Adobe Photoshop, the image editing software that became so ubiquitous its name became a verb is 20 years old. So congratulations and Happy Birthday to all those clever people in involved in its development, particularly Thomas and John Knoll the brothers who invented and developed the first version. It is a testament to the fact that more than just being the industry standard software, it has no real competition, that the purchase price remains so high. Photoshop is also the second most pirated piece of software ever, just behind the various versions of the Windows operating system.

I’ve been using Photoshop pretty much daily for the last 12 years or so, which rather tragically makes it one of the more significant relationships in my life, and like all relationships brings that heady mix of joy and sheer frustration. Those 12 years have been an intense and continual learning curve. I probably still only use about 50-60% of its capabilities. It truly is an awesome bit of software. I’m eagerly awaiting the release of CS5 later this year to see what new toys they’ve added. So here’s to the next 20 years.

On its release it seemed to get pretty universally rave reviews,  countless vigorous recommendations from various friends and it won the best foreign language film Oscar (not that an Oscar necessarily means much). All of which made me a little apprehensive as I sat down to watch it that it might not live up to the hype. I needn’t have worried, and oh how I wish I hadn’t waited so long to see it. All I want to do is talk about it, and everyone I know who’s seen it saw it 2 years ago. Set in East Berlin in 1984 its basically the story of a Stasi agent who spies on a playright. If you haven’t seen it yet that’s all I’m going to give away, but I implore you to see it.

The Lives of Others is utterly utterly wonderful. A beautiful piece of film making, compelling, moving, brilliantly understated, sublime. There just aren’t enough superlatives. Its the best film I’ve seen in years and goes straight into my top 3 or 4 of all time. Beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, especially by Ulrich Mühe playing the leading role who puts in an astonishing performance and who sadly died, aged 54, only months after the film was made. Even more astonishing is the fact that it was written and directed by the rather wonderfully named Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, and was his first feature film. That’s an astounding achievement. I’ll say it again, if you haven’t seen this film  I implore you to do so. You wont regret it.

Combined the likes of The Counterfeiters, Downfall and Der Baader Meinhoff Komplex it really seems that German cinema has struck a rich seam of talent right now. Right I’m off to watch The Lives of Others again.

Here’s the trailer.

I came across some old covers of Ray Gun. I’d completely forgotten how much I used to love the design of that magazine. The man responsible was Chris Ashworth, their art director. Turns out he’s done some pretty cool stuff since then too. He’s also apparently the “Executive Global Creative Director” of Getty Images, which sound pretty wanky, but I wont hold that against him. I think he’s a genius. If  you’re into graphic design check out his website

Then I came across some amazing aerial photographs. Turns out they’re RAF reconnaissance photos from World War 2. So obviously they’re predominantly of German cities. They’re part of an archive that’s been put online by the RCAHMS. Its apparently the largest collection of arial photographs in the world. In time they hope to make available their entire archive of over 4 million photographs. The website is not exactly user friendly, but a good place to while away a bit of time. Here are some pictures of the Olympic stadium and the rather wonderful and now sadly disused Templehoff airport in Berlin.

They reminded me of this rather amazing arial photo of ground zero

Amazing in its clarity and detail. You don’t really get to see such high quality images from this perspective very often. Also what struck me about it was that considering the scale of the destruction the actual area of devestation seems tiny. If you want to look for yourself you can find the link to download this image here. Its quite a big file though.

After wallowing around the world of arial photography for a while I found out via twitter that apparently 40cm of snow could fall on dear old London tomorrow. No doubt this prediction will prove to be somewhat hysterical but I had been planning to finally go and see the Design Real exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery. Seeing as even 1cm of snow makes London capitulate and grind to a halt I decided to hot foot it over to Hyde Park and check it out this afternoon. Glad I did it was pretty cool. Once you get over the Industrial design masquerading as art premise you can just appreciate the very diverse products, from the spoilers from a Lamborghini to aeroplane seats to robots to body armour, for what they are. There’s some pretty damn clever people out there. Well worth a visit. It’s on until the  7th February

If you can’t make it then there is this excellent website: www.design-real.com

Want a festive photo? Well here you are, its as festive as you’re going to get from me. Its the Uskmouth power station as seen from the Newport Wetlands nature reserve. Ahh, the Boxing Day walk where everybody pretends to take a remote interest in each others lives, even though we can only be bothered to see each other once a year. The storm clouds rolled back, the winter afternoon light became really rather beautiful, a rainbow appeared and photographically speaking I got quite excited. See you can find pleasure in the strangest of places.

Then there’s New Year. Actually I was quite pleased for it to arrive. 2009 has been far from great for many reasons. New Year’s Eve is almost always anti climatic. Hugh Heffner once described it as “amateur’s night”, which I think is a pretty spot on assessment. This year it wasn’t too bad all things considered. A little bittersweet as four very good friends left London in mid December to go and live in Australia, it would have been nice to celebrate with them. Two of them married each other in Melbourne on 2nd Jan. Gutted I couldn’t have been there.

So here’s a New Years picture. Good spot to watch from eh?

I’m really not the cynical miserable sod these words appear to paint me as, although the words are genuine.

Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2010 brings you everything you hope for.

Anyway, here is the final shot.

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.