Raw vs Jpeg

This is an argument I have seen played out on many occasions between photographers, most recently on social media and in particular on my favourite new fix: YouTube, where there is no shortage of advice and opinions.

Two high profile ‘educators’ or vloggers, (not sure if they are working photographers or just YouTubers) publicly slugged it out via their video channels, each arguing the case for either format.  None of their arguments made much sense but that’s probably just as well. However, the fundamental point of which is better, completely missed the point.

Just like the cameras and lenses photographers choose to use for a specific job, so too can be said of which format a photographer should use be it RAW or Jpeg.  I would go further and to be fair, this point was made…sort of, a beginner would do well to learn as much as they can before shooting in RAW, for no other reason than there is a certain amount of post processing required to extrapolate what they have shot in-camera before they can use the image.

It stands to reason therefore, that a person just starting out in photography will have little if no experience on how to process a RAW file and would be better served shooting Jpegs until such time that they have gained the required level of skill to extract all the detail from a RAW file.

And to be honest, this is an area that I have yet to fully exploit as my skill level in post is pretty basic as I have never needed to use photoshop other than the basic tweaks and for captioning.

To this end, the only time anyone would readily choose to shoot Jpegs would be those working as a press photographer, where the single most critical aspect when on a job -apart from the obvious – is speed.  They do not have the luxury of trawling through hundreds of images converting RAW files into Jpegs before transmitting them to their respective publication or agency.

Of course speed is all relative. When I was working on assignments back in the day of film, speed could be a matter of hours or in some cases days. Naturally, this was before the age of the internet and lead times were much longer. You had time to return to your publication, pop into the darkroom, place your rolls into the drop tanks of developer and so on…

If further afield, you had the option of handing your undeveloped rolls of film to a courier who would then either jump onto a bike or in extreme cases if abroad, onto a flight back to base. 

Then we had portable scanners and wire transmitting equipment and things became a lot faster until we finally reached the point of rolling news and the internet and speed was down to a matter of minutes.

Today, everyone from fashion to landscape to wedding photographers and most probably everything in between, should be shooting in RAW to maximize the full potential of the image they have captured.  And despite what anyone says or tells you, maximize they will and do.

Taylor Swift joins hypocrisy list

It was great to see international singing artist Taylor Swift has complained to Apple’s i-tunes regarding its offering of free downloads to its subscribers for a set period by refusing to allow her new album ‘1989’ to be featured on its new streaming service.

Her complaint – in a nutshell – is that the recording artist would not be recompensed for their labours unlike U2, who gave away their new album for free to i-tune subscribers, but only after Apple had paid them a small fortune for the privilege.

Unfortunately, whilst Taylor Swift has legitimate concerns about recording artists working for free, she does not consider those photographing her in concert in quite the same light.  As many of us have come to experience over the past few years, promoters/managers now ask photographers who cover concerts to sign a contract which in effect hands over copyright to the artist, thus depriving the photographer from any earnings for the privilege of promoting the concert.

Taylor Swift is not alone of course. From the huge to the small independent artist, more and more are asking photographers to sign away their rights.  From Bjork to the Tiger Lillies all have such contracts in place.

And it doesn’t stop at concerts. I had the management of Roland Keating ask that I sign such a contract before embarking on an assignment to cover the Orient Express racing an E-type Jaguar from London to Venice.  He was just a passenger on board the train.  I naturally refused to photograph him, there was no point.

So whilst Taylor Swift should be commended for her stance over the rights of recording artists, she should also take a hard look in the mirror and consider those who are responsible for perpetuating her image across the globe, the photographers.

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Baptism of Fire: a freelancer’s behind the scenes look at covering areas of conflict is now available from Amazon as an e-book and no, you do not require a Kindle. http://tinyurl.com/l57rqa6

“Theo liasi has written an honest, no frills account of life as a war photographer. His was the reality of a freelancer with no one to cover his back. His conclusion Is surprisingly funny given the subject matter. Well worth the read especially if you are contemplating a career in this area”

Egypt’s press freedom

 

 

Two years ago, I was in Tahrir Square for the results of the Presidential Elections and subsequent victory by Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

It was a strangely curious affair. I was warned several times on route, not to go to the square by innocent bystanders, some even claiming that there were stashes of weapons on the outskirts of the square, just in case the results – which everyone expected was already a forgone conclusion – did not go the way of the Brotherhood.

Once inside the square, there was a convivial atmosphere with the usual ramping up of the crowds by certain elements. It was a scorchingly hot day and the heat was certainly being turned up as the hours past waiting for the results to be aired to the waiting masses.

I played tourist using a small camera trying as best as possible to engage with the crowds in that oh so innocent way of a foreigner who just happens to stumble across a major event. It worked very well for me.  As the results were finally basted out over the square by large speakers and the crowds erupted in euphoria, I was surprised to find myself becoming quite emotional at all the scenes of jubilation.

After a while however, I thought it time to beat a retreat and file the images before it got too late, conscious of the fact that around the corner any corner, there was the real possibility of stumbling across a cache of weapons or worse men with weapons.

At no time was I ever stopped, questioned or molested by anyone, either in or out of uniform. So I was somewhat perplexed by a story that appeared a day or so later of a female journalist who claimed she had been ganged raped by a group of men within Tahrir Square.

Rightly or wrongly, the authorities were nowhere to be seen on that day and what has transpired since has been a steady decline in personal freedom.  The sentencing of three journalists for seven years by a court in Cairo has done nothing but bring world wide condemnation. It is as short-sighted as it is ill-conceived by a regime who have no understanding how democracy works.

Would I have been arrested for taking pictures of jubilant pro-Morsi supporters in Tahrir Square? Freedom of the press is the bedrock of any progressive, forward-thinking government determined to drag its nation into the 21st century.

For a nation which has culture and history seeping from every grain of sand, it is truly depressing that once again it is the messenger that is targeted by a paranoid regime. Egypt is and remains one of the most stunning countries I have ever had the pleasure of visiting and just like the majority of its people, want nothing more than to see it progress into a modern, vibrant and stable country, free of political or religious persecutions. We can only hope. 

 

The age of digital – losing the will to live

 

It might well be the age of digital, the use of photomechanic, the mastering of photoshop, lightroom and so forth but my word, its come to the point where I now spend more time uploading images, cropping them – yes, we all do it, I don’t care what Henri Cartier Bresson once said – captioning and then wiring them off to several agencies than I do actually taking the bloody image in the first place. Back in the day, we used to just shoot then get the damned things processed and then do a quick edit and off they went. With a caption sheet.
Sunday I spent two hours shooting an event and then promptly spent the next five hours head butting my computer screen as it had decided it wasn’t going to play ball. One could argue and justifiably I suppose, that back in the day and depending on what you were shooting, time was not such a pressing issue.
Now days, if you have a couple of agencies to file to, you have to do a couple of separate edits, separate captions which is a true labour of love or not as in my case, and then remember which protocol to use for what agency. My how time flies when you’re having fun.
And is it me or does everyone go through the same experience of using the pc all day long but as soon as you need to get images out, the damned thing decides: ‘nah, I’m having a rest now, I think I’m going to go slow for the duration unless you stop everything and reboot’!
Or better still, your super fast high-speed broadband is not quite as high-speed as it suggests on your extortionate monthly bill but is instead akin to that good old dial-up you once used back in the day of breezeblock sized laptops.
It does beg the question: have we really progressed as an industry or are we just being hoodwinked into thinking, this is progress?

Are Agencies trustworthy?

It is a difficult time as we photographers all know right now and as the future looks ever more uncertain we are all trying to make do as best we can.

Some, if not most of us, use a variety of resources to make ends meat, which often include the use of picture agencies/libraries etc…this in itself is fraught with many pitfalls including the ever diminishing market, the plethora of new ‘photographers’ and the monopolization of agencies by a select few…we all know who they are.

This week I happened to stumble across one of my images in the Financial Times weekend edition, no credit to me but to one of my agencies. This would normally be a positive discovery, but as the discovery was so random, without any prior notification for an image I shot back in march this year, I could not help wonder how many more of my images had been used which had gone undiscovered?

The level of trust between a photographer and his/her chosen agency is so one sided, the cynical side of me believes there has to be abuse of that trust. The only sure fire way of maintaining control of one’s images is to bypass the agency altogether, but that for most of us, as we know is unworkable.

If only there was a piece of software that sits on your hard drive and immediately detects the use of one of your images. Right now, as far as I’m aware, there is only Tineye which offers some form of detection, but this is by no means perfect. In fact, I’ve hardly ever discovered any of my images via Tineye. Googleimages is another, but that is so time consuming to be infuriating as it only ever throws up blog usage, which are hardly ever fruitful when it comes to chasing up.

So, my burning desire is for someone to come up with that Holy Grail of programmes which will automatically scan every online publication and spot images sitting in my library.

FT image