Antonov plane, landed next to his family’s home in Burgu, Central Darfur, Sudan, February 27, 2015.
Whale Whisperers. Divers observe and surround a humpback whale and her newborn calf whilst they swim around Roca Partida in the Revillagigedo Islands, Mexico, 28 January 2015. Anuar Patjane Floriuk
A Syrian child fleeing the war is lifted over border fences to enter Turkish territory illegally, near the Turkish border crossing at Akcakale in Sanliurfa province on June 14, 2015. Turkey said it was taking measures to limit the flow of Syrian refugees onto its territory after an influx of thousands more over the last days due to fighting between Kurds and jihadists. Under an “open-door” policy, Turkey has taken in 1.8 million Syrian refugees since the conflict in Syria erupted in 2011. AFP PHOTO / BULENT KILIC / AFP / BULENT KILIC
BEAVER CREEK,COLORADO,USA,08.FEB.15 – ALPINE SKIING – FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, Birds of Prey, Alpine combined, downhill, men. Image shows Ondrej Bank (CZE). Ondrej Bank (CZE) crashed during the downhill race of the alpine combined at the FIS World Champioships 2015 in Beaver Creek. Keywords: crash. Photo: GEPA pictures/ Christian Walgram
4—Gumda, Nepal. Friday, May 08, 2015: Bishnu Gurung (3L) weeps as the body of her daughter, Rejina Gurung, 3, (unseen), is recovered from the rubble of her earthquake destroyed home, on May 8, 2015 in the village of Gumda, Nepal. Neighbors discovered the body of the small girl in the collapsed entrance of the Gurung family home, ending a 13 day search for Rejina in the remote mountainous village of Gumda in Gorkha district. On the 25th of April, just before noon local time, as farmers were out in fields and people at home or work, a devastating earthquake struck Nepal, killing over 8,000 people and injuring more than 21,000 according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Homes, buildings and temples in Kathmandu were destroyed in the 7.8 magnitude quake, which left over 2.8 million people homeless, but it was the mountainous districts away from the capital that were the hardest hit. Villagers pulled the bodies of their loved ones from the rubble by hand and the wails of grieving families echoed through the mountains, as mothers were left to bury their own children. Over the following weeks and months, villagers picked through ruins desperate to recover whatever personal possessions they could find and salvage any building materials that could be reused. Despite relief teams arriving from all over the world in the days after the quake hit, thousands of residents living in remote hillside villages were left to fend for themselves, as rescuers struggled to reach all those affected. Multiple aftershocks, widespread damage and fear kept tourists away from the country known for its searing Himalayan peaks, damaging a vital climbing and trekking industry and compounding the recovery effort in the face of a disaster from which the people of Nepal continue to battle to recover.
8—Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, April 28, 2015: Flames rise from burning funeral pyres during the cremation of earthquake victims, at the Pashupatinath temple on the banks of Bagmati river on April 28, 2015 in Kathmandu, Nepal. On the 25th of April, just before noon local time, as farmers were out in fields and people at home or work, a devastating earthquake struck Nepal, killing over 8,000 people and injuring more than 21,000 according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Homes, buildings and temples in Kathmandu were destroyed in the 7.8 magnitude quake, which left over 2.8 million people homeless, but it was the mountainous districts away from the capital that were the hardest hit. Villagers pulled the bodies of their loved ones from the rubble by hand and the wails of grieving families echoed through the mountains, as mothers were left to bury their own children. Over the following weeks and months, villagers picked through ruins desperate to recover whatever personal possessions they could find and salvage any building materials that could be reused. Despite relief teams arriving from all over the world in the days after the quake hit, thousands of residents living in remote hillside villages were left to fend for themselves, as rescuers struggled to reach all those affected. Multiple aftershocks, widespread damage and fear kept tourists away from the country known for its searing Himalayan peaks, damaging a vital climbing and trekking industry and compounding the recovery effort in the face of a disaster from which the people of Nepal continue to battle to recover.
A ‘Maya’ girl sits in an altar during the traditional celebration of ‘Las Mayas’ on the streets of the small village of Colmenar Viejo, near Madrid, Spain Saturday, May 2, 2015. The festivity of ‘Las Mayas’ comes from pagan rites and dates from at least the medieval age, appearing in ancient documents. It takes place every year in the beginning of May and celebrates the arrival of the spring. A girl between 7 and 11years is chosen as ‘Maya’ and should sit still, serious, and quiet for a couple of hours in an altar on the street decorated with flowers and plants, afterwards they walk to the church with their family where they attend a ceremony. Not more than four, or five girls are chosen as a Maya each year.
North Korean children perform at the Pyongyang Kyongsang Kindergarten. Photo by David Guttenfelder
After spending two days and two nights sailing on the Mediterranean Sea on the deck of the M.S.F. (Médecins Sans Frontières – Doctors Without Borders) search and rescue ship Bourbon Argos, rescued migrants – still wrapped in their emergency blankets – catch sight of the Italian coast for the first time soon after dawn. 23 August 2015 In 2015 the ever-increasing number of migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea on unseaworthy vessels towards Europe led to an unprecedented crisis. Nearly 120 thousand people have reached Italy in the first 8 months of the year. While the European governments struggled to deal with the influx, the death toll in the Mediterranean reached record numbers. Early in May the international medical relief organization Médecins Sans Frontières (M.S.F.) joined in the search and rescue operations led in the Mediterranean Sea and launched three ships at different stages: the Phoenix (run by the Migrant Offshore Aid Station), the Bourbon Argos and Dignity.
Ron Baker (31) shoots over Nick Zeisloft (2) as Hanner Mosquera-Perea (12) and Rashard Kelly (0) battle for position under basket at the NCAA 2015 Mens Basketball Tournament game with Wichita State vs. Indiana at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska, USA on March 20th of 2015. Greg Nelson executed this photograph without posing any of the subjects.
Chinese men pull a tricycle in a neighborhood next to a coal-fired power plant in Shanxi, China. Photo: Kevin Frayer
Runaway talibes stand on the bank of Senegal river, in Saint Louis city, north of Senegal, May 20, 2015. Saint Louis is known as Talibe city. A city with small proportions compared to Dakar but with a large number of Talibes. Due to that many of them choose the streets instead of Daaras.
Homeless veteran Darlene Matthews has been living in her car for over two years while she waits for a housing voucher from the VA. She joined the US Army in 1976 and was sent to Fort McLellan, Alabama. “I was going to join this all women’s army and there would be no sexual problems but I joined and there were sexual problems.” She was beyond horrified when she discovered that it wasn’t a safe place and instead full of “illegal punishments and all this sexual stuff. The whole atmosphere was abusive.” Her life spiraled down after she got out of the military and found herself very depressed. She joined the military to escape a chaotic abusive home life and was forced back into it when she was discharged. She has been fighting with the VA for benefits including housing vouchers but has been living in her car in the parking lot of a mortuary next to a graveyard. “It’s like being in a fun house and every door gets slammed in your face every time you try to leave. I feel like giving up sometimes, and nobody would care.”
1. Tapajós River, Itaituba, Pará State, Brazil, on February 10, 2015. Indigenous children jump into the water as they play around the Tapajós river, in the Munduruku tribal area called Sawré Muybu.
Howie calls these “his and hers” chairs. He sits beside Laurel, his wife of thirty-four years, as they get their weekly chemotherapy treatments, side by side at Oncologist Dr. Barry Boyd’s office. Greenwich, Connecticut. January, 2013.
Krigen och osäkerheten, framförallt i mellanöstern tvingar alltfler på flykt mot säkerheten i Europa. Innan november var slut passerade antalet asylsökande som anlände 1 miljon. En fjärdedel av flyktingarna är Syrier. Samtidigt som skyddsbehoven ökar stängs alltfler dörrar. Sedan Turkiet fått 27 miljarder kronor av EU patrullerar den turkiska kustbevakningen allt oftare. I praktiken går den svenska gränsen här, i vattnet mellan Grekland och Turkiet. För att undvika upptäckt och att fängslas i Turkiet tar sig alltfler båtar över under skydd av mörkret. Frivilliga hjälparbetare möter de ofta nedkylda flyktingarna på den grekiska ön Lesbos
Sunbather oblivious to the ominous shelf cloud approaching – on Bondi beach. A massive “cloud tsunami” looms over Sydney in a spectacular weather event seen only a few times a year. The enormous shelf cloud rolled in from the sea, turning the sky almost black and bringing violent thunderstorms in its wake.
Colima Volcano in Mexico shows a powerful night explosion with lightning, ballystics and some incandescent rockfalls. Photo taken on dec. 13 at 22:24 hours, 12.5 km away from the crater near a lagoon named Carrizalillos on Comala municipality in the state of Colima. Colima Volcano had a period of enormous activity on july of 2015, at least 700 inhabitants were evacuated from their settlements. The volcano mantains activity with 3 to 6 explosions by day. Lightning on Colima Volcano explosions became common on last months. This particular lightning is more than 600 meters long, so the big light made clear some details of the south portion of volcano. It’s an 8 seconds shot, time enough to catch the explosion and the lightning. Photo: Sergio Velasco
Vetluga’s Hockey. Evgeny Solovyov, head coach of HC Vetluga preparing the stadium for the match. Players of an amateur hockey team in provincial Russia before, during and after a game in the regional championship in Vetluga, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia. Photo: Vladimir Pesnya
A city in northern China shrouded in haze, Tianjin, China. Photo: Zhang Lei
Raheleh, who was born blind, stands behind the window in the morning. She likes the warmness of the sunlight on her face. Photo: Zohreh Saberi

All photographs are copyright. Used with the permission of World Press Photo.

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UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards Finalist

Posted on January 11, 2016 | 5 comments

UKPEG VIDEOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR

Thrilled to share some great news! Honoured to have been selected as a finalist in the UK Picture Editors’ Guild Awards for my short film, Taxi Driver. The highly-acclaimed UK Picture Editors Guild Awards competition is distinctive in that panel of judges consists only of working picture editors from national and regional newspapers, and international photo agencies, assessing the thousands of entries from professional photographers from throughout the media.

I’d like to congratulate all my fellow finalists and look forward to seeing you all on the award’s ceremony.

The short film is a look at a day in the life of a London black cab driver. It was shot on a pair of Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II cameras and a selection of M.Zuiko lenses. Full details here.

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Merry Christmas & Happy 2016

Posted on December 25, 2015 | Leave a comment

Season’s Greetings and Good Will To All

I’d like to wish a merry Christmas to all who visit this blog; may you have a peaceful day and enjoy this season. I’d also like to wish that 2016 brings us all peace, putting an end to the horrors of war, specially in Syria and hope that the refugee crisis comes to an end.

Dramatic Sunset

A dramatic sunset over west London. 2015. Photo: Edmond Terakopian

2015

For me personally, 2015 was kind, allowing me to realise my Opera By The River project. An intensive personal project, photographing the arts. An opportunity to spend seven months photographing the talented singers and instrumentalists at the Royal College of Music as the prepared for an opera by one of the college’s former students, composer Benjamin Britten. A real joy to spend time with the pupils and staff, feeding off the creative buzz as Albert Herring took shape, from auditions straight through to the last performance.

It’s one thing to find a camera manufacturer who produces the equipment one uses to craft photographs (I use Olympus OM-D cameras for the vast majority of my photography as it’s designed in exactly the way I’d like it to be and produces the results I need). However, it’s quite another thing to find a camera manufacturer who cares what you craft and create. Olympus made my project come to life, culminating in a solo outdoor exhibition on the South Bank, allowing around 350,000 people to see the work. My gratitude goes to the team at Olympus UK for all their help and support.

Opera By The RIver Opening Party 0007

The opening and private view of “Opera By The River”. A poster shows the way for the evening’s party at The Deck, National Theatre, London. September 30, 2015. Photo: Neil Buchan-Grant / http://www.buchangrant.com

2015 also brought some competition niceties from the AOP Photographers Awards selecting two of my images for their finals and exhibition, the International Color Awards nominating one of my images and the I Shot It competition choosing one of my monochrome images as a finalist. Another image made the exhibition by the Portrait Salon.

I hope most have had a good year and that 2016 is kind to you and allows you to be kind to others.

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Who Owns A Photo?

Posted on November 3, 2015 | 6 comments

The Copyright Of A Photograph

Copyright Symbol Textured

The folks at Clifton Cameras have put together a very neat graphic explaining much about ownership of the image.

The only thing I would add is that adding a watermark (use Marksta on an iPhone or software such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop on your Mac or PC) is essential when you post images online on services like FaceBook and Instagram which as their T&Cs state, have full rights to use the posted images as they see fit. You need to protect not only your copyright but also the subjects in your images from having their likeness used to promote services they wouldn’t be happy with. Watermarking also protects you against companies which may steal your image for commercial gain, try and Photoshop out your watermark and then plead ignorance. Image forensics can easily show tampering and with this you prove intent, followed by a nice payout.

When hosting your own website of photography, it’s wise not to post images full size; these are easily stolen and can be used in a variety of ways as the size allows printing and so on. Using the services of Pixelrights as your host means that you benefit from all the various anti-theft features they have as well as future plans for their new partnership with ImageRights. Highly recommended.

Shaun Curry, Co-founder & CEO of Pixelrights adds; “ImageRights International is honored to announce a new and exciting partnership with Pixelrights. This groundbreaking partnership will provide post infringement, image tracking & USCO registration included in the price of your Pixelrights subscription.
Pixelrights are the only portfolio service focused on championing copyright awareness by use of their patent pending ‘Smart Frame’ image technology
This new image format provides their members with substantial customisable technical protection, blocking illicit web-bots, stopping unwanted hot linking, disabling right click , blocking some screen grab attempts, save-as, and eliminating the image from the source file and web page.
With ImageRights technology included if anyone removes any technical protection measures from your Pixelrights site and publishes it on the web, ImageRights will track your image down, and provide a global network of IP
lawyers to take action on your behalf. Never before has a portfolio website been so safe yet so easy to use!”.

Remember, copyright is your right. You are the author and the image is yours. When getting commissioned to take pictures, you aren’t being paid for the copyright, but are being commissioned to make the photograph and granting the client a right to use the image; you’re licensing them image usage. Without your copyright you can’t even legally post your picture on your website, enter it in a competition or have a print in your portfolio. You will lose all sales and recognition as the image becomes of historical value in the future. Don’t be bullied; don’t let multi-million pound companies take advantage of your work and force you into signing away your rights.

Click to enlarge the graphic:

Who Owns A Photo

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8th Annual International Color Awards

Posted on October 30, 2015 | Leave a comment

Nominee In The People Category

Somehow managed to miss this completely! One of my images, titled Street Style, reached the position of nominee in the people category of the International Color Awards announced in April 2015.

Banksy style graffiti (not an original Banksy) in Broadwick Street, Soho, London. July 22, 2014. Photo: Edmond Terakopian

Banksy style graffiti (not an original Banksy) in Broadwick Street, Soho, London. July 22, 2014. Photo: Edmond Terakopian

The image was shot on a Leica M9 and processed in Adobe Lightroom. The image was then finished in Alienskin Exposure 6.

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