Since 2006 I have sued the Metropolitan Police twice and it’s not been an easy process. It is time consuming, expensive and at times exhausting. In 2006 I was assaulted by Metropolitan Police officers when I was reporting on a protest in Parliament Square. I was taken to St Thomas’ hospital by ambulance and could not work for month. When the case settled two years later in 2008 my solicitor, Chez Cotton said:

This was an extremely unpleasant incident. Neither the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police or his officers has any legal power, moral responsibility or political responsibility to prevent or restrict what the media record. Mr Vallée is a well-respected photojournalist, lawfully present to photograph a political protest outside parliament, yet he was brutally prevented from doing so by the police. It is right that Mr Vallée has received an apology, an out of court settlement and that his legal costs will be met by the police.

In late 2008 video journalist Jason Parkinson and I were unlawfully stopped by Metropolitan Police officers from reporting on a protest outside the Greek Embassy. This case settled early this year and our solicitor, Chez Cotton once again, said:

The media play a critical role in recording civil unrest, political events, including protests and demonstrations and, where it arises, police wrong doing. It is of grave concern that an armed, diplomatic officer of the Metropolitan Police Force felt it was appropriate to call these journalists ‘scum’ and stop them from working and was happy to do so in full knowledge that he was being filmed. My clients were physically prevented from reporting on protest and political unrest of international importance.

These are just two of the many cases that journalists – with support from the NUJ – have taken on to defend media freedom. For many the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) route is a non-starter. Many photographers have found the IPCC to be far from independent and highly bureaucratic.

Bottom line, when the police act outside the law and attack human rights and media freedoms by physically attacking media workers then the police should be held to account for such actions. It seems that Sir Paul Stephenson has other ideas.

Is this about cost-cutting in the short term or is it a more calculated strategy to give his officers a freer hand when policing the public reaction to the political and economic shockwaves of the coalition governments austerity measures. And to remove those that will give that movement the oxygen of publicity?

A domestic worker at St. Charles Hospital, Notting Hill, newly contracted out to cleaning company Mediclean, watches a televised speech by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Image © 1986 Phillip Wolmuth.

The call to action from the TUC in Manchester this week brings to mind campaigns against public spending cuts imposed by previous governments, and the part that photography has played in them.

Perhaps the most memorable image of the ‘Winter of Discontent’, which immediately preceded the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, was of rats scurrying over piles of uncollected refuse sacks in Leicester Square. In that and subsequent disputes, those parts of the press more sympathetic to the trade union point of view, particularly the papers produced by the unions themselves, built solidarity with photographs of countrywide protest actions, and of workers in their workplaces.

One big difference between then and now, immediately discernable in the trade union (TU) press, is the current lack of representation of people at work. This is the culmination of a trend that began in the 1990s. It’s also at the root of the heated debate about the use of photography in TU journals that recently sprang up in the pages of the NUJ’s Journalist magazine.

The TU papers of the 1980s and 1990s were usually tabloid in format, like the NUPE Journal, for which the above photo was taken. Features frequently ran over two or three pages, with pictures used large, often occupying more than half the page. And they were very often unposed, documentary shots taken in workplaces – something that is now rare.

I think this is a significant loss, particularly in the present context. Such photographs can give meaning to the otherwise seemingly abstract effects of ‘planned public spending cuts’. If these images do not even appear in the TU press, they are unlikely to appear anywhere else.

Why has this change come about? One obvious reason is that the privatisation of so many services – from the railways and other public utilities, to hospital porters and school dinners – has made access difficult. Another is that union membership has fallen, resulting both in an increase in non-unionised workplaces, and in a decrease in union income. Over the same period there has been a move, across the media generally, away from serious photojournalism and towards ‘lifestyle’ and celebrity. And then there is the proposition that, with the rise of the new, fully automated, digital cameras, anyone can do it – so why pay for photos when members will send them in for free?

Access is a problem, but not an insurmountable one. As for the rest – I don’t buy any of it. Declining union membership has been offset by amalgamation – the membership base of the new ‘super-unions’ means that cheapskate sourcing of photography should really not be necessary. And there’s no reason why union journals should follow Murdoch and the rest down the celebrity and lifestyle route. As for digital cameras – ownership no more confers the ability to produce meaningful photojournalism, than does possession of a pen the ability to write like Shakespeare.

The fundamental reason for the absence is, I think, more depressing. It is that many editors (and those who employ them), inundated with mundane, ‘good enough’, almost-free imagery, have forgotten the value and impact of intelligently presented, serious photography.

Phillip Wolmuth is a freelance photographer and branch committee member. This article originally appeared on Phillip’s blog.

Like many, however, he tends to present economic processes and technological change as wholly determinate, immutable manifestations of “natural” capitalist forces that admit no contravention. “The Market” and those who, prior to the crash, were seen as “Masters of the Universe”, are thus mythologised as Joseph Schumpeter’s “Creative Destruction” is invoked:

Innovation by entrepreneurs is the force that sustains long-term economic growth, even as it destroys the value of established companies and labourers that enjoy some degree of monopoly power derived from previous technological, organizational, regulatory, and economic paradigms.

It is a common enough prognosis these days. “There is no alternative” to the depreciation. As photographers no longer piss about with smelly chemicals in the dark getting dermatitis and listening to Women’s Hour or tediously attaching labels to trannies and poking them into plastic sheets prior to shipping,  we have lost our “monopolisable skills” and must accept ever decreasing prices for a product that we’re told almost anybody can now produce. Those who question this wisdom or think otherwise are typically dismissed as foolishly idealistic, wanting a return to some previous pre-digital (and equally mythological as I recall) “golden age” of restrictive practices. We’re sort of Pre-Raphaelites of the Photo industry – though not as good looking, “Wheel Tappers” as one railway trade union editor put it – oh alright then “Luddites” (although popularly they are done a great disservice). In short, dissenters are characterised as wishful thinkers failing to comprehend the harsh commercial realities to which they must inevitably bend and submit or break.

Firstly, I feel this blinds us to understanding the development of the dominant business model and to the contradictions that it has and continues to develop – for example the divergence of the interest of between the supplier and the distributor or to put it another way, the business model undermines the content. Their fatalism demoralises us into giving up the possibility of competing on something other than price.

Secondly, these assertions divert us from the qualitative, ethical and ideational aspects of photography (and its delivery) – that which distinguishes great pictures. At one end of the industry “stock photography” is a “commodity” in the sense of being ubiquitous and generalizable. Typically a positivistic reaffirmation of the status quo and displaying a useful a tendency towards replicating “Fake pictures of Fake People”, it is like a machine rotating on the same spot. By contrast the best photography is limited only by history. It is specific, embodies something of the difficulties and complexities of real human experience, encapsulates contradictions or even denies the easy dominant social narratives. Intuition, intellect and events synthesise into inspiration or what Philip Jones Griffiths called “The upward spiral towards enlightenment… The more you see, the more you understand, and the more you understand the more you see”. Ideas are also a material force in the world. New businesses and modus operandi will continue to emerge as these dynamics unfold.

Finally, and forgive me for stepping back, but we should contemplate the fact that as the 70^th anniversaries come around, at the time of Joseph Schumpeter’s writing the long years of the last Great Depression were finally ended when capitalism’s “creative destruction” was unleashed in the form of Hitler’s devastating rampage across Europe and the “Final Solution”.

John Harris is a branch member, photographer and also runs ReportDigital.co.uk. This article originally appeared on John’s blog.

…architectural photographers manage to make children look lonely, even in photos of a kindergarten.

Marcus’ point is timely and recognizes an underlying problem with images of children, as taking photographs with children as a secondary subject is being made more difficult.

Have you ever wondered why people in photographs are either blurred, have their back to the camera, look lonely and not engaged with neither the space nor the photographer?

Prior to digital imagery, film required long exposures, especially interior scenes and this resulted in blurred imagery owing to movement. Digital imagery meant that images can be recorded at higher speeds, as the light sensitivity of the recording chip can be rated at significantly higher levels than can be achieved with film. This can deliver more intimate imagery, as photographers can now successfully record scenes that are low lit.

Yet the images that are published are not like this. Home owners are often unwilling to be so critically exposed by the camera and have their living habits openly viewed. Pictures of the public in corporate or commercial buildings often depict people half turned away from the camera, or hurrying past so that they are blurred. Rushing out for a meeting or a sandwich, they often aren’t in a mood to be photographed, and see the photographer as a major nuisance; an inconvenience in a perhaps already stressful day. There is a suspicion of anybody taking photographs and the public become unwilling subjects in the attempt to bring scale and humanity to the buildings.

Photographs of schools or kindergartens raise entirely different issues. The blind belief that anybody taking photographs in a school, especially a male, must have an ulterior motive prohibits an easy interaction between subject and photographer. Some of the provisos I have operated under when photographing children in schools have been absurd. On a recent assignment photographing building works at a school in Hackney, the project manager told me it was illegal to photograph children, and advised me not to engage with the children under any circumstance. Other parents have asked whether the images would be on the internet. If the images were for printed publication, it was deemed acceptable; the internet was definitely out of bounds.

Some schools are quite relaxed about photography; a circular is sent out in advance that advises parents’ that a photographer will be working in the school. If they prefer their children not to be photographed, then the child does not take part in any activities that may be in danger of being photographed. However the normal restrictions are that children can only be photographed from the back, any front on images are blurred so that their faces are not recognizable, or they are far enough away from the camera so as not to be identifiable.

The result is often an image of a small child standing alone in a playground looking lonely.

Grant Smith is a branch member and also one of the organisers of the I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist campaign group.

March’s NUJ London Photographers Branch (LPB) meeting saw members vote to condemn the targeting of journalists by the English Defence League (EDL). The motion also agreed that the LPB would support the NUJ Expose The BNP campaign.

EDL street numbers have drastically increased in less than a year. They claim they are a multicultural, non-racist, non-violent organisation, protesting against “militant Islam”. Yet the published photographs and television news reports show a very different picture. Racism, violence, criminal damage and clashes with the police have become standard on their protests. Connections with far right groups have been repeatedly exposed by various news outlets. The EDL claim they are being misrepresented by a left-wing media conspiracy and their response has been to target journalists. For those regularly covering the protests, intimidation, threats and violence have followed.

Email threats have been issued, warning journalists not to document EDL protests. Journalists’ websites have received increasingly racist and threatening comments. Photographs identifying journalists have appeared inside EDL forums and on the website of Casuals United, a group supporting the EDL, set up to recruit hooligan gangs from football ground terraces across the country. Information, names and addresses of journalists have been sought and messages sent out to EDL and Casuals United members to “keep an eye out”, “give them a warm welcome” and “have a word with them”.

Some journalists and photographers found out at the Stoke protest in January this year what ‘having a word’ meant. Several received punches to the head while others came under a targeted hail of bricks, bottles, lighters, coins, wooden debris and burning rags soaked in petrol.

Two months later in Dudley a further four photographers were punched, kicked and threatened. Several of these attacks came from EDL stewards. With the types of weapons being carried during the demonstrations – knuckle dusters, knives, lighter fluid canisters and bottles of bleach – it is clear that the threats against working journalists covering the far right in the UK are extremely serious.

The London Photographers Branch vows to continue supporting all its members coming under attack.

Welcome to the Debate section of the London Photographer’s Branch. We are the newest branch of the National Union of Journalists that will promote the needs of photographers. The Branch is the result of years of Union members campaigning to create a platform in which they could highlight the issues that matter to photographers.

Branch membership is open to photographers living in the London area or deriving most of their income from London based clients. This covers many of the photographers working in Britain today. The NUJ’s National Executive Committee has also reinterpreted the rules so that any NUJ member has the option of joining the Branch. Regardless this branch will be fighting for the issues and causes that matter to all photographers in the UK.

The Photojournalist of today is under assault from almost every side. In the last 10 years we have seen profound changes in Photojournalism. At the forefront are the changes in technology. Digital Photography has radically changed the way we not only produce images but how we consume them. Digital Photography has put in the hands of the amateur what once was the preserve of the professional. The internet has created a myriad of platforms for which to display and look at photography. Film is now increasingly the preserve of the Art photographer and even then, chances are those images are scanned and displayed somewhere in the worldwide web.

While these changes have in so many ways been a positive trend the overwhelming feeling among our community is that these changes had for the most part devalued our profession and at the very least, the value of images. I read once that more images have been made since 2000 than all the photographs made between 1842 and 1999. Our world is now swimming in an ocean of imagery. We have flooded the market with our stock.

These changes in technology have also adversely affected the very platforms we traditionally published our work. There are few newspapers or current events magazines that are not under serious duress from the alternate free sources of information available on the web. Readership and advertising is down in the physical copies of these publications, while millions now consume them for free on the internet. Web advertising cannot currently pay for the costs of producing these online versions. Publishers have been looking for ways to cut costs and the photographer’s income from commissions and use of their images has been targeted. The myriad of new platforms available to the photographer on the internet rarely pay anything approaching a living wage or the costs of producing the very photographs they publish. The real danger here is that these new platforms cater only to us as photographers, not the wider audience the photojournalist strives to reach. If we are not communicating to a wider audience what exactly are we doing?

It is in this economically difficult environment that we are challenged by authorities even to our right to photograph. More and more of our colleagues are being stopped by the police and stopped from doing their job in the name of combating terrorism. In fairness, the police have always harassed photojournalists. Now with the real threat of terrorism hanging over all of us, the security forces have decided to try to curtail our legal right to photograph. What is ludicrous about all of this in an age where everyone carries a camera it is the professional photojournalist that is deemed a threat to the safety of the country. I still cannot think of one terrorist act that the camera played any part in its execution. As the most visible members of the journalistic community we face the brunt of attacks on journalism, on free speech and freedom of
assembly.

I could keep writing about the myriad of issues that affect us but I’d best leave these to later articles. I will close in writing that the Branch is dedicated to not only highlighting the issues that concern us but as a vehicle to effect positive change. We have plans to increase the NUJ’s reach in training, education and preserving the rights we currently enjoy. The Branch will invite and seek participation from all the various skills and voices from within our community. We will strive to make our monthly branch meetings an enjoyable experience and not the deadly dull meetings many associate with Union membership. We hope to have a mixture of lectures, slide shows, panel discussions and workshops that will touch on every aspect of our profession. We hope to more than anything to represent photographers in a forceful positive way. We aim to advance our profession and we hope you will join us on our journey.

Antonio Olmos
Vice-Chair, London Photographers’ Branch