And so, just as the BBC / channel 4 would, we made it redundant and we've got ourselves a sexy new one over at
blog.glopho.com
P.S all the old content is there as it is here it's just a lot better looking!
Friday 27 September 2013
Wednesday 29 May 2013
How important is the eye-witness with a smartphone?
The tragic events that unfolded in Woolwich last week have proved once again how important ordinary folks with a smartphone can be in capturing breaking news.
How many of those who witnessed the brutal murder of Drummer Lee Rigby first hand would have left home that morning expecting to be at the centre of a major international news story?
How many would have expected to see their photos and video footage broadcast around the world and defining the tragic story?
The answer of course is none of them would. Professional news-gatherers - photographers, reporters and television crews - set out every day with the hope and expectation that they will get as close as possible to that day's breaking news. They are prepared for exactly that eventuality and indeed look forward to that call from the News Desk that sees them scramble to the rapidly unfolding story.
Woolwich was that story.
An horrific interruption to an ordinary day on an ordinary street witnessed by ordinary people. But the story was in fact littered by the extraordinary. The killers of Drummer Rigby courted exposure and many of those who just happened to be passing by, were happy to oblige.
But why and at what cost? And what of the innocent woman out shopping with her trolley who casually ignored the chaos around her and just walked on by?
Heroes, and most noticeably, heroines, emerged almost immediately. As Ingrid Loyau-Kennett jumped off her delayed bus she would have had no idea what she was stepping into but her courage and humanity was recorded by other passers-by for the annuals of history.
Professional journalists have in many cases become immune to the horrors of the stories they cover but how do we expect the rest of us to cope when it happens in our own backyard? This tragic sequence of events from the murder itself through to the shooting of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale by the police was witnessed and recorded by the public in such a fashion that they were integral to the story. From the video confession of Michael Adebolajo as he stood in the road, blood dripping from his hands, pleading with onlookers to film him, to the equally shocking shooting of the two suspects by armed police, we were given front-row seats to the horror of the unfolding drama. One eye-witness described it rather revealingly as being "...just like a movie".
The consequences of 'our' involvement and proximity to a dreadful news story are themselves not insignificant. The photos and the video shot by those at the scene - including the photo uploaded to Glopho by Biet Le - were quickly picked up by the media. As news spread of the horror, these images became a valuable commodity but also a controversial one.
The graphic amateur video of Adebowale that was broadcast by ITV and from which most newspapers and websites had 'grabbed' still photos, had attracted over 800 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) within 24 hours. Our willingness to record such horrors is seemingly matched by our discomfort in seeing those same images published and broadcast.
Once again we are reminded that with power comes responsibility as we all become accustomed to our new role as producers not just consumers of news.
How many of those who witnessed the brutal murder of Drummer Lee Rigby first hand would have left home that morning expecting to be at the centre of a major international news story?
How many would have expected to see their photos and video footage broadcast around the world and defining the tragic story?
The answer of course is none of them would. Professional news-gatherers - photographers, reporters and television crews - set out every day with the hope and expectation that they will get as close as possible to that day's breaking news. They are prepared for exactly that eventuality and indeed look forward to that call from the News Desk that sees them scramble to the rapidly unfolding story.
Woolwich was that story.
An horrific interruption to an ordinary day on an ordinary street witnessed by ordinary people. But the story was in fact littered by the extraordinary. The killers of Drummer Rigby courted exposure and many of those who just happened to be passing by, were happy to oblige.
But why and at what cost? And what of the innocent woman out shopping with her trolley who casually ignored the chaos around her and just walked on by?
Heroes, and most noticeably, heroines, emerged almost immediately. As Ingrid Loyau-Kennett jumped off her delayed bus she would have had no idea what she was stepping into but her courage and humanity was recorded by other passers-by for the annuals of history.
Professional journalists have in many cases become immune to the horrors of the stories they cover but how do we expect the rest of us to cope when it happens in our own backyard? This tragic sequence of events from the murder itself through to the shooting of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale by the police was witnessed and recorded by the public in such a fashion that they were integral to the story. From the video confession of Michael Adebolajo as he stood in the road, blood dripping from his hands, pleading with onlookers to film him, to the equally shocking shooting of the two suspects by armed police, we were given front-row seats to the horror of the unfolding drama. One eye-witness described it rather revealingly as being "...just like a movie".
The consequences of 'our' involvement and proximity to a dreadful news story are themselves not insignificant. The photos and the video shot by those at the scene - including the photo uploaded to Glopho by Biet Le - were quickly picked up by the media. As news spread of the horror, these images became a valuable commodity but also a controversial one.
The graphic amateur video of Adebowale that was broadcast by ITV and from which most newspapers and websites had 'grabbed' still photos, had attracted over 800 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) within 24 hours. Our willingness to record such horrors is seemingly matched by our discomfort in seeing those same images published and broadcast.
Once again we are reminded that with power comes responsibility as we all become accustomed to our new role as producers not just consumers of news.
Wednesday 6 March 2013
When photos become pictures
An interesting story came to light last week about the White House News Photographers Association 'Eyes of History' competition, and a winner being disqualified for tampering with their submission.
The original winning entry was recognised by eagle-eyed staff at The Washington Post and when they notified the prize givers the award was retracted. The reason? The image had been heavily manipulated from the original picture that had itself appeared in print previously without the manipulations.
The story is well covered elsewhere so we won't attempt to do that here. It did however raise some interesting debate in the office as to what extent post-processing is acceptable, and if so is there a limit to which the processing should affect the overall image.
In simple terms, the manipulated image is almost certainly going to be the better image aesthetically and probably always will be. This should be no surprise, as the photographer (and let's assume the same person processes the picture) has little or no motive to process an image in any way that would detract from the picture.
And it is nothing new. It is very common to tinker with the colour balance of an image, or to add light to a picture in processing. This is not the reserve of the digital photography age but has been very much a part of photo processing for many many years.
However, the extent to which the image in this instance was manipulated served not only to emphasise features in the picture, but in this case it served to remove entire elements of the picture - in this case a person, a match official, who was there had been removed or subdued to the extent that they were no longer visible in the image.
Under the rules of the competition, this was not acceptable. And although Glopho as a news network wants these true to life images, there is still a place for the more artistic representation of events that can be improved at the hands of the processing lab or, more commonly these days, some picture editing software.
In essence, the true to life photographic representation of events that we look for in our news, and which the competition in this case demanded, are what is required to ensure veracity of any images being reported and circulated as truths. The artistic representation is a discipline with equal merit, but they do have to live in separate worlds, and in many respects kept apart to preserve the integrity of both.
The original winning entry was recognised by eagle-eyed staff at The Washington Post and when they notified the prize givers the award was retracted. The reason? The image had been heavily manipulated from the original picture that had itself appeared in print previously without the manipulations.
The story is well covered elsewhere so we won't attempt to do that here. It did however raise some interesting debate in the office as to what extent post-processing is acceptable, and if so is there a limit to which the processing should affect the overall image.
In simple terms, the manipulated image is almost certainly going to be the better image aesthetically and probably always will be. This should be no surprise, as the photographer (and let's assume the same person processes the picture) has little or no motive to process an image in any way that would detract from the picture.
And it is nothing new. It is very common to tinker with the colour balance of an image, or to add light to a picture in processing. This is not the reserve of the digital photography age but has been very much a part of photo processing for many many years.
However, the extent to which the image in this instance was manipulated served not only to emphasise features in the picture, but in this case it served to remove entire elements of the picture - in this case a person, a match official, who was there had been removed or subdued to the extent that they were no longer visible in the image.
Under the rules of the competition, this was not acceptable. And although Glopho as a news network wants these true to life images, there is still a place for the more artistic representation of events that can be improved at the hands of the processing lab or, more commonly these days, some picture editing software.
In essence, the true to life photographic representation of events that we look for in our news, and which the competition in this case demanded, are what is required to ensure veracity of any images being reported and circulated as truths. The artistic representation is a discipline with equal merit, but they do have to live in separate worlds, and in many respects kept apart to preserve the integrity of both.
Friday 18 January 2013
What's going on with photo-sharing?
A number of recent events have brought photo-sharing into
the spotlight and it made us realise that there’s no wonder there’s a lot of
confusion about relating to privacy, copyright and ownership.
The helicopter crash in London earlier this week is a prime example
of how user-generated, or user-captured images and video were the first to
report events as they unfolded. It proved again that unexpected events cannot
be covered as quickly by an army of press photographers and freelancers – you simply
cannot get to the scene quicker than someone who is at the scene already.
The Evening Standard used one of the pictures posted by
@craiglet, without their express permission, although they have confirmed that
they were unable to contact the user and would be happy to discuss compensation
with them if it was sought.
Most news outlets acknowledge that the owner of the picture
remains the user that posted it, and Twitter’s own Terms of Service do nothing
to change that, but they do give Twitter the licence to use any content,
including pictures, if they want to, and also to sub-licence that content to
pretty much anyone.
So why then the backlash in Instagram Terms of Service(to take
effect Saturday 19th January 2013)? Their changes effectively bring
their TOS in line with that of Twitter in many senses. Perhaps it is the change that people are concerned about,
as well as the manner in which they went about it. What had been a free to use
service with some very simple rules was now apparently trying to assume ownership
of users’ content. They have since changed the wording but they ultimately retain
a position that your use of the service grants Instagram and the group of companies
to which it belongs, a comprehensive licence, and permission to sub-licence user
content.
And in a more recent if somewhat less amplified move, Getty
and Google have agreed terms giving all Google Apps users access to several
thousand Getty Images, produced by Getty and Flickr users, for free (reported on aphotoeditor.com). The
reported fee received by photographers is just $12 as a one off payment. This
could of course see those images used many thousands of times each in
presentations and company documents without being credited (all of the meta
data has been removed), and without the photographer being paid any more each
time.
What seems to be becoming more and more apparent is that for
a few years users have been happily generating content. It’s fun, it’s
engaging, and we see a lot of it going on. But there comes a point, when
another organisation wants to profit
from that content that expectations are starting to change. Users are
increasingly aware that their picture might help sell more newspapers or drive
more traffic to your website, or it might help your company document be more
impactful or close a sale opportunity, and it therefore has a monetary value. The
user is increasingly empowered – even encouraged by others – to claim what is
rightfully theirs, and we think these instances are beginning to indicate a
shift, not way from content sharing, but certainly towards an understanding
that content producers deserve to be paid, and at very least credited, for
their contribution.
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