Political Issues | >Re-PHOTO

Al-Quds Day March

I’ve photographed the annual Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day march for several years, certainly since 2006, and although the march itself has remained basically the same, it has become much more controversial, with various groups now demonstrating against it. Al-Quds Day was started by Ayatollah Khomeini soon after he seized power in Iran in 1989, and is organised by the ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission‘, seen by many as financed by and representing the views of the Iranian theocracy.

Of course other groups and individuals are involved in the march, not just the IHRC – and although that apparently receives funding from the Iranian government it does at times seem to produce valuable reports. Its an event that supports the Palestinian cause and I think it would be better if a wider range of organisations adopted it and joined in – as do for example the Neturei Karta ultra-orthodox Jews.

Sometimes its hard not to see stereotypes – and rather fun to do so.

But I do try to take something a little different, and was pleased with a few of the images that I made. You can see more of them on My London Diary.

But for most of the photographers present, the main story was not the march itself, but the opposition to it by the English Defence League. Here again I tried to tell a slightly different story, though it wasn’t easy as you can see in my next post.

EDL and Iranian Greens Protest Al Quds March

The English Defence League (EDL) complain that they get unfair treatment from the media who often depict them as a racist and fascist mob. I’ve tried to report them accurately and present a slightly more nuanced view, but at times they don’t make it easy.

Although some of the leaders of the EDL try to avoid racism and extremism, clearly they are unable to control the more extreme of their supporters, some of whom have been or are members of racist and fascist organisations and others clearly hooligans.

The EDL is one of a number of allied movements that bring together disaffected elements from a largely white working class who feel alienated from the political parties and government and neglected by them (don’t we all.) Where in the 1930s this might have taken them to the left (though Mosley too had his supporters) the left now seems to have lost the ability to make links with ordinary working people.

During the Al Quds Day march, many of the EDL supporters were chanting obscenely Islamophobic slogans and singing Islamophobic songs which make a nonsense of their claims not to be against Muslims in general but only against extremism.

A couple of days before the march a ridiculous ‘fatwa‘ had appeared on one of their web sites attacking the press and promising violence against them. And during the event in Grosvenor Square a number of them came and made threats against some of the press who were photographing them from the other side of a police line. Neither or which is likely to endear them to reporters and photographers.

During the march in Park Lane, a full but open beer can was thrown by one of the EDL demonstrators, landing on the roadway a few feet in front of me and bouncing on to miss me by inches, going between me and another photographer a couple of feet away and then hitting a woman on the march, though fortunately by this time it had lost most of its force after a couple of bounces, and she was not hurt. It seemed most likely it was aimed at the press (and me in particular) and could well have caused serious injury.

Earlier I had photographed a small group of EDL supporters being held by police behind a bus shelter and being prevented from demonstrating against the Al Quds Day march. I did feel it was an unnecessary restriction on the right to demonstrate, though the police did I think allow them later to make their way down to an area the police had designated for the counter-demonstrators.

The march turned round just before the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, and the police had made a pen for them at this point. Part of this was occupied by around 20 members of the democratic opposition in Iran, the Iranian Green Movement, whose poster ‘Down with Dictator‘ linked Ahmadinejad, Galloway and Saddam.

Next to them was a larger group of perhaps 80 people behind a number of EDL-related flags and banners. As well as various versions of the St George English flag, there were also Union Jacks, an Ulster Flag and an Orange Order Flag along with an Israeli and Portuguese flags. The only banners I could read read ‘Jerusalem will never be Pisslamic‘ and ‘Al Quds = Nazi Terrorists – Get Out of UK‘

I tried to walk across and photograph the counter demonstrators but was prevented from doing so, first by an EDL steward, and then by police. So all my pictures at this point were taken from the other side of the wide road – with focal lengths up to 300 mm. The EDL had made it clear to the police that they didn’t want the press near them and had threatened that they might be attacked if they came closer. I feel the police should have told them that the press had a right to report and that the police would make sure they were able to do so rather than go along with the threat of violence.

Later in Grosvenor Square we did get near the EDL demonstrators – separated only by a single line of police – and there were a number of threats made towards particular photographers by EDL supporters – as well as a few more friendly approaches. And, after a while some of the EDL did perform for the cameras – and said “There, you’ve got your pictures.” Yes, we had – but don’t blame us for the behaviour of the EDL.

As I wrote in my report of the event (which you can read on My London Diary, along with more pictures):

It is really very simple: if any group wants to get fair treatment by the press, all they need to do is to behave in a reasonable manner. Photographers in particular don’t make things up, but photograph what is there.

Flying Visit

Years ago when I was photographing London’s Docklands I needed to get a picture with a plane taking off from London City Airport. The first time I wasn’t quite happy with what I’d got and I had to wait almost an hour for the next aircraft to appear.

London City got planning permission because they promised to have only a very limited number of flights and to use small quiet turbo-props that would take off at a steep angle and thus cause very little noise. How things have changed. Over 90% of the flights now are by noisy jets leaving the airport at lower altitudes and they already have plans to expand to 176,000 flights a year – almost 500 a day. Had levels of this kind (or the current level) been stated at the initial planning inquiry their would have been little chance of the airport being built in what is one of the most densely populated areas of the country.

It’s become a favourite place for the wealthy owners of private jets, as well as running scheduled services but is now aiming at a much larger market. It started very much as a premium service for rich businessmen who could avoid the lengthy delays at normal airports; your taxi from your city office could drop you at the airport door ten minutes before take-off and you could rush through the lounge passport in one hand, briefcase in the other and still catch your plane. Now you can get there on the DLR and need to allow a little more time as increased security and larger passenger numbers slow things down a little. But check in times still seem to be in minutes rather than the hours at Heathrow and Gatwick, so it’s perhaps not surprising it is getting popular.

Which is bad news for local residents – and the reason for their protest group ‘Fight the Flights‘ which is mounting a legal challenge against Newham Council’s approval of a rise in flights from 91,000 to 120,000 annually in the High Court this November.

The airport was set up for short haul flights, mainly to continental cities, but now serves a wider range of destinations including New York (check in time for BA customers with hand luggage is 15 minutes!) But the most contentious of these are domestic flights such as the services to Manchester from here and the other London airports – currently 38 flights a day.

From central London to central Manchester by train takes around 2 hours 7 minutes – and there is a train every 20 minutes during much of the day. The flight from either Gatwick or Heathrow – including checking – takes from 10 to 20 minutes longer, and the journey times from the airport at both ends are likely to add considerably more. Even with flights to Glasgow, the train journey of 4 h9m compares pretty well with the flight time from London City – including minimum check-in and exit times – of 2 h35m when you include the travel times to and from the airport.

But Saturday’s demonstration was not about convenience but about climate change. A typical rail journey from London to Manchester results in 15.9kg carbon dioxide per person, while the flight produces 52.8 kg – more than three times as much. Add in the amounts for the journeys to and from the airport and the difference is even greater.

We don’t need short domestic flights, the noise and hydrocarbon and other pollution they cause around the airports (air pollution around where I live near Heathrow is often above the accepted limits for various pollutants) both blights and shortens our lives. But man-made climate change has far more serious effects on the poor around the world through the destabilisation of climate that is already becoming evident through the increasing incidence of droughts, floods and hurricanes and rising sea levels. It is also the poor who are most threatened by the aviation industry’s attempts to move to using agrofuels. Almost all biofuel production is at the expense of the environment, clearing forests to grow fuel crops such as palm oil, or diverting land that was previously in use for food production, accelerating the rises in food prices, so that the poor starve.

The Campaign Against Climate Change demonstration wasn’t a large event, but the issues it raises are vital ones. Aviation is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gases and it’s thus important that the richer countries such as ours tackle it and find ways to slow and eventually reverse its expansion.

© 2010, Peter Marshall
John Stewart of HACAN and Anne-Marie Griffin, chair of Fight the Flights
with campaign plane and banners

Photographically I couldn’t find a great deal to do, though the protesters did have an inflatable jet with some suitable slogans, and there was someone dressed as an air hostess with a label on her back ‘UneasyJet’. And of course the people involved.

Later my favourite mermaid appeared too. But I wanted to photograph her along with Phil Thornhill of Campaign Against Climate Change standing at the front of the top deck of the open top bus as it made its way towards Trafalgar Square. Easy enough to organise if I had time and money, but not when you get the idea and want to do it straight away.

One thing I often mean to bring with me but usually forget (it doesn’t quite fit in my camera bag) is a monopod. Given that and a remote release (which I don’t own) it would have been fairly easy. But I had to do with leaning backwards over the front rail of the bus, holding the D700. I took a few holding the camera at arms length, though it was hard to get the right angle. All the time I had to work with one arm, holding on tight with the other as the bus was bumping along the road.

You can see more pictures – and more about the demonstration – on My London Diary.

Flag Burning, Photography & Politics

One of the things that stuck in my mind from Antonio Olmos’s talk at Photoforum last Thursday was the advice given to him that he passed on to us, that “if you find yourself surrounded by photographers, you are almost certainly in the wrong place.”

But at times at events such as Saturday’s demonstration and counter-demonstration outside the US Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square there was rather a crush and it couldn’t be avoided. However at one point I found myself facing a very large group of photographers and was pretty sure that I was in a better place than they were.

I’d been in the small crowd of Muslims Against Crusades taking pictures as they milled around on the pavement when I realised that their main man, Anjem Choudary, was beginning his speech and was able to get behind the front row of his listeners just a few feet from him to take pictures. I’d followed one man with a largish TV camera, and shortly afterwards there was another similar camera on my left shoulder. As often happens I had to move forward slightly to get their lenses out of my field of view, getting right up to one of the other MAC speakers.

Apart from wanting to photograph Choudary speaking, I knew that he was going to be around when they burnt the US Flag, so was a guy to stay close to. It would be good to get him in the frame as well as the burning flag, and if I could also have something recognisably the embassy in some of the pictures it would be a bonus. The most obvious thing was of course the eagle and flag – at half mast for 9/11 – on the top of the building.

After the speech the crowd became more fluid as the flag was produced and I was able to move slightly to where I wanted to be. And I more or less got the pictures I had wanted, although at some point another photographer squeezed down low – but not quite low enough – in front of me. Those burning the flag placed it and also the photograph of pastor Terry Jones (which was remarkably resistant to burning) the right way round so far as I was concerned too, and the pack of photographers on the other side made an interesting background for some of the pictures.

It would have been nice for all of us to have been able to move exactly where we wanted to get the best pictures, but of course that isn’t practical in such situations. There are always photographers saying “let’s move back so we can all get a picture”, but it seldom can work – and no hope at all in situations like this. You have to get in there while respecting the people working around you as much as possible by trying not to get in their way, and do the best you can.

Moving back occasionally makes sense, but generally it results in nobody getting a decent picture (and here we were in the middle of a crowd and couldn’t move back.) Capa’s dictum “if your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough” usually applies.

As people continued to squirt lighter fuel onto the flames I would have preferred to be a few inches further away as it was getting uncomfortably hot. Some of the pictures are taken at 16mm and the flames were rather closer than they look.

Later, as I was standing around between the MAC and the EDL and talking with other photographers we decided there was little to choose between the two groups of extremist demonstrators (or come to that government whose embassy we were in front of, that had given the world Vietnam, Guantanamo and more.) We thought about living under a country ruled by either of the two groups. The MAC seemed slightly more civilised, but there were other things to consider. “Beer” I said, “at least under the EDL you could get drunk enough not to care.” “Bacon butties” added another, but the real clincher came with “Adultery!”

My own politics? Well, if anyone ever tries to form a Liberal Democratic Christian Socialist Anarcho-syndicalist Environmentalist Situationist vaguely Pacifist party I’ll probably double it’s strength as shadow minister for culture and sport, areas where I would have some really interesting policies. Photography (real photography that is) would certainly get a much better deal under our administration and the current art establishment would be in for a very hard time. As for sport I’m at least 110% for it and think we should all be encouraged to do some, though of course I’d institute a total ban on anyone getting paid for playing games. You’ll have to wait for the rest of our manifesto.

More about the MAC protest and more pictures on Demotix, where there is also a separate post about the EDL, who earlier had marched to the 9/11 memorial, laid a couple of wreaths and held a two minute silence for the 9/11 victims before coming to shout at the Muslim extremists. More pictures still in a few days time on My London Diary.

Carnival Thoughts

This year I didn’t spend as long as usual at the Notting Hill Carnival, arriving an hour or two later than usual as I was waiting for an gas engineer coming for an emergency service to our water heater on Sunday. The weather forecast hadn’t been too good and it did seem a little less crowded than usual.

Sunday is Childrens’ Day at carnival, and is always a little less crowded, while the Bank Holiday itself can get too crowded to move around easily in many parts of the area. I find it rather easier to photograph on the Sunday, although the Monday is a better day for partying.

There did seem to be fewer elaborate costumes than previous years – perhaps the recession is hitting the carnival. Certainly many voluntary groups are expecting cuts in funding from local councils if these have not already happened. But its always been the people that interested me more.

We got a little light rain, which didn’t dampen the atmosphere much at all, but dark clouds made a pretty drastic cut in light levels making photography a little trickier. But then it really poured down for a few minutes and I took shelter, while trying still to photograph the few braver souls who were partying on in the street.

Fortunately for them (though perhaps not for me, as I rather like the effect of the driving rain) although the shower was very heavy it didn’t last long. I was working at ISO 1250 and although the D700 is pretty waterproof I needed to keep just under shelter in that kind of downpour, so had the Sigma 24-70 set at 70mm. 1/160 s was just fast enough to get a sharp image despite the moving subject and gave rather nice streaks on the image.

Later the sun came out and the lighting got very contrasty. So working on Ladbrooke Grove I perversely decided to work in the trickiest area I could find for light. Fortunately Lightroom is able to work wonders if you shoot RAW (as I always do.)

Here’s an example, with some of the people in deep shade and others in sun. I’ve evened things out a little with some fill-flash (nominally at -1 stop with the SB-800) and exposed (probably more by luck than judgement) to avoid burning out the almost white houses in bright sun in the background. Here is what the file looked like when first imported into Lightroom:

Back in the days of film and darkroom printing it would not have been possible to make these kind of changes. Working with transparency, the starting point would have been completely burnt out in some areas – the situation hopeless. With colour neg there would have been similar highlight detail, possibly very slightly more, and with some fairly tricky burning I might have managed to bring out the blue sky and some of the building detail, but some of the more subtle changes would certainly have been impossible.

We do now have an incredible degree of control in the printing process, enabling us to change so much about an image with some precision. Back in the darkroom we could play around a little – as well as dodging and burning we could also try local warming of areas, swabbing them with concentrated developer or alkali, flashing and more, but they were all rather limited tricks and not exactly reproducible. Printing from the computer we can make precisely located and exact area adjustments of tonality, contrast, saturation, hue, sharpening etc.

Of course there may even be some people who prefer the effect of the original (as happened when I posted previously about how I’d improved a picture. But it wasn’t the way I saw the scene and didn’t reflect what I was thinking when I took it.

Heathrow Celebrates

© 2010, Peter Marshall
John McDonnell MP, John Stewart and others with Stewart’s latest work ‘Victory Against All The Odds’
My father used to cycle past the orchards of Heath Row, then one of the most fertile market gardening and orchard areas supplying food for London. My mother grew up on a market garden a couple of miles south of where the airport now is; around ten years ago the last remnants of the orchard her father planted were dug up for social housing.

Then came the airport, and they changed its name to Heathrow. We got used to planes passing a hundred or so feet above our heads on their way to touch down. But the planes got larger and larger, and noisier and noisier. Then came the jets with a quantum leap in noise (and years later another leap with Concord, but fortunately there were few of them) and things became near impossible. Double glazing helped but meant you had to live with windows closed, and even then listening to the radio or holding a conversation was often difficult.

I moved a little away from the flight path, and when they built Terminal 4, the runway that took the planes closest to my house could no longer be safely used (bringing Heathrow down from its orginal five or six to a two runway airport.) But Heathrow seemed insatiable and unstoppable. T4 was going to be the last they would ever need, but then came Terminal 5. Again they would never need another runway or terminal, but within a couple of years they were saying it was absolutely necessary to have a third runway – and it wasn’t long before they were also planning T6.

Local residents in Sipson, Harmondsworth and Harlington whose homes would have been demolished or impossibly blighted if the third runway went ahead decided to make a stand, and founded the ‘No Third Runway Action Group‘, NoTRAG. I photographed its first major demonstration in June 2003.

They kept up their fight, and built up a coalition with other groups including most of the local councils in the surrounding area and with environmental groups such as HACAN, led by John Stewart. MPs too gave their support, including local MP John McDonnell (though my silly local MP preferred to support BAA – though it was his expenses rather than this that finally forced him to resign.) They fought the proposal at every level, with Greenpeace coming up with the idea of the ‘Airplot‘, a small piece of land in the middle of the runway site that ended up with over 80,000 beneficial owners – and I was one of them.The ‘Climate Camp‘ at Heathrow also did a great deal to raise interest and debate over the issues.

Over the years I photographed many more events related to the campaign. More marches, Whitehall demonstrations, the Terminal 5 Flashmob, and of course the Climate Rush on tour.

Airport noise caused by Heathrow effects much of West and Central London – several million people – and what had started as a local campaign soon became something much larger. And of course there were larger issues involved around the environment and a growing realisation of the accelerating damage that aviation was causing to it.

One important point came when the Conservative opposition came out against the proposal. Of course it was partly party politics, partly a matter of seeing the growing political importance of Green issues generally. And once they were in power they stuck to their decision, and the third runway is, at least for the moment, history.

But although the photographs aren’t so interesting the event that pleased me most was the celebration at the end of August – pictures on My London Diary. It was as John Stewart said, a ‘Victory Against All The Odds‘. Everyone said at the start it couldn’t be done, but it was. And I’m pleased to have played a part – if very small – in it too.

Ian Tomlinson Eyewitness

On Foto8 you can read the story by Vu photographer Michael Greive of how on 1 April last year he photographed Ian Tomlinson in his dying minutes. His first picture of the incident shows Tomlinson sitting on the ground shortly after the fatal blow by PC Horwood in the pedestrian street behind the Royal Exchange; Tomlinson, seen from behind, looks up towards police who appear to be ignoring his pleas. After taking this frame, Grieve turned towards a group of police standing to the right to take another picture as a record of the whole scene, and at the back of this picture is the officer later identified as Horwood, two hands holding a club with his face partly covered.

A few minutes later, Greive saw the same victim, clearly in need of urgent medical attention. Police had prevented protesters – including a third year medical student – and a news photographer from coming to his assistance; one of the protesters had called the ambulance service, but they asked to speak to the police and the request was ignored.

Grieve took further pictures as Tomlinson, finally attended by police medics, was dying. It was only several days later, when a friend told him that he could be seen taking a picture of Tomlinson on the film of the unprovoked assault by Horwood which a US investment manager had taken and later sent to The Guardian that the photographer realised exactly what he had witnessed.

Grieve was advised to contact the Tomlinson family’s solicitor with his evidence and was later interviewed by the IPCC who were investigating the case. He decided to cooperate fully with them, supplying high-res scans of his images, in the hope that these would help in ensuring a conviction. Among other things his pictures showed conclusively that PC Horwood was not wearing his serial number.

In his feature, illustrated by a number of the pictures he took, Grieve records his disgust at the failure to prosecute Horwood. It’s hard indeed to disagree with his final paragraph:

“But photography did not fail that day. It recorded evidence as best it could from professionals, amateurs, to the unauthored CCTV. All photographers acted with total professionalism, doing their job, and not, as the police may these days accuse us, acting like potential terrorists or paedophiles, or whatever they decide to pull out of the hat. It goes with out saying that the only individual who unleashed terror this particular day at G20 was wearing a police uniform with his face partially obscured and failing to wear his serial number. And though he may be reprimanded internally by the police force he has, in effect, got away with it. And we citizens have to fight our corner and watch our backs.”

As the farce of an investigation into this case and others has shown, the police are effectively above the law – particularly in dealing with protesters and with the working class and ethnic minorities. The law at every level is still very much a law for the rich and privileged.

My Own Day

I wasn’t around when Ian Tomlinson was killed, although I had been with the protesters as they made their way to Bank in the morning. By the time I’d followed a second group there the area was packed with people and it was impossible to move down past the Bank of England. As well as the protesters there were literally hundreds (if not thousands) of photographers and I decided my time might be better spent covering the other protests going on around London.

So I left the the demonstration at Bank a little after noon, going to photograph the Climate Camp as they arrived to set up camp in the middle of the street a quarter of a mile away in Bishopsgate. As I left, police had started to “kettle” the protesters, refusing to let them leave but were still allowing press to go out through their lines. Later I went to photograph the ‘Jobs Not Bombs‘ demonstration at the US Embassy and march to a rally Trafalgar Square – and police were by then refusing to let journalists back into the area around Bank. And by the time of the police violence against the Climate Campers I was back at home and in bed.

Earlier I’d seen a few minor incidents as police snatched some masked demonstrators apparently at random out of the crowds and stood among the TSG as some of them paced from foot to foot obviously itching for some action. They seemed to me more than eager for confrontation, and it was obvious that they were out to cause trouble and to have no interest in keeping the peace.

The murder of Ian Tomlinson (and despite the CPS decision it is difficult to describe it as anything but murder) didn’t surprise me, although I was shocked by it, as well as by a number of other non-fatal incidents recorded on other videos, including attacks on several journalists as well as protesters.

© 2009 Peter Marshall
Prof Chris Knight, one of the G20 Meltdown Organisers, and the officer responsible for the policing at Bank meet at the start of the Ian Tomlinson Memorial March

Later I attended a number of protests against the killing, including a march in memory of Ian Tomlinson organised by the people who had organised the event at Bank, now working with the Tomlinson family. Later came a candlelit vigil with the family and, after the announcement of the failure to prosecute, a further demonstration outside the offices of the DPP.

I think we haven’t heard the last of this case, either in the courts or on the streets. Perhaps it will even lead to action to curb police excesses by our parliament. But given the record that doesn’t seem too likely.

Obama Poster Controvery Continues

In Fairey or Not? I took a look at the controversy over the use by artist Shepard Fairey’s who clearly based a poster of Obama on a photograph by AP photographer, Manny Garcia, using the work without permission or payment.

I’ve quite a few times been paid by artists who wished to base their works on my pictures, so I have some personal interest in the practice continuing. Recently Dan Heller has posted a lengthy reply on his Photography Business blog to law professor Peter Friedman’s article Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity which asserts that Fairey had copied nothing that could be copyrightable. Both pieces are worth reading.

There are many aspects where copyright law – in the UK as well as the US – lacks clarity both as to its intention as well as its application.

Do We Need Property Releases?

Thanks once more to Photo Attorney Carolyn E. Wright fora very interesting post on her blog pointing me in the direction of A House’s Right of Publicity, posted on Wednesday on the Property, intangible blog about Robinson v HSBC Bank USA, a case in which Mr Robinson sued because a pictures of his house had been used in a flyer distributed with the San Francisco Chronicle advertising the bank’s “Premier Mortgage.”

Robinson’s lawyers put up seven different cases under US and Californian law as to why this usage was a breach of his rights, and all were thrown out. A comment on the fotoLibra blog, comes down against the decision, on the grounds that it was “discourteous in the extreme not to request permission of the owner.” Well perhaps so, but that doesn’t make it illegal.

FotoLibra also challenges the policy of the UK National Trust, who as many of us know have for some years been attempting to impose a ban on the photography of their properties other than “strictly for private use” – and have managed to get many photographs of these buildings removed from image libraries, including pictures taken from outside of their property.

Many have questioned the legality of their position, as well as the morality of banning photography of buildings which are owned by them on behalf of us, the nation. But although like fotoLibra we might “defend the right of people to photograph what they will, and sell those photographs if they can, if they are to be used in an educational, illustrative, informative or editorial function” we would also like them feel that, on our behalf the National Trust should both have to give consent and also receive payment for images of our property being used to promote commercial gain.

So the US decision is good in some respects but bad in others. What would be good is a clear ruling that distinguishes editorial and related usages from commercial use.

Recently in the UK, press photographers have been told by police and PCSOs that they need a permit to photograph in Royal Parks in London, which include Victoria Tower Gdns next to the Houses of Parliament. Here I was approached and informed of this by a PCSO on Sat 24 July. The alleged need for a licence laughably also includes Parliament Square where I have taken literally thousands of images this year alone.

The first time I heard of this happening was a couple of days earlier, where a demonstration had been taking place outside Buckingham Palace against the invitation to a BNP MP to attend one of the Queen’s garden parties. Obviously police had been dredging around to find some pretext to try and prevent reporting and someone had come up with this.

The distinction between commercial and editorial photography has long been understood and it is one we need to continue to insist on.

So do we need property* releases? In general for commercial use we do (despite the US case) and for non-commercial use the answer continues to be no. So far as the National Trust is concerned I think it is clearly no so long as we are on public land when we make the photograph, but perhaps less clear once we have gone on to National Trust property. Although the National Trust acquires property on behalf of the nation, often in lieu of tax payments that would have gone into the national exchequer, by some legal sleight of hand (which certainly should be illegal) it isn’t ours. And it probably won’t be long before it is completely privatised and then taken over by some Spanish-owned company.

[*Readers are reminded that property doesn’t just mean bricks and mortar but refers to anything that someone owns. So unless you own everything that appears in one of your photographs it probably needs a property release.]

Honest Reporting by Reuters?

I’ve not come across the Honest Reporting site before, but it apparently started at the time of Yom Kippur in 2000, when a group of Jewish students at British universities decided to do something to combat unfair reporting of the Intifada. In particular there was one photo distributed and published around the world of a “young man — bloodied and battered — crouching beneath a club-wielding Israeli policeman” that was published around the world as a Palestinian victim of Israel violence. In fact it showed an American Jewish student who had been beaten up by a mob of Palestinian Arabs, and the Israeli solders had rescued him and were protecting him from further mob violence.

As too often happens with the media, once the mistake had been pointed out, the corrections were half-hearted and many inaccuracies remained. The photograph is still used as anti-Israeli propoganda on various web sites – you can read more on HonestReporting.

A recent post on HonestReporting looks at the coverage by Reuters of a clash on the Israeli-Lebanese border during what was described by Israeli sources as a routine tree-pruning mission a couple of weeks ago. Their report makes clear the very unusual level of coverage from both the Israeli and Lebanese sides by Reuters photographers, who appear to have been given unusually wide and unrestricted access to the combat zone and have worked without injuries while Lebanese photographer, Assaf Abu Rahhal, working for the pro-Syrian paper al-Akhbar was killed and another, Ali Chouaib was injured.

As well as the five Reuters photographers, the agency also had other images from stringers; normally Reuters give the names of stringers but in this case unusually they are not identified. They too appear from their pictures to have had privileged access to the events.

Its worth reading the report in detail and looking at the pictures. The article raises a number of important questions about the integrity of Reuters and I hope they will issue a full explanation. Thanks to Jonathan Warren for posting a link to this feature on the London Photographers Branch Facebook page.

Another Israel-related photo story of the moment is Israeli soldiers posting images of themselves with Palestinian detainees on their Facebook pages. A story on Haaretz.com (brought to my attention on Facebook by Fil Kaler) reports the claim by Israeli human rights group ‘Breaking the Silence‘ that Israeli Defence Forces soldiers putting pictures showing themselves on Facebook “alongside handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainees represent the norm, not the exception.” To back up their argument they themselves have published a few such more pictures on Facebook.