photojournalism

Contact sheet: Dame Iris Murdoch and John Bayley, Oxford, September 1998

When this set of photographs, one of the last of her, was taken Dame Iris was in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s and her husband described her as being like “a very nice 3-year-old,”. She died in Oxford on February 8, 1999. In his memoir “Elegy for Iris” John Bayley portrays his brilliant wife lovingly but unsentimentally. He was in turn very much in love with her and very caring about her when I spent a brief time shooting this set of pictures. She was unaware of who I was or what I was doing but his hand was always in hers and she seemed to accept that everything was OK because of that.

The original caption simply read: Professor John Bayley and Dame Iris Murdoch photographed in the back garden of their home in Oxford. 09.09.1998 photo: Neil Turner/Times Higher Education Supplement. ©News International

The Times Higher Education Supplement was running a review of Professor Bayley’s book about his wife and the Picture Editor had asked me to drive to Oxford to shoot his portrait. While I was driving between London and Oxford I was told that at least two other photographers would be shooting before me and that it was “unlikely” that Dame Iris would be in the pictures. I don’t mind doing portraits of authors on those days when you form an orderly queue with reporters and television crews for your chance to do the same five minute job but this one seemed a little less “organised”.

I arrived in that part of Oxford where it seems every second home is owned by a Nobel Prize winner or a celebrity academic to find their house looking a little sorry for itself. The front garden, the fences and the paintwork all needed some TLC and I quite like to shoot portraits around those areas. I had twenty minutes to wait and started to think about the light, the colours and watch for other photographers and journalists to come out. Nobody appeared so I grabbed my gear and knocked on the door. When Professor Bayley answered, he looked like the gardener but spoke exactly how you might imagine an Oxford Professor would.

In the film “Iris” which stars Dame Judi Dench as the older Iris Murdoch the house is untidy. Actually having been there I can tell you that untidy doesn’t even come close. There were books and newspapers everywhere. Televisions were on the BBC in almost every room and there was Dame Iris herself sitting quietly at the kitchen table. I was nervous about asking if she would be available for the pictures but Professor Bayley seemed to know what I wanted to ask and told me that he wanted her to be in the pictures with him but that she found flash disturbing. I was shooting 35mm colour negative film at the time and so we decided that the house was too dark and too untidy to be a good location for a portrait. Ironically these days I would have probably done some pictures on my 5D MkIIs using the small amount of available light indoors at 3200 ISO but there was no way that 800 ISO colour negative would cope.

The beauty of these pictures is that nobody from the publishers had been round to tidy up, dress them up or even attempt to sanitise the images. Because of that we were able to make some lovely portraits. We chatted about garden birds, foliage and the English weather. It was a surreal time.

In the end I shot 72 frames (two rolls of 200 ISO Fuji Colour Negative film) which I drove back to London where the film was processed by the newspaper darkroom and all scanned onto a Kodak Photo CD at a resolution unthinkable for a digital camera at the time – the equivalent of a 6 megapixel camera when the Kodak DCS520 was just becoming available with it’s 1.9 megapixel chip. The cameras used here were a Canon EOS1V and an EOS1N with 28-70 f2.8L and 70-200 f2.8L lenses.

Metropolitan Police guidelines for dealing with the media

Guidelines for MPS staff on dealing with media reporters, press photographers and television crews.

Members of the media are not only members of the public; they can influence the way the Metropolitan Police Service is portrayed. It is important that we build good relationships with them, even when the circumstances are difficult. They have a duty to report many of those things that we have to deal with – crime, demonstrations, accidents, major events and incidents. This guide is designed to help you take the appropriate action when you have to deal with members of the media.

Members of the media have a duty to report from the scene of many of the incidents we have to deal with. We should actively help them carry out their responsibilities provided they do not interfere with ours.

Where it is necessary to put cordons in place, it is much better to provide the media with a good vantage point from which they can operate rather than to exclude them, otherwise they may try to get around the cordons and interfere with police operations. Providing an area for members of the media does not exclude them from operating from other areas to which the general public have access.

Members of the media have a duty to take photographs and film incidents and we have no legal power or moral responsibility t prevent or restrict what they record. It is a matter for their editors to control what is published or broadcast, not the police. Once images are recorded, we have no power to delete or confiscate them without a court order, even if we think they contain damaging or useful evidence.

If someone who is distressed or bereaved asks for police to intervene to prevent members of the media filming or photographing them, we may pass on their request but we have no power to prevent or restrict media activity. If they are trespassing on private property, the person who owns or controls the premises may eject them and may ask for your help in preventing a breach of the peace while they do so. The media have their own rules of conduct an complaints procedure if members of the public object.

To help you identify genuine members of the media, they carry identification, which they will produce to you on request.

Members of the media do not need a permit to photograph or film in public places.

To enter private property while companying police, the media must obtain permission, which must be recorded, from the person who owns or is in control of the premises. We cannot give or deny permission to members of the media to enter private premises whether the premises are directly involved in the police operation or not. This is a matter between the person who owns or is in control of the premises and the members of the media.

Giving members of the media accident to incident scenes is a matter for the Senior Investigating Officer. The gathering of evidence and forensic retrieval make access unlikely in the early stages and this should be explained to members of the media. Requests for access should be passed to the Senior Investigating Officer who should allow access in appropriate cases as soon as practicable.

Advice and assistance in dealing with members of the media is available 24 hours a day via the Press Bureau at New Scotland Yard.

Teamwork

Great news photography doesn’t just stem from a good photographer. There is are a whole number of people that come together in the planning, execution and reproduction of top class images and the real downside of being a freelancer is that I miss being part of a really great team.

©Neil Turner/TSL | Weymouth, Dorset | December 2007

Being a photographer is usually part of a process. Images are commissioned, stories are bought and sold, edits are done and newspapers are printed. It’s a big and complicated jigsaw and being the person who operates the camera has to be the best part. There is no such thing as a run of the mill commission, but the process often goes like this;

  • The story is commissioned
  • The arrangements are made
  • The photographer is briefed
  • The photographs are taken
  • The edit is done
  • The pages are laid out
  • The newspaper/magazine is printed

There can be upwards of thirty people involved in the whole process and it’s important that the communication is good and that it goes in all directions. Some photographers aren’t as lucky as I am – this piece from the Sports Shooter site is a tongue in cheek rant against bad communications and poor commissioning. Unfortunately lot’s of photographers fail to live up to their obligations, indeed many don’t even recognise that they even have those obligations. It is up to us to talk to the picture editor, the journalist and ask the right questions. Getting the correct information from everyone else in the chain gives the photographer the best possible opportunity to shoot the right photographs and to tell the story in the best way possible. A failure to communicate ties the creative hands of the photographer and drastically reduces their chance of making a great set of pictures.

Sometimes the commissioning editor will forget an important detail, and at other times spelling mistakes and wrong addresses will get in the way of the pictures. Checking details, double checking spellings and discussing the story with the editorial staff will always prove to be time well spent:

  • It helps with the story under discussion
  • It improves your own relationship with the editorial team
  • It goes a little way to improving photographer editorial relations on a world scale!

Of course the picture desk need to do their bit in this vital piece of symbiosis because photographers really appreciate being given accurate information, input into the story and feedback after publication. Two way conversations work, and the industry needs more of them.

Dusk… my favourite time of day for shooting pictures

Bournemouth beach. ©Neil Turner, July 2009

Anyone who knows me or who has ever looked at my folio will know just how much I like being by the sea and that the beach is my single favourite location. I’m a lucky guy and I live on the south coast of England – in the same town in which I was born, Unimaginative, I know – but it’s a great place to live and take pictures. Shooting portraits against the background of a mean and moody sky at dusk is one of my favourite things to do and shooting those skies without people is almost as much of a joy.

Going on the beach as the sun goes away is also a great time to capture very saturated colours. The picture to the left of the breakwater (we call them groynes here in Dorset by the way) with the low angle sunshine is a great example of the clarity and beauty of the evening light when the sun actually shines in the UK. I have no other reason to post this picture than to show that every once in a while you get light so pure, so perfect that no amount of lighting can improve upon it.

Bournemouth beach. ©Neil Turner, July 2009

This picture of the sun going down over the cliff tops is another story. I was walking on my own and took an EOS50D along for the fun of it. I didn’t have anyone to photograph and my lights were back in the car anyway so I had to shoot the sky whilst wishing I had someone interesting in front of the camera!

This kind of sky seems to be most common at the end of the summer and into early autumn. I’m looking forward to a few more and, with luck, I’ll get to shoot some portraits with them too.

There are, apparently, two types of news photographers…

News photography isn’t a huge industry. It employs a few thousand people here in the UK and it’s amazing how many of those know each other, or at least know of each other. That having been said, it’s also amazing that so few people can be divided into so many small pockets. Sports photographers, news photographers, local newspaper photographers and features photographers all come to mind as sub-divisions of the business. Whilst talking to a couple of colleagues the other day I was made aware of another division. A division that you seem to fall on one side or the other of according to the way you see and shoot pictures.

John Redwood MP – back in the day. ©Neil Turner, January 1994

Apparently I’m a “light and shader” whilst my two colleagues referred to themselves as “tight and brights”. They told me that the division here in the UK was broadly along the lines of tabloid versus broadsheet, mass market versus serious. This explanation was both amusing and, in a lot of ways, pleasing. I like to think of myself as a more serious photographer – one whose use of light and shade is central to their style but I was a bit worried that they seemed to be writing off what they do at the same time.

Make no mistake, these are two top class photographers, each with a staff job on one of the two biggest selling newspapers in the country. They provide their picture editors with the right images day in and day out that satisfy the constraints of the designs and the tastes of the readers. Both are also intelligent and articulate journalists and so I did start to wonder whether they were just taking the mickey out of me – implying that I take myself and my work too serioiusly.

The chances are that it is a little of everything. I suspect that they and the other tight and brighters like to differentiate themselves from the mainstream and I also suspect that they envy the small amount of extra creative freedom that the light and shaders seem to get. It also makes you realise how hard the job of wire service and agency photographers must be – satisfying two very distinct markets at the same time and having to have an eye for different types of images on the same job.

No doubt there are other divisions between photographers. I can think of a few other ways of dividing us up: I once heard one of my photographic heroes talking about the “that will do gang” – referring to an attitude amongst some professionals whereby they will do enough to satisfy their brief without going the extra yards let alone the extra mile in order to produce the best work possible that he contended was what made doing the job so satisfying and what made hime rush to get out of bed almost every working day.

I know what he means. I found myself getting excited about shooting an interesting portrait a week or so ago – excited enough that it would be slightly uncool to admit it. I love taking pictures and I love to make use of light and shade. I’ve got to shoot some tight and bright images later this week and I will think of my two tabloid colleagues when I do.

Photocalls… aaaargghhh!

On the day when several US wire services took the principled decision not to distribute images from the White House that they had not themselves taken I thought that the timing was right to resurrect one of my own opinion pieces which expresses how I, and many of my colleagues, feel about the pre-arranged photocall. At their very best they can provide useable photographs, but the rest of the time they merely offer up banal images. The question is…does it have to be this way?

Organising photocalls should be a separate profession, but it isn’t. Public relations firms seem to have the knack of setting up ridiculous tableaux with pointless props and “C” list celebrities whilst many companies have their own in-house marketing teams who try to shoehorn as many executives in grey suits into a photograph as possible.

No matter how many of the assembled highly skilled and hugely experienced professional photographers tell the PRs that their idea of a photograph will never make it into their newspapers, the PR people still seem to make it a matter of pride to stop us getting good pictures.

Just when you think it couldn’t become more farcical they hand out the press releases. Many of these documents weigh more than a decent SLR (lens included) and a large photocall may well account for a couple of trees (branches included). How many times do we have to tell the PR people that a single sheet of paper with the relevant names and a one paragraph summary of the event would be a lot more desirable? (and environmentally friendly!). These days the release could even be on a USB memory stick or even passed around by bluetooth, which goes even further to reduce the carbon footprint of the event.

In these days of digital photography and laptops you would think that they would at least organize a bit of space so that some of us could use it to acquire and send our pictures – maybe even lay on some wi-fi. Apparently what is actually needed is some fatty canapes, white tablecloths and wine at 11am. We would really appreciate some thought about parking (not plentiful in London) and rapidly approaching deadlines, but the PR would rather fuss about name badges and being seen to be working hard trying to accommodate some obscure request from someone with little or no need to be there. PRs – get your priorities right!

So, if you are organizing a photocall soon here are some tips:

  • Make sure that the photocall notice is issued in good time and doesn’t make inflated claims about what is on offer.
  • Organize parking or make it clear where the nearest public parking can be found.
  • Keep any signs and logos to a minimum – if it doesn’t need to be there, get rid of it.
  • Welcome photographers and give them a run through of what might be likely to happen.
  • Listen to the constructive criticisms of experienced photographers who will suggest changes and improvements to your plans.
  • Make sure that the photographers are given enough time and space to do their jobs. Keep bystanders at bay and, if you have employed your own photographer, make sure that they allow the invited photographers priority.
  • Provide an accurate and concise press release – it could be on a USB flash stick to save paper and help photographers cut and paste correct spellings
  • Arrange space, power points and even wi-fi connections to enable photographers to file their images

Photocalls are the jobs that none of us want to be sent on. It need not be like that, but a small army of PRs out there seem determined to promote mediocrity and banality.

Getting the viewer’s attention without them knowing how?

From time to time I deliver seminars to fellow photographers and I give lectures to students, PR people and just about anyone who will listen. If I get long enough, there is a central theme to what I try to say. It really amounts to defining the difference between a photographer and somebody with a camera. It’s about how we see the world and how we show others that world.

Professor Heinz Wolff. ©Neil Turner/TSL, May 2005

Photographers do more than push that button. We bring creativity, experience and thought to the process to give our images something that “just push the button” photographs would rarely ever have. At this point in a live lecture there are usually a few worried faces, a few that are toying with calling out b***s*** and a majority that are just puzzled. Let me explain.

What a successful photograph has is a view of the world or of people that the viewer instantly recognises but will give them an interpretation that they would not see with either the naked eye or their own pictures. Successful pictures contain the information that the photographer wanted to include but exclude all sorts of stuff that doesn’t need to be there. Good photographers use a whole bunch of techniques to deliver a view that is familiar but sufficiently different to make the viewer look again. By now the audience members who will benefit from the lecture are trying to work out what I mean by techniques. A two dimensional image of three dimensional reality frozen in time is what still photography will always give – that’s “just” physics. We can do so much more.

In days gone by photographs were always an interpretation of the world because they contained no colour. The vast majority of the population see in colour and so delivering them a picture in tones of black, white and grey has always been the simplest way to make the real unreal but recognisable. Make the black and white print properly and you are really starting to produce the kind of pictures that I am talking about.

Converting an image to monochrome is the oldest and simplest technique but we have so many others. Shooting from different angles lets the photographer show their vision. I wrote an essay many years ago called “six feet up is bad” which basically said that photographs taken from a normal adult standing height had a much harder time of making the viewer see something in a scene that they wouldn’t have seen themselves. Take the picture from below two feet or above eight feet and your perspective shifts and the photograph stands a better chance of catching the viewer’s subconscious eye. Similarly, using longer or wider lenses than the human eye would relate to gives the photographer a way to pass on their vision. Using shallow depths of field or interesting light, having saturated colours or leaving colour casts normally corrected by the human eye all give us extra tools and techniques for making our images far more interesting.

Of course you can go too far – but that’s all part of what makes photography so interesting. Use too many tricks in the same image and you just end up with a statement about how you took a picture rather than having a great picture.

On almost every assignment I shoot wide and I shoot tight. I shoot from low angles and from height. I light a lot more of my work than most photographers but I try to give my clients choice between obviously and subtly lit images. If I do shoot a picture at f5.6 in average light on a 50mm lens from five feet ten inches of of the ground with the subject ten feet away it’s quite a shock to me!

The most successful images are those that get the viewer’s attention without them knowing why.