At my son’s primary school the upset started in the final assembly for the pupils off to secondary school next year. By the last goodbye in the playground teachers, pupils and parents had all been crying — the girls comforted each other whilst the boys buried their faces in the security of mum. Shirts were signed and the headteacher was in evidence — extraordinary that the children identified so strongly with the school and its staff. I of course was tucked behind my IDs and safely removed from the emotional scenes around me — I think my boy, also leaving, understood.
Boris Heger has been out with the FARC in the Columbian jungle – we think the first photographer for some years.
Getty Images’ takeover of Rex Features has collapsed after the Office of Fair Trading referred the takeover to the Competition Commission. After a two-month investigation OFT argued that there was a “realistic prospect of a substantial lessening of competition” — a rather obvious observation to some (and one that Getty has decided not to contest) for which the office should nevertheless be congratulated even if they are not entirely cognizant of the business model that is now operating. OFT remain wedded to classical notions of the perfect functioning of “the free market”: Getty is seen as potentially controlling supply and therefore if the takeover was allowed of these “close competitors” “the loss of Rex… could enable Getty to increase prices for customers” like some 19th century rail cartel. However, it appears Getty’s strategy of monopolistic consolidation by acquisition has long since been drawn into a downward price spiral by those companies aggregating content unencumbered by the costs of acquisition. The dominant model is to exclude competition (and circumnavigate any demand for a sustainable price by photographers) by exponentially expanding inventories of what are increasingly amateur hobbyists’ pictures and selling them at predatory prices, which accounts for much of Rex’s difficulties according to their Report to the Directors. Crucial to this model is that prices can never be raised in the future without re-inviting competition, however destructive to suppliers and customer choice (and their profitability) this proves to be.
Whist BP are trying to embed journalists, a new US law threatens $40,000 fine for journalists going with in 65ft of an oil boom on the water and their news organization can be fined $250,000 – this is being actively enforced (as my colleague Jez Coulson discovered). Having orchestrated a series of PR events last month it would appear the US government & BP want to stop any independent assessment not only of the environmental damage to the seas, shores and wildlife (which now seem to be BP’s property) but also to stop the media speaking to the clean-up workers who might reveal something about the dangerous conditions under which they work and the real scale of the environmental devastation. An unknown number of these workers—hundreds maybe thousands—have become sick from exposure to oil and undisclosed toxic dispersants and may well face a lifetime of chronic illnesses. CNN reported last week that journalists have been repeatedly barred from a government mobile hospital in Venice, Louisiana that is treating clean-up workers.
The ethics committee of the London Photographers Branch met last week to consider extending the NUJ’s code of ethics to cover the work of our visual producers. Not wanting to get into a philosophical debate as to the nature of “truth” my concern was for the factual nature of images produced by mechanical means and that in a world of “photoshopped fictions” our code should prescribe against the deletion or substitution of elements in a picture. As professionals we should distinguish ourselves by our commitment to maintaining the veracity of data in our depictions of the world. These issues were illustrated recently by the front cover of The Economist June 19 and suggests that photographers/suppliers should ensure terms that require publishers to seek permission to manipulate images.
