01:51 UK time, Wednesday, 22 February 2012
This photograph by Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda was recently awarded first place in the World Press Photo Award and has gone on to generate many column inches of analysis and debate.
It is a powerful picture, both in terms of the content and aesthetics. The pose has been likened to Michelangelo's Pieta and the Renaissance style of lighting elevates it from an illustrative news picture to something that has a heritage.
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16:17 UK time, Friday, 3 February 2012
Artist Natasha Caruana is not afraid to use photography to confront difficult subjects and a new exhibition at Photofusion in London brings together a number of her works that do just that.
Combining found images, snapshots and staged pictures, the exhibition comprises four bodies of work: The Other Woman, The Clandestine Purse, Married Man, and the more recent Fairytale for Sale.
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00:32 UK time, Saturday, 28 January 2012
The blurring of reality and the virtual world has come full circle. Just over twenty years ago I can remember watching the first stirrings of the Gulf War, arguably the first television war, and one where the images of missile strikes were commonplace.
The world watched pictures beamed from the missiles as they made their way to their intended target, or in some cases to a different spot entirely. War seemed remote, and the visuals did nothing to convey the reality for those on the wrong end of events.
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00:59 UK time, Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Alejandro Chaskielberg's pictures taken in the moonlight are distinctive and have bought him widespread acclaim. The Argentinian's series of photographs taken over a two-year period of the islanders in the Parana river delta blew fresh air through the photographic world, claiming the L'Iris D'Or at the Sony World Photography Awards in 2011.
He has recently travelled to North Kenya with Oxfam where he used his trademark style to depict some of those affected by the drought in the region. There is a danger that the ethereal beauty of his pictures could of course eclipse the subject, yet for me he manages to ensure that at heart his pictures are about those within the frame.
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08:29 UK time, Thursday, 12 January 2012
Painting or drawing on a photograph might seem like an act of vandalism, and yet a new show at the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool celebrates a collection of pictures that are all marked or defaced in some way.
Painted Photographs is drawn from the collection of photographer Martin Parr who is well known for his avid collecting of all things photographic. The pictures on show are press prints and publicity shots which have been prepared for use in a publication or possibly for broadcast.
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01:02 UK time, Friday, 23 December 2011
In the fifth of a week-long series by guest bloggers, New York-based photographer Melanie Burford looks back on a year in which she helped form a new photographic collective, saw a year long project published, and sadly lost friends to the war in Libya.
Visual storytelling is complex and difficult to navigate on your own. After 20 years of working for newspapers, I finally had the courage to resign in 2009. Since that time, I have been evolving as a journalist in the constantly changing landscape of visual storytelling. It was a tough decision to leave the Dallas Morning News, and the friendships and extraordinary talent that had inspired me over seven years.
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01:10 UK time, Thursday, 22 December 2011
Photographers are facing enormous ethical questions posed by the allegations aired during the ongoing Leveson inquiry. Here, Max Houghton, course leader in MA Photojournalism at the University of Westminster and a writer on photography offers her personal views on the challenges ahead.
"For a number of years I was relentlessly pursued by 10 to 15 men, almost daily... Spat at, verbally abused... I would often find myself, at the age of 21, at midnight, running down a dark street on my own with 10 men chasing me. And the fact they had cameras in their hands made that legal."
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01:06 UK time, Wednesday, 21 December 2011
In the third of a week-long series by guest bloggers, photographer Matt Dunham looks back at his year covering the biggest news stories for the Associated Press news agency(AP).
Matt Dunham is a 33-year-old British photographer who studied Documentary Photography at the University of Wales in Newport and has worked on the staff at AP since 2005. He is best known for his picture of Prince Charles and his wife Camilla when their car was attacked during the student protests in London in December 2010.
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08:59 UK time, Tuesday, 20 December 2011
In the second of a week-long series by guest bloggers freelance photographer Philip Wolmuth looks at the current market for freelance photographers, and despite all the gloom, sees some hope for the future.
Frank Zappa once said: "Jazz isn't dead - it just smells funny". At the end of 2011 photojournalism is in a similar condition.
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00:32 UK time, Monday, 19 December 2011
In the first of a week-long series by guest bloggers, photographer Leon Neal selects his best shots from 2011, and offers an insight into the varied working life of a press photographer.
Leon is currently a staff photographer for Agence France-Presse (AFP) having worked as a freelance for a number of years following completion of the NCTJ Photojournalism course, and a scholarship at The Times newspaper in London.
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11:45 UK time, Friday, 16 December 2011
As the end of the year draws near I thought it was time to drop in on Marwah Al-Mugait and Michael McGuinness, the two students I am following as they undertake a year long MA in photojournalism at the University of Westminster.
Alongside the theoretical work led by Dr David Campany they have been producing pictures for two modules.
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11:23 UK time, Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Photographers looking for an offbeat shot often turn their attention to one of the UK's many traditional festivals.
From conkers to cheese rolling, each offers photographers a chance to capture a memorable moment. Yet for those seeking to document the custom there are other ways to approach such events.
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15:17 UK time, Wednesday, 7 December 2011
In February 1963, Ian Wright was a 16-year-old junior photographer-cum-darkroom boy on The Northern Echo. The new editor, Harold Evans - now Sir Harold - had started a weekly supplement aimed at teenagers and Ian found himself at the Sunderland Empire when four lads from Liverpool stepped on to the stage. It was the haunting mouth organ intro by John Lennon to Love Me Do that sparked Ian's love of The Beatles and began a career behind the lens.
"They were performing on the Helen Shapiro Variety Show. In those early days there were no backstage passes so I just left my old rusty school bike with 'Don the Doorman' and wandered around backstage photographing everyone on the bill. I photographed The Beatles with my flash the size of a Bentley headlamp, which when it went off it temporally blinded them. As they began to move away rubbing their eyes, I shouted: "Stop, stop, I need your names - how naive."
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11:37 UK time, Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Finding ways to attract a new audience and to encourage more people to explore the storytelling aspects of photography is a key question for the medium in the coming years. There is a vast number of photographs out there, but many just swirl around online and fail to reach more than a handful of friends.
One man who has been working in this area is photographer Daniel Meadows who combines his own photographic work with running workshops in digital storytelling.
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01:39 UK time, Sunday, 13 November 2011
Eight years ago photographer Brian David Stevens headed to the cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday to take pictures of the war veterans who gathered as part of the commemorations which are held across the UK in honour of those who died in wars and conflicts.
Yet Brian is not taking pictures of the parade, instead he is making portraits of the veterans themselves, compelling photographs of those who have fought for their country.
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01:16 UK time, Friday, 11 November 2011
The contact sheet is often described as the photographer's sketch book. It is the result of those moments of exploration, moments spent waiting for a scene to develop before the final moment when, 'click', you know you've got the shot in the can.
The godfather of photojournalism, Henri Cartier-Bresson is famously known for analysing other photographers' contact sheets as a means to judging their work.
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17:22 UK time, Monday, 7 November 2011
As part of the worldwide Occupy Movement protesters have been camped outside St Paul's Cathedral in London since 15 October looking to highlight economic inequality, social injustice, corporate greed, and the lack of transparency and accountability in the City.
Initially the group had wanted to occupy the area outside the London Stock Exchange which sits alongside the Cathedral, but the police stopped that from happening and so the Occupy London Stock Exchange (OLSX) protesters then turned to St Paul's Churchyard, the square in front of the cathedral, planning to set up camp.
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03:10 UK time, Thursday, 3 November 2011
The name Sebastiao Salgado is one that is associated with long term documentary photography projects resulting in exquisite black and white photographs, lovingly crafted from the camera to the finished exhibition print.
For the past seven years he has been working on a series entitled Genesis, a collection of photographic essays that look at the landscape, wildlife and human communities that live with what he describes as their ancestral values.
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09:38 UK time, Wednesday, 2 November 2011
Social networks bring us together, or at least that's the theory. But in that never ending quest for more friends and followers do we ever really connect with those we meet online?
During a moment of contemplation photographer Chris Floyd decided he wanted to know more about a selection of those who followed him on Twitter, and in that moment One Hundred & Forty Characters was born.
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12:13 UK time, Tuesday, 1 November 2011
There is no set route into photojournalism. Some just grab a camera and dive in hoping to make great pictures and contacts as they go, but for others part of the journey is learning about the context and lineage of the genre so a degree or higher qualification is the chosen route.
Yet for those wondering whether to take the plunge what does this involve? For those in the UK there are many different options, from intense practical courses through to some that balance this with a critical approach to photojournalism, offering a chance to study and analyse the methods and modes of production that encase it.
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