Actually had some proper work to do today which was quite nice. Shooting this ever so slightly sinister looking Russian gas mask. I’m not actually allowed to reveal what the shot will be used for or who will be using it. Which is all a bit unessecarily cloak and dagger on the part of my clients. But there you go.
Anyway, here is the final shot.
I was talking to someone about Generation Kill last night. They’d never heard of it. It suprises me that so few people seem to have, even after it got a terrestrial tv airing on Channel 4. Especially since The Wire seemed to spread rapidly through word of mouth, that and The Guardian, who still keep banging on about it even to this day. We get it, it was a great tv show, quite possibly the best ever. Still best not analyze it to death eh? Anyway this person loved The Wire so I recommended they give Generation Kill a try.
Never heard of Generation Kill?
Well its another winner from HBO, a 7 part mini series co written by David Simon and Ed Burns who were also executive producers, just like The Wire. Its based on the book Generation Kill by Evan Wright, who also had a hand in the screen adaption. Wright was a writer for Rolling Stone who was embedded with the first US Marine battalion to go into Iraq in 2003 at the start of the second Gulf War.
And that’s what Generation Kill is all about. Pretty damn good it is too. If you liked The Wire, I know, who didn’t, then you should like this too. It also features James Ransone, who played Ziggy in series 2 of The Wire. Even if you didn’t like or have never seen The Wire you should check it out. Truly good quality tv is pretty rare and if more people see good quality stuff maybe they’d make more of it. Although I know everybody will just torrent the series anyway, so there’s the rub.
All the military lingo takes a bit of getting used to, but it’ll suck you in just like The Wire did. It also features the best rendition of an Avril Lavigne song ever!
Here’s a trailer.
Now I like the White Stripes, I like music that comes on slabs of vinyl, I like books of photographs, I like films, I like Rob Jones’s artwork and I like limited edition box sets.
So I really like this.
The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights limited edition box set
Limited Edition Box set includes:
- DVD of the documentary Film The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights, directed by Emmett Malloy (92 minutes)
- DVD of the band’s 10th Anniversary show, The White Stripes Under Nova Scotian Lights, directed by Emmett Malloy (135minutes)
- The first-ever official live album from The White Stripes, featuring 16 songs recorded at various shows during their 2007 Canadian tour on both vinyl and CD. The double LP comes pressed on 180 gram black vinyl packaged in a gatefold jacket with a 6 panel insert unique to the box set. The CD accompanies the film and Anniversary show DVDs in a special 7” square 3 panel folder along with a 24 page bound booklet and slipcase.
- 7 inch vinyl featuring Icky Thump (Live) and The Wheels On The Bus (Live). Two versions available with different artwork and color of vinyl depending on your country of residence.
- 208 page hard cover book containing photographs of the Canadian tour shot by Autumn de Wilde with a foreword by Jim Jarmusch.
- 1 of 6 different silk screens designed by Rob Jones
Available to pre order now from www.whitestripes.com It’s £110 if you order before January 1st 2010, £140 after that. Should be delivered mid march. Jack White seems to inspire pretty obsessive collectors of his work so could turn out to be a good investment if you’re into that sort of thing.
I’m getting one.
This picture isn't of me or by me, just so you know.
I’ve noticed a great deal of stories in the press recently, one such story made it on the front of The Independent, about photographers, both professional and amateur, sometimes merely tourists, being stopped, searched and even in some cases being arrested by the police using Section 44 of the 2000 Anti terrorism act. This is a situation I have been following quite closely. Not just because I’m a photographer living and working in London (where most but certainly not all of these incidents have occurred) with an interest in civil liberties, but also because I myself was once stopped, searched and questioned using this legislation.
It happened a couple of years ago. I had a job to go and take a portrait of Brian Haw, the peace protestor who has been camping in Parliament Square right outside the Houses of Parliament for the last 7 and a half years or so. I had been waiting around for Brian to be ready for the shoot for about 20 minutes, and had been taking a few shots of Parliament to kill a bit of time when I was approached by two armed uniformed police officers. They informed me that I was being stopped under Section 44, asked me my name, what I was doing and what I was photographing. They noted all this down and then said they were going to conduct a search of my person and effects, this involved the removal of my jacket, a pat down and a rummage through my camera bag. I found the experience to be mildly disconcerting due to the fact they were armed, a little embarrassing as many people were watching and slightly annoying as I was only going about my work. I should point out that the officers were in fact courteous and pleasant throughout, informed me it was because I was in a “sensitive” area, which I accept, and the search was not intrusive, no more so than getting into many nightclubs these days, nor did they impede me actually doing my job. They gave me a record of the search then one of them left. The other one however watched as we did the shoot, quite closely, to the point where I was tempted to ask him to hold a reflector for me. When I was finished and packing up he came over, asked me if I was done and was going to leave the area. It was these last two points where the whole incident started to feel like harassment.
Brian Haw, by me
Reflecting on this incident later I became really quite annoyed about the whole thing and started doing some research into Section 44.
Basically Section 44 allows the police and the Home Secretary to define any area in the country as well as a time period wherein they could stop and search any vehicle or person, and seize “articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism” without first having grounds for suspecting the person is a terrorist or is carrying any articles that might be useful to a terrorist. It gives uniformed police officers, but not community support officers (PCSOs), unless a uniformed police officer is present the power to stop, question, search your person and any belongings you have with you and to detain you during this process. If you are in a vehicle they can search it and anyone else in it as well. Apart from the fact that the police do not need grounds for suspecting you of anything the defined areas and times mentioned above are secret, so you can have no idea if, when or where they are in operation. Its pretty safe to assume that all government buildings, royal residencies, airports, railway stations, oil refineries and storage depots, power stations and large swathes of the City of London are covered.
You do have rights. If you are on public land or a public right of way you can photograph anything, including police officers, so long as you are not causing an obstruction or a breech the peace. The police can only in certain circumstances view any images on devices as part of a search. They do not have an automatic right to. If you are on a journalistic assignment they will need a court order to do this. The police cannot destroy or delete any images, or order you to do so. Private security personnel have no rights to stop you taking photographs, or to detain you for doing so, if you are on public land or a public right of way. They have no rights at all to look at or delete any images. Nor can they confiscate any equipment.
If you are stopped under Section 44 a uniformed police officer must be present for questioning and searching. You do not actually have to give your name and address (unless you are stopped in a vehicle), date of birth, your reason for being where you are or any explanation as to what you are doing. If you withhold this information you may well find yourself arrested as obstructing a police officer acting under Section 44 is a criminal offence. In which case you will be required to give this information. Section 44 itself does not require you to comply with police attempts to photograph you or to take a DNA sample. It probably goes without saying that if stopped under Section 44 you must indeed stop. Failure to stop is an offence.
There is a much more detailed overview of Section 44 and other legislation relating specifically to photography and journalism here.
The group I’m a photographer not a terrorist is planning a demonstration against the use of Section 44 on photographers in Trafalgar Square on the 23rd January 2010. Check out the website for details should you wish to join them.
My concerns about this legislation and the way the police often choose to enact it goes beyond possible inconvenience and annoyance whilst going about my entirely legitimate business. Quite apart from the errosion of press freedoms and the risk posed to the collective visual history of this country that this legislation could well present. The police often seem abuse their powers, not through any malevolent intent, but through a failure, of individual officers, often senior, to fully understand complex, wide ranging, powerful legislation, their own rights and ours under that legislation. With little in the way of any real accountability. To me it is also symptomatic of a wider and worrying trend of a far more intrusive way of policing, monitoring and recording the population.
The fact that you can be stopped, searched and questioned without the police having any actual grounds to suspect you of anything because you are in a defined area, without any knowledge of such as these designations are secret, is deeply troubling. Now couple this with an exponential proliferation of CCTV and surveillance, (interesting article about an internal Metropolitan Police report into just how effective CCTV is in solving crime) the DNA database, that holds your DNA even if you are not charged with anything let alone acquitted and already ruled illegal by the European court of human rights, and the proposed biometric identity card scheme. That’s just for starters. You now have in place a legal framework that potentially undermines the basic principle of our justice system. That of the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
I’ve heard the arguments countless times that if you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to worry about. I don’t by that at all. These are laws you might have expected to find in communist regimes, not in a country that likes to hold itself up as a beacon of freedom and democracy. You can’t even uphold your right to peaceful protest within 1km of the seat of government without first getting written permission. Now I’m not some paranoid nut. That framework is in place. Who knows what future administrations might do with it? All in the name of terrorism prevention. The politics of fear.
Orwell has never seemed so prothetic.
UPDATE : December 15th
This video posted on The Guardian’s website today is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about.
Whilst wondering randomly around the blogsphere I came across this rather cool flip clock screensaver. Its called FLIQLO and its by 9301, can’t quite fathom exactly what 9301 is, but credit where credit is due. You can download it here for free. Looks particularly good on a Mac, there’s a Windows download too, and is unusually practical for a screensaver. Not a fan of practicality or flip clocks? Well there’s also quite a fun lego screensaver that might appeal instead.
Well the seasonal lull in work affords one the opportunity to look again at one’s portfolio. This is always a thankless and arduous task, and one that I always put off until lulls in work make me worry enough to actually sit down and do it. This is obviously a rather silly and ultimately self defeating attitude to take, your portfolio is pretty bloody important. It’s your showcase, the thing that sells you. The thing is I’m one of those photographers who hates the whole having to sell oneself side of the business. This is of course another self defeating attitude to take, especially in these tough economic times.
Anyway this time the task was particularly arduous as I was basically starting again from scratch. I decided to move away from the standard 11×14 inch, portrait orientation, black leather book that every other photographer in the world seems to have. I went out and purchased a few 11×14 inch, (don’t want too get too radical here) landscape format, aluminium books, which of course necessitated at no small extra expense, a load of new plastic pages, very very expensive, and huge amounts of paper and inks to reprint many many pages in the new format. It was all worth it though. I’m actually pretty pleased with the result. Finally a book I don’t feel I need to apologise for before I show it to someone. Now for the actually hard bit, getting it out there and showing it to everyone.
I wasn’t the only one with a lull who decided to revamp their portfolio. A stylist with whom I used to work quite a lot called me up to ask if I could do some prints for her book. She mentioned that she’d seen some prints done on a new type of paper that looked really good and wondered if we could try it.
So I looked into it. The paper is called DaVinci its been developed, made and distributed by Chau Digital in London who are digital printing specialists. I purchased a box of Da Vinci Fibre Gloss paper, which as the name might suggest is a fibre based printing paper with a slight gloss finnish. It really does have the feel of fibre based darkroom paper even the box it comes in is reminiscent of the boxes you used to buy in the good old days of spending hours in the darkroom. It is also available in a warm tone variety as well as a more textured water colour type paper. All available in A3, A4 and rolls. According to the helpful and charming girl at Chau the paper was developed with Epson K3 Ultrachrome pigment inks in mind, which is useful as they’re the ones I use. I can only speak for the paper I tried, but I found the paper really rather impressive, and can heartily recommend, with an excellent image depth and rich vibrant colour reproduction. As an added bonus my custom printer profile for Epson premium semi gloss paper, the paper I normally use or should I say used to use, worked perfectly for the Da Vinci paper. So a little bit of money saved there, which is nice.
If you fancy checking it out then have a look at www.chaudigital.com
One last point, as I mentioned earlier 11×14 inches is a pretty standard portfolio page size. Most people want to print full bleed. With that in mind is it really beyond the wit of any paper manufacturer to actually make 11x 14 paper? Apparently so.
It’s December and as usual at this time of year I find myself a little quiet on the work front. It’s cold, and the weather in London has been miserable for as long as I can remember and I’m trying desperately not to think about Christmas. So I thought to myself why not make a blog?
And here it is. Although as it’s quiet, cold, miserable and Christmas is stampeding round the corner I can’t actually think of anything to say right now. Typical.
I’ll be back soon with something wonderfully interesting.
