Do I look like a terrorist?

On more than one occasion, while out and about taking photographs, (mainly in London) I’ve been stopped for having a camera round my neck and looking like I might be about to take a picture.

Yup, that’s all it seems to take now-a-days to raise the suspicions of some underpaid private security guard. Just be out and about minding your own photographic business, perhaps dangerously close to the threshold of some crappy shopping centre and as quick as it takes for a CCTV camera to rotate.. There they are, trying to enforce some imaginary law.

Normally I flash my press pass and tell them I know my rights. Sometimes I am feeling a little more confrontational and ask exactly what law it is they think they are enforcing? On one occasion a confused security guard told me it was one of the prevention of terrorism laws. The conversation then swung round to me asking.. “Do I look like a terrorist??

(Don’t answer that.)

I am not sure when all this started.. Perhaps it was just after 9/11 when everyones hightened level of paranoia needed to be justified by inventing some extra imaginary threats.

Most of the time, the least that happens is I’m looked at in a “I am watching you” kind of way. This is with a Mediterranean complexion, who knows what would happen if i wanted to go out with a camera and I was slightly darker skinned!

You may well have seen them yourselves, but once in a while I pass by a shop window and catch sight of those scarily Orwellian anti-terrorism posters asking YOU to be vigilant and to keep an eye out for people who use more than one mobile phone, or people who travel alot.. or who take photographs in a public place.

This kind of fear-mongering really pisses me off and in the past I have gone into the shop and asked if I could have the poster. Part of me could not believe the ridiculousness of it all and seemed to be wanting to gather these posters as evidence of crimes against common sense.  Are the general public really so small minded as to report one another for doing normal everyday things?

Probably.

Anyway it seems like I needn’t have bothered collecting these posters as most seem to be available 

online to download.

I was slightly comforted today to read this article in the Guardian Newspaper. Bruce Schneier states that the Police’s ‘War On Photography’ is daft as.. in his words.. “..real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don’t seem to photograph anything.”

With that reassurance in mind, read the article to learn that perhaps ‘movie plot‘ threats are being concocted to have some kind of psychological grip on our already fear laden minds. We really must make a point of fighting for our photographic rights..

If you are out and about with your camera, be it video or stills, stick a printout of your rights in your bag and make a stand, just in case.

UK Photographic Rights

US Photographers Rights

Aus Photographers Rights

This topic and others relating to our rights and what denotes a public space in todays day and age will be discussed at the social media picnic on the 25th of June.

Photoshoot with the band ~ Talc

I have just finished uploading a few of the photos of the band Talc to my Flickr stream.

For most of Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of hanging out with the two awesome funksters Dr. Fun and The Gift.

They had imaginatively arranged for us to visit their local beer making establishment so as we could take some photos for their up and coming concept album and at the same time not be too far away from tens of thousands of pints of beer. (Probably more).

I have photographed these guys before and every time we meet we have a great laugh, always managing to bag a few decent shots in the limited time we have.

The Fullers Brewery (London’s last remaining traditional family brewer) was an amazing place of historical pipes and brass, leading us into a sci-fi setting of ceramic and chrome. They are obviously proud of their history and bent over backwards to see we had the freedom to take our photos unhindered. We worked our way through the factory, stopping to snap when we thought the setting inspired.

Our shoot wound up underground in a little private bar where, given a sleeping bag and a few pies, I could quite easily have spent a good few weeks sheltering from the outside world and saturating my body and mind with the various ales made on site and piped into this curious bar with no till and no way to take your money.

Paradise?

Even when my camera was back in the bag and we headed to the local (attached) pub for a debrief, our friendly guide saw that the round was free and we were to order what we wanted.

It’s just a shame i was riding the bike and had to maintain some form of sobriety as otherwise I would have had to stay and help the guys with their debrief lubrication.

Besides.. I had had more than enough motoring action earlier in the day to risk any more altercations with angsty London road users.

Thanks Talc for a great days photography and thanks to Fullers for not only letting us take photos but for going all out to make us feel as welcome as we possibly could.

Talc’s new album ‘Licensed Premises Lifestyle’ is due for release in July and will be touring Japan in September.

..for more information on the band check out www.TalcOnline.com (soon to be updated).

And here is the band talking and moving..

Iraqi Refugees: Life in the Shadows

The fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War is upon us, and there is speculation that the engagement may continue yet another five years, if not more. To date, approximately 4,000 American soldiers have been killed in combat.

While the loss of combat troops is certainly tragic, even more stunning is a recent World Health Organization report based on Iraqi Health Ministry figures which estimates that 151,000 Iraqi civilians were killed between March 2003, the start of the invasion, and June 2006.

Many of the reports of civilian deaths are disputed. What cannot be argued, however, is another grave consequence of the Iraq War: the displacement crisis as a mass exodus of Iraqis flee the instabilities and ever-increasing sectarian violence at home, tearing their families apart.

In mid-January 2008, with the support of the United Nations High Commission For Refugees (UNHCR), I traveled to Amman, Jordan to photograph and record a few of these families trapped in a no-man’s land; asylum seekers looking for refuge, too afraid to return to their blood-soaked country.

Here are a few of their stories:

The film can also be viewed as a .wmv file here.. http://www.unhcr.org/video/iraqi-refugees-in-jordan.wmv
…and downloaded as a real media file here.. http://www.unhcr.org/video/iraqi-refugees-in-jordan.rm
For more information please check out.. The UNHCR Multimedia pages

To download this film to your ipod or mobile device please subscribe to the podcast at www.Documentally.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

[This film is dedicated to the memory of my Mother Liala Payne.  Two weeks before I left for Jordan I explained my plans. She was proud and answered as she always did when i told her about a trip abroad.. Simply "Take care".  Without her giving me the freedom she did as I was growing up I would not be the person I am now. I am sorry she did not get to see these stories. She died suddenly as I was due to leave. I flew out a week after we laid her to rest.]

Project Update.

My flight is booked and in a few days I fly to Jordan. Although I am still to get my hands on a D3 I am satisfied that I have the use of the new D300 for at least a month. Thank you to those that humoured me in my testing of the website chipin.com. £40 was donated, before i pulled the widget. I really appreciate the gestures and that money is safely put away and will be put toward other savings when they accumulate.

The unexpected death of my Mother over the holidays has not only allowed me to re-evaluate my goals in life but also meant the luxury of a new work tool will have to wait as my savings have been put towards her burial and send off.

My next assignment will be dedicated to my Mother Liala.

On the podcasting front I still have a backlog to get through but as you can imagine these have been unusually difficult times. I promise to do more podcasts in the future. So please sit tight and stay subscribed. I was going to pop all this in a podcast but thought those that subscribe may well read this blog too.

I am not one to look forward to much as i feel living in the moment is the best bet. Still. I am open to all kind of possibilities this new year and feel strangely optimistic for the future.

Cheers guys.

christian.

The Democratic Image - Photography and Globalisation

I was very pleased to receive an email today telling me of a published report being released on a symposium I attended earlier this year.

The report from The Democratic Image - Photography and Globalisation held in Manchester last April covered this groundbreaking event that sought to investigate how digital technology was aiding representation in a connected world.

My initial invite came out of the blue after a listener to my podcast recommended me to one of the ‘Look 07‘ organisers. Before I knew it I was giving a talk on Photography and New Media to some seriously influential movers in the world of photography and journalism. Pedro Meyer of Zone Zero and Geert Van Kesteren the Magnum Photographer behind Why Mister Why were amongst the many that left a lasting impression on me. (In the photo above.)

I didn’t blog my experiences at the time as the moment it ended I was continuing further north to commence an expedition by canoe down the river Spey in Scotland. Once at the end of that successful trip I was back in the thick of work and assignments.

Now it seems I can summerise by means of clipping my mention and linking the whole report below. Please take the time to read what Redeye do as Britain’s largest photographers network.

NOTES ON THE BLOG In collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery and hosted at openDemocracy.net (http://thedemocraticimage.opendemocracy.net), The Democratic Image blog launched on 11 April and posed the following question: Time magazine has voted you `The Person of the Year’ for `seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game’. As a `pro’, what is your take on the democratisation of art and media in the digital age? First to respond was Christian Payne, the blogger and podcaster behind OurManInside.com, who thanked Time `for the recognition’ and the `corporate media [...] for making me switch off, for making me sick at heart, for making me angry’. Thanks to them, he turned to his computer `to get a bearing on some kind of meaningful truth’. For Payne, the Internet revolution counters the mediation of Big Media, allowing `diversity’ and `a deeper, wider, discourse’ that has enabled him, in his words, to `make up my own mind’. Switched on again, Payne became a blogger, primarily of images. More than that, the medium inspired him to self-finance a journey to Northern Iraq in 2006, video-podcasting a photo-documentary about the Kurdish Peshmerger warriors under the title of `Those Who Face Death’.Payne is very clear of the political importance for image makers like him of increasingly accessible new media, which in his view `are reviving our dwindling hopes for genuine freedoms’. But he is equally clear that the only alternative to corporate mediation for the new `pros’ striving for these freedoms is an alliance with other bloggers, podcasters, and other internet users, in which new work can be mutually financed and supportively criticised online. This raises the issues of the blurring between image makers and audiences, and of how cooperative might the Internet be. What structures might enable real collaboration beyond the much celebrated interactivity touted by the corporations behind the Internet? And to what extent are corporate interests foreclosing the emergence and maintenance of truly democratic internet use that might conflict with their values?

If you would like to read the whole report.. Please click here.

Everyday I am amazed.

Everyday I see some new application, web based or downloadable that I didn’t see the day before. I now am fully aware that for me to keep up with all these new cerebral arrivals I would need an army of clones and as many mac book pros.

Today in @sizemore’s twitter post (tweet to those in the know) I saw a mini video he had made with a web app entitled Animoto.

Literally 2 minutes later I has sucked 15 music photos out of my flikr account and mixed them with some supplied music to produce this..

It wasn’t even a a drag and drop affair, just a few clicks.. Where was all the messy editing.. where was the faffing about with cuts, timelines, titles and syncing?

The future is scary… Scary but very convenient.

p.s. The hairy guy with the camera at the start is not me.. It’s ‘Badly Drawn Boy’ I am sat with Noel Gallagher on the last slide.

Strictly No Photography

In a time of everybody photographing everything, little seems new and fresh, from celebs, to tourist attractions, where are the original scenes, the original moments..? Perhaps nothing is left. Where is our desire to discover and document unknown territories, to see everything?

Today I stumbled apon a website today called ‘Strictly No Photography‘. It is dedicated to showcasing photographs taken in places where you should not really be taking pictures.

There have been loads of times where I have been tempted and not bothered and a few times where I have been warned not to and done it anyway. There is something about doing the opposite of what you are told. Especially when it comes to taking photos in places you shouldn’t, you feel you have then captured something others have not.

Then there are the restrictions placed upon us by people protecting their corporate interests. I imagine most have seen the signs at art galleries. I could not help myself when visiting an exhibition of Nirvana photos in a london gallery. I was still gutted at selling the ticket to the last scheduled concert Kurt Cobain was to play at and always regret not getting to see them. So when I saw a corridor of photos with his face refracted in them I just had to take it.

The CCTV camera just visible in the frame but unseen to me alerted an attendant to my snapping and a moment after I pressed the shutter, the door in the picture flung open and I was dressed down by an irate security guard obviously bothered by having to sit in a cupboard looking at screens all day. Why assume I am going to rush home and made a calendar of someone else’s art? I would argue the gallery is a public place and normally take pictures with that thought in mind.

Still, since then, whether it be art or science exhibitions, government buildings or places of religious interest I always look around for cctv cameras before I snap.

With phones as well as cameras now being banned from more and more places it is certainly a challenge and I would much rather see a respectfully grabbed shot taken in a place you would not normally get a glimpse into that any ‘papped’ shot of a minor celeb drunk in a bar or flashing themselves getting out of a car.

(To see more pix of places you wouldn’t normally, I highly recommend the exhibition I recently saw at the Photographers Gallery in London… ‘An American Index of Hidden and unfamiliar.’ By Taryn Simon Interestingly there were very few places she didn’t get permission to photograph, Disney had an issue with some behind the scenes location and also the US government disallowed access to the warehouse where the furniture is stored for ex tenants of The White House.)

Front Page - The Story Behind This Photo

I was still the new boy at my local regional paper in Northamptonshire. I had been head hunted after three months at a weekly paper after one of the photographers saw me jumping across the roofs of canal boats trying to get a clear shot of actor David Suchet.

As I was the only person at the paper aware I had absolutely no qualifications in photography at all, I was still trying to prove my worth.

Always short staffed and short on equipment, the paper had sent all the available photographers down to Northampton’s famous old market square to cover a walkabout by the then Ex-Priminister Margaret Thatcher.

With an old battered Canon digital and two lenses, I knew my options for a decent view were limited and set about looking for a spot to shoot from. Walking around the market I spoke to a few of the stall holders and found out that a couple had been visited that morning by sniffer dogs. I figured it was a safe bet they were scouting out her route and told another photographer I was going to get a better view from a window over looking the square.

He seemed pleased at this idea as everyone of us was out to get their picture in the paper and he seemed to think that with me stuck up and out of the way, it would leave him with the best shots.

It was all about who’s picture got in and with a brief as wide as ‘Show the chaos’, it was anybody’s day.

Of all the windows on the square, I chose the second floor of a pub, ‘The Moon On the Square’ or something. Well I figured it could be a long wait so why not grab a beer in the meantime.

I had a comfy chair and a half opened window. I had chosen the only lens I could use at that distance which was a 70-200mm f2.8.

So, there I was, beer in one hand and camera in the other with a view over the whole square. I won’t go into all the parallels I was thinking about, that revolved around a similar window with a view in a certain book depository. But yes.. I did feel a little like I imagine a sniper would.. Waiting for his ‘mark’.

Just as i was thinking if the police had actually thought about checking upper windows a black Jag pulled up on the edge of the square and out of nowhere press, TV, close protection units and members of the public swamped it.

As if the crowd were one swirling beast it slowly swayed and morphed it’s way across the square on more of a float-about than a walkabout.

My camera was to my eye and still i could see no old lady with big hair. Just suits and cameras, ear pieces and furry microphones.

Then, as they had moved across and in front of me I saw her. Just a flash of face in the tiniest of breaks in the crowd.

And I shot.

Just the one shot, but I felt that excited rush when you know you have caught something close to what you were after.

Looking at the back of the camera I had what looked like a little face in a crowd. Not really the award winning photo I had in my minds eye, but with a shrug and a gulping down of the last of my beer I decided it would have to do and headed out into the street.

Down the stairs, out of the front door and straight into the mass of people rolling as one across the square. The people were packed so tight I could not even raise my camera.

I decided to duck out, squeezing myself through the throng and behind the counter of a vegetable stall. The people who owned it were the same that I had spoke to earlier.

Just then a really strange thing happened. Appearing right in front of me, like a little old lady after pound of mixed veg, was a smiling Margaret Thatcher holding her handbag and a bunch of flowers. She looked as if she were about to ask me a question. Then she clocked my camera and held out her hand. I took it, and as I shook I looked into her eyes. She had a grip built up by years of greetings and a million hello’s.. and a look in her eyes that… Well I won’t go into it here suffice to say it’s a look i have seen in the eyes of other former world leaders..

Leaving me momentarily stunned she moved on to have a staged chat with the real owners of a store and I took a couple of photos that looked as if she were hassling some shopper oblivious to her presence and just trying to grab a bargain amidst the chaos.

Then magically she was gone as quick as she had arrived leaving everyone to carry on as normal. I headed back to the paper to put my pix in as no doubt the afternoon was calling with it’s cheque presentations and other undisguised anticlimaxes.

The next day I arrived at work to see the photo department standing round the paper. Looking over shoulders to see the cover I saw my photograph unashamedly pasted across the front page. I couldn’t help to smile the kind of smile you know would upset others. But i did.. and it did, just as the editor walked by and slapped my shoulder. “Good work” he said. That was a lot from him, and the others new it.

I felt i had arrived.

Why the best types of cameras are camera phones.

I have really missed having a camera phone. Although I am only into day two of playing with my new toy, having been without one for a year, I forgot how bloody handy it is to have a camera in your pocket at all times.

I imagine you could be thinking.. “Wait a minute, this guy works as a photographer.. Surely he has a camera at the ready at all times anyway.. and a good one at that?” Well, just as a bricky doesn’t take his trowel everywhere or the artist his brushes, I too neglect to carry around my very heavy pro kit, or even sometime my pocketable compact camera. I always seem to have my phone with me though.

This I think is a really important point and on that basis alone, I feel I could comfortable argue that the camera phone is the best type of camera you can own.

How could this be? Well the best camera is the one that gets the shot. We have seen phone pix from air crash victims, protesters using mobiles to keep the police accountable for their actions, Burmese sending at one point the only news from their oppressed country and let us not forget the most famous pix from the heart of the 7/7 bombings.

It’s all about being there.. with a camera. It doesn’t really matter what kind of camera as long as you can push a button and some kind of legible image is captured.

Initially the first time I thought you could actually take a decent picture was with the 2MP Sony k750i and now I have the K850i I am really beginning to think we are getting there. We still need the leica lens’s of this world and a decent sensitive CCD before the traditional camera can feel threatened regarding quality, but as it stands, we have some pretty decent tools at our disposal.

So there you are in the center of the action camera phone in hand. Do you trust yourself? Can you capture the moment under pressure?.. Or more likely.. after a few beers when tying shoe laces is hard enough?
Follow these few tips and you will stand a much better chance:

Get the most from your camera phone.

Keep things bright - Just as photography means painting with light, the better lit your subjects, the clearer and more defined your images are likely to be. Outdoors in the day will be much better than indoors at night, (obviously) even with a decent flash. Turning lights on indoors will help a little but you will get a bit of a colour cast depending on the kind of lights.

Use the best resolution available - Why anyone would want to take low resolution picture on an already limited format is beyond me. Memory is getting really cheep right now so stick the biggest card your camera will take and keep the quality setting on maximum to get the best resolution/image size. NB: Most cameras will automatically resize for texting so don’t worry about texting large files..

Don’t use affects - There is nothing you can do in the camera that you could not do later on the computer. If you want a picture to be in Black and white.. Wait and do it later so at least you have a backup copy of the original colour pic. Again, its easy to convert from colour to black and white but you try to do it the other way round.

Fill the frame - Don’t be afraid of getting in really close. If you haven’t got a lot of resolution to play with you don’t want a little spec of a person standing in the distance. Fill the view finder (unless you have a distorting fisheye lens), get in as close as your focus will allow and you will get much better detail in your photos.

Avoid using digital Zoom - If you have a zoom feature on your camera phone it will most likely be a digital zoom. all this does is cut into the amount of pixels you have to take the picture with , rapidly reducing the quality of your final image. Use your legs where possible and just move in close. Where not possible, later on the computer, crop in a little.

Keep it Steady - The steadier you hold the camera phone the sharper you final image will be. This is even more important indoors in low light as the camera uses lower shutter speeds increasing the chance of blur. Try to steady yourself and the phone against something solid like the edge of a door or suchlike.

Be snap happy - You don’t have to worry about the cost of film so let rip. Take as many pix as your memory card will allow and you will be more likely to capture that ‘perfect moment.’ Play around, experiment. Some camera phones have a ‘best shot’ setting, taking a number of pix when you press the button and allowing you a choice from similar moments.

Break the rules! - Once you find that the basic composition ‘rules’ (like the rule of thirds) gets you pretty pictures.. Break them! Some of my favorite shots happened when I was ’shooting from the hip’ or through an object or from a strange angle. Try to get different perspectives from the norm to create an interesting picture.

..and finally, Be prepared - Having your camera phone with you is one thing, remembering how it can be used is another. Practice using every aspect of it from the macro (close-up) feature to switching the flash off and on manually. Once is all because second nature you are ready to grab that one shot you may be able to retire on.
Or at the very least, you will have a nice photograph of something.

*(the snaps in this post were all taken in a couple of hours between a dog walk and a trip to the shops.)

The First Farleigh Video

In my guise as a music photographer I occasionally get called apon take photos of bands for promotional purposes. I may snap them reportage style in the recording studio, on a location shoot, or occasionally, if needed, live.

I caught up with the band Farleigh At one gig of their local gigs in Leamington. There was hardly any light and all I had with me was my cheapy mpeg video camera (A Sanyo Xacti H2). Never-the-less in what turned out to be an awesome gig I felt inspired to grab a few minutes of low resolution footage for posterity.

The band have some really good tunes and not wanting the footage to go to waste, I dropped it in, along with a few photos I had from before, to Glen of CV21.co.uk

All I said was.. “Make it look better that a bunch of raw low res clips and he said.. “I’ll see what I can do.”

We stole the track ‘Open Road’ for a bit of backing (Sorry Guys.. ) off their myspace page and before you know it.. A video was born.

Please click below to enjoy..

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