Writing Here:

duckrabbit
David White
Ciara Leeming
John Macpherson
Peter
Sara Trula
Carl Pendle
Joni Karanka
Mike Lusmore
Madeleine Corcoran

Not Ruining the Photo

Recently I spoke at a conference about the American conflict in Vietnam. This was the first time I had presented a paper at a conference and it was interesting to receive responses after the talk. Some people were really excited by what I had said, some people wanted to argue with me, some people wanted [...]

Male rape – Guardian photofilm

When I watch a photofilm in which the audio features the photographer talking about their images, I often switch off quite quickly. But when I heard Will Storr talk about his project on male survivors of rape in Congo and Uganda, I didn’t – in fact I was stopped in my tracks. I think [...]

Competition: Please fill in the missing word

Has Steve McCurry proved himself to be a godlike *******, Nachtwey style? According to the ever brilliant APHOTOEDITOR

Old schooler McCurry goes for the craigslist classified ad seeking an intern who is “highly motivated” with a “proven track record of excellence.” This intern must be proficient in “retouching in Photoshop” and will [...]

Tonight I’m going to let you into one of photojournalism’s dirty little secrets

The Democratic Republic of Congo is the most colourful place I’ve ever visited. The women even smile.

Madam Agata teaches a group of women in their last month of pregnancy to knit (c) Yasuyoshi Chiba/duckrabbit/MSF

Infact it’s the Muzungus (white people) who were the most drab, including this dodgy looking geezer:

 

duckrabbit [...]

Faking it – how to win a World Press Award but get banned from a wildlife comp for life

During the judging of the recent World Press Awards one thing you can trust is that, on the whole, the judges will pick great pictures. With a hundred thousand or so to chomp through they’d have to be visually illiterate to do anything else. But can you trust that the work they pick has [...]

This is just lovely

Wish more people made gentle films like this. And wish more people understood this is a convinceing way to engage people about climate change.

Thanks @finnryan for sharing

Fly Fishing | Climate Wisconsin from ECB on Vimeo.

War Never Looked So Hip

(amended title because Joerg’s was MUCH better)

Take a look at this picture by Damon Winter, as featured on the (excellent) New York Times, Lens Blog, and part of a series featured in the newspaper:

The photographs have been taken using an iPhone that automatically applies heavy processing with an iPhone app. On [...]

‘A call to arms to emerging photojournalists’, MOG on Foto8

Mog wishes to issue a call to arms to emerging photojournalists. Be aware, we are on the brink of a social and cultural revolution that in all likelihood will make Thatcherism seem mild and innocuous by comparison. Too many young photographers based in the UK seem obsessed with looking abroad for stories and inspiration. [...]

Joerg Colberg to curate Visa Pour L’image

Everybody knows (and behind his back everybody says) that one of the problems with the Visa, Festival of Shanty Towns, is that it only has one curator, and as time ticks on more and more people are turning blue trying to squeeze into the narrowness of that curator’s mind. (that may sound a bit tough,but [...]

The Wrath of Rodriguez

I’m In Malmo, Sweden, with the photographer Joseph Rodriguez. We’re working on a radio documentary and photofilm about how a whole generation of young immigrants are being lost to a life of crime and social inequality.

Over the last four days we’ve been hanging with some of these young people. It’s been a troubling experience, [...]

If you don’t get why equality

should be the one and only millennium development goal then watch this important and disturbing film.

I apologize for the tiny size of this film which does not in any way do the work justice. For some reason Mediastorm insist the film is either embedded at a width of 460 or 1000 pixels. 460 is [...]

JF Leroy, ‘I am listening’

Some of you will have been following the debate about why JF Leroy (Director of the Visa Pour L’Image Festival) has gone to such lengths to give the Haitian photographer Daniel Morel a kicking for uploading 15 of his pictures to Twitpic on the night of the Haitian earthquake.

I recommend that you read the [...]

Is Getty wearing Leroy’s trousers?

UPDATE Jean Francois Leroy has emailed duckrabbit to say he will be responding within the next 48 hours.

Some of you will have been following the debate about why JF Leroy (Director of the Visa Pour L’Image Festival) has gone to such lengths to give the Haitian photographer Daniel Morel a kicking for uploading 15 [...]

Dear Mr Leroy (an open letter)

Thank you for your response to my post yesterday critisizing the way way certain photo agencies seem content to abuse the rights of indvidual photographers. I am sorry that we misunderstood you. Might that have something to do with upholding a logic that many people find is at odds with your self stated remit of [...]

Why AFP, Getty, Jean-Francois Leroy, CNN, ABC, CBS love photographs but have no time for photographers, or ‘it wasn’t rape your honor because she was in the room and I was horny’

The case that opens today according to NPPA:

In a case that could set precedent in online copyright legislation and impact photographers around the world, oral arguments are scheduled to begin Friday in a New York City courtroom in freelance photojournalist Daniel Morel’s claim against Agence France-Presse.

Morel is suing AFP for using, without his [...]

Audio slideshow: Palestinian Bagpipers

There’s a bag piper who stalks the streets of Kings Heath, where duckrabbit lives. Well there was until he disapeared a few weeks ago. Turns out the local mafia put his feet in concrete and dropped him off Spagehtti Junction during rush hour. Can’t say anyone was too outraged because when he was about the [...]

Don McCullin Audio Slideshow on the BBC - Shaped by the War

Don McCullin is not only a great photographer but he’s also a great talker. I caught him this morning on the BBC’s TODAY programme. It was a powerful listen. Important too to hear a photographer talk about the cost to his mental health of the work he does. The BBC are hosting an audio [...]

Drawing the dead

It’s not often the BBC’s small audio slideshow team really nail it on the head, but they’ve put together something special today.

Portraits of the Fallen tells the story of a Vietnam veteran who gets up at 4am every morning to draw pictures of service men and women killed in Iraq.

As well as [...]

Tim Hetherington's RESTREPO

Have to say I’m not that arsed about seeing Tim Hetherington’s new documentary Restrepo, which follows the lives of a group of American soldiers in Afghanistan throughout a year. Why? Because it will probably only accentuate an already piss poor stereotypical vision of Afghanistan, told from one side only, much as the massively overrated The [...]

(click on photo, the video player will load, then click again to play)

It’s one of those moments you don’t forget.

This term I’ve been a guest lecturer at Birmingham City University. I sat twenty students down in front of one of the four videos we’ve been producing for MSF (more of [...]