SnapperTalk

The ever-prolific Sion Touhig has some good new articles:

A first about the “Cruel Sea” exhibition in London of Canary-Island-based Reuters photographer Juan Medina’s series of pictures on the suffering of African illegal migrants who attempt to travel to Europe and often end up drowned.

A second about the death of El Mundo and Ultimas Noticias photographer Jorge Aguirre who was shot in Caracas, Venezuela, on his way to cover an anti-crime demonstration. With obvious respect to the tragedy itself, the truly remarkable aspect of this journalist’s death, is that Jorge was able to take a photograph of his killer fleeing the scene on a motorcycle before he died - see here and here.

And a third, about two phenomena in photojournalism that are sadly on the rise these days - the use of photo-competitions as naked rights-grabs for the sponsors, and the increasing use of anti-terrorist and anti-paedophile terminology as an excuse for prohibiting photography in public places. Both of these phenomena must be challenged and thwarted.

PDNonline has an interesting interview with photographer Lynn Johnson that centres around the concept of photojournalists-as-activists. There’s also an interesting discussion surrounding the article in this LightStalkers thread.

The National Journal has a lengthy article with a number of interviews with prominent photo-editors, about the difficulties photo-editors face in maintaining standards of accuracy and truth in an environment so utterly hostile to free reporting such as Iraq. It raises questions about the use of stringers, the avoidance of staged photos, and the attempts by both U.S. Military and insurgents to use the media for their own purposes.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s troubles continue… Human Rights Watch yesterday published a statement that it believes it has evidence - based on a December 20, 2005 Army Inspector General’s report containing a sworn statement by by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt - suggesting that Rumsfeld could be criminally liable for the torture of detainee Mohammad al-Qahtani at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 and early 2003, and calling for the United States to name a special prosecutor to investigate the culpability of Rumsfeld and others in the al-Qahtani case.

The April edition of The Digital Journalist has some good articles worth a read:

There’s a special series of articles in tribute of groundbreaking African-American photographer Gordon Parks, who died March 7 this year.

Also in the April edition is an article by Greg Kelly about the nature of war photographers as people. Greg is one of the producers of the recent CBC television documentary “Beyond Words: Photographers of War“. I haven’t seen the documentary - the website says you can purchase the film but replies asking for further information have gone unanswered - so if anyone has a copy I’d love to get hold of it.

Still on the war theme is a piece by TV producer Ron Steinman from the perspective of those who assign others to go to conflict zones, including some thoughtful comments on what he terms the “big foot” syndrome whereby TV anchors come parachute in from headquarters and steal the story from local correspondents who have been covering the story day in, day out, for years.

And after all that heavy reading, something to watch: Love him or hate him, if you want to relive the powerful speech by British M.P. George Galloway in front of the U.S. Senate which took place almost a year ago in which he oratorically demolishes U.S. Republican Senator Norm Coleman - someone has finally posted a torrent of the full-tv-quality 45-minute testimony, although it’s not being seeded much.