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This little story bought back a memory for me. Years ago, whilst a young, junior snapper on the Leicester Mercury – my first job – I was captioning my prints outside the darkroom when the editor marched up, howling, as he was want to do. Alex his name was, and everyone was terrified of him, especially my picture editor. I was just a noob who hadn’t really learnt when to keep his head down and stfu whilst in the newsroom.

Up strides Alex, parting the waves as he cut through the office. All the other photographers skulked back into the darkroom (where the ed would refuse to go, thank God) demanding to know what the days pics were. My timid pic ed started to show him the 12×8’s laid out on the table. Just then Alex’s eyes alighted upon an item on the window sill. Bear in mind the editor made all the decisions about what kit the snappers were allowed ( sod all). He started to shout at my picture ed. I can still remember it almost word for word.

Ed: What’s that?
pic ed: what?
Ed: That lens on the window sill..
Pic ed: what lens on the window sill?

I was sat quietly nearby, pretending to be busy, but I could see what was happening. One of the other togs had left their new thermos flask out. It was black, admittedly, but it had a cup, a large handle, and it said THERMOS in large letters down the side. It was bloody obviously a thermos flask..

So, I decided to chip in..everyone has a sense of humour, right? Not Alex. Oh no, not Alex.

“It’s our new 300 2.8″ I quipped.

Big mistake.

Ed to pic ed:” What the f*** are you doing buying new lenses without my say so?”
Pic ed to ed: What? we haven’t…I…

I realised then that I’d chosen to say the wrong thing, as I have done many, many times. My pic ed was about to get a royal bollocking, and it was going to all be my fault. So I thought I’d try and save the situation…

“It’s not really a new lens Alex, it’s a thermos flask” said I, thinking that would calm things down. Wrong. I suppose I had just made the Ed look stupid, though I didn’t realise it at the time…

I can remember this exchange absolutely word for word:

Ed: “What the f*** do you mean? Are you taking the f****** piss? Who the F*** do you think you are? You’re just a f***** junior…what the f*** do you think you’re doing taking the piss out of me? I’ll have your f****** job faster than you can sneeze you f******* little shit”

Ooops.

My pic ed was as white as a sheet. The deputy was backing away. The newsroom was silent.

I apologised, which didn’t work, and skulked off into the darkroom. Ten minutes later the pic ed came in, and told me that I had to leave the office for the rest of the day because if the editor saw me again that day he was going to rip me to pieces. I did as I was told.

A week later, at a football match 150 miles away in Leeds, one of the Leeds togs came up to me and asked “Are you Dave White?” I answered. “I heard about you and the Thermos flask. Brilliant, we’ve been having a right laugh about that” So within a week the story had done the rounds.

That editor never spoke to me again until the day of my resignation. That suited me fine.

I’ve never understood why so many editors feel it necessary to speak to their newsroom like shit on their shoe. Moral of this story: beware of lenses that say Thermos down the side. Or editors called Alex. Or something like that.

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Duckrabbit can be the first to tell you that the terms and conditions to the ‘Science: so what‘ photo comp have been radically altered to the benefit of all participants. It’s great to know that we can affect these things. I would like to thank the elusive ‘Frank’ for all his efforts. Here is the most relevant amended clause:

“By entering this contest you agree that any (winning or shortlisted) entry you submit may be used by the Promoter, News Group Newspapers Ltd and their selected sub licensees solely for marketing and promotional purposes in connection with this contest or future contests, such uses include;
· judging the competition;
· displaying the entries on the Science: [So what? So everything] website and The Sun’s website;
· displaying the entries in the printed version(s) of The Sun newspaper;
· cropping and re-sizing the image as necessary to fit; and
· inclusion within any materials promoting the competition or any exhibition of images from this competition organized by the Promoter, News Group Newspapers Ltd and their authorised representatives”

Best get entering then if you have a relevant snap…

Just need to get Mandelson to change the DEB now….may be a little tougher….

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World Press Photo has disqualified a Ukraine-based photographer – Stepan Rudik – for altering his images “beyond the boundary of what is acceptable practice, BJP has learnt

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I’ve been trying to talk to ‘Frank’ for a while now. The government urge us to do so, but I’ve found him deaf as a post, and rather naive. All I want him to do is address the concerns many have over the ridiculous and greedy ‘Science so what’ photo comp…you know, the one where all entrants to the Government’s
science photo comp give Murdoch the rights to use ALL entries (not even just the winner…) across ALL media, FOREVER, for NO pay. And one person wins a mediocre camera. Genius. Evil genius.

Frank said he’d try to help. He lied. (EDIT…HE DIDN’T…THANKS FRANK ) I don’t even think Frank exists.( EDIT…HE DOES)

UPDATE:
‘Frank’ has been back in touch (funny how is gender changes across here and the facebook group, but hey, whatever floats your boat)..here is his/her reply:

Hi everyone
I can assure you I do exist! Sorry for not getting back to you sooner – things are taking a little longer than I expected. Thanks to the information posted here we’ve been able to draft a new set of terms and conditions that will better reflect the aims of the competition and how the images will be used. Once these are signed off by the legal team they’ll replace the existing T and Cs. Thanks for you patience, and for raising this issue.
Best
Frank

Fingers crossed….seems like maybe we can ‘Talk to Frank’ after all…

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‘Some of my favorite moments working at a magazine have been getting shoots back from photojournalists. No one can tell a story, capture defining moment, thrive under duress and deliver the goods like they do. I can’t imagine a world without them.’

A Photo Editor

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‘Sometimes you don’t need a 50 picture edit with video and audio with 10 people’s points of view in order to get the essence of a story across. Sometimes all it takes is one picture and a few spoken words.’

You can see what Tom’s talking about here.

Ciara is a proper journalist, it was a total honor to train her and for my money Street Fighters is the most important sustained multimedia project going on in Britain right now.

Along with the likes of Harmit Kambo and Anna Stevens,  a fresh scene of really talented producers are starting to emerge, with an authentic English voice. These are genuine storytellers who are going to get better and better.

It’s exactly what duckrabbit hoped would happen when we started this blog just over 12 months ago (feeling very much alone and wondering what I was doing leaving a decent job at the BBC!).  Last month visitors on our sites were over 24000, with a huge chunk of them from the UK. Every week we’re getting inquiries for training (apologies if we’ve been unable to accommodate you so far!). There’s a real buzz around this kind of work, but also an acknowledgment that it’s a form in its infancy in the UK.  The surface has just been scratched. There will be (fresh) blood.

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‘I think it’s quite sad that many Americans believe that photos submitted by unknown readers are as worthy as a photo taken by a professional photojournalist steeped in journalistic ethics, and with years of training and a proven track record.

I’ve been doing interviews with Iraqi photogs here in Baghdad and some of their colleagues have literally given their lives to bring home the truth.—the Iraqi wire photogs talk about the truth all the time. The Reuters operation here had four staff killed and four wounded in the war. That’s real sacrifice and it makes me furious that many of our citizens have a low opinion of what we do, and that they feel a blog or a photo of unknown provenance—by someone who never spent a day in the field, or may have god-knows-what motivations—is as relevant as good journalism.

It’s not and it never will be.’

Michael Kamber

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In case you missed the post about the recent “Science, so what competition” it’s down the page a bit here.
“Frank”, whoever he may be, finished off his message (under comments on the above link) to us with the line:
“If you have any more concerns then please add them here or drop me a line via the website and I’ll do my best to help!”

Which would appear to be a lie. We have many concerns, as do a large number of photographers, and Frank has been sod all help. I explained clearly and simply what was needed to make the competition fair. Simple things such as not allowing News International to be able to use ALL entries for ANY purpose in ANY media, for FREE, FOREVER. Frank’s lame understanding of the issues was highlighted in his reply to the duck. That’s fine, Frank doesn’t have to understand. His lawyers do, and they’re the crafty ones who know EXACTLY what they are doing. Frank’s innocence and naivety are very sweet, but, frankly, useless, as evinced by his inability to follow up on his words above.
I expect Murdoch to try this on. I don’t expect the Government to play along. Yet again my MP will be getting another letter, and I am outlining the problems to Lord Drayson. Shameless.

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duck is looking forward to talking at this event.

You can sign up here (it’s free)

Any duckrabbit readers please do grab me for a pint afterwards.

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