© andy Rain
COMPETITION
Photomasters (a display of recent MA photography graduates and students). Chris Eades, a press photographer himself, is the chairman of the BPPA, and he explains how the nature of press photography has changed over the years.
If you had to define the aim of a press photographer, how would you describe it? I think I’d say that our aim is similar to that of an organisation like the BBC. What we try to produce is something that is both informative and entertaining. Some of it is us
attempting to bring home to people what’s happening out in the world in the most effective way possible. You can a write a million words about a subject, but often the most hard-hitting means of communication is in one good image. Sometimes what we produce is entertaining, such as showing who won the football at the weekend. A still image of the goal-scorer punching the air probably brings it home more than reading about it or watching on television. You don’t necessarily see the action in a still image, but you certainly get the emotion.
Above: Andy Murray beats Milos Raonic of Canada in the men’s singles final of the Wimbledon Championships, 2016, by Andy Rain Below: Boris Johnson is given the finger by a passing cyclist on London’s first fully segregated cycle superhighway, Vauxhall Bridge, 2015, by Lee Thomas
How does the BPPA enter into this? What are the principal aims? Essentially, partly what the BPPA does is try to inform people about what press photography is and what press photographers do. We feel slightly misunderstood at times. We’re here to say to people that photographers have an important role. We’re not the cartoon-type characters you see on the TV. On another level, we also exist to highlight things such as image copyright, particularly in these days when photographs are just copied and pasted from the internet. There seems to be this widespread idea these days that photography is free as opposed to being the results of a paid occupation. We try to campaign on those sorts of issues to bring home to people that just because a picture’s on Facebook it doesn’t mean you can have it. Someone has had to spend a day or a week taking that photograph. They have a right to be reimbursed for the work. Basically, it’s not OK to nick stuff.
What do you think some of the most significant changes in press photography have been?
© lee thomas
Well, they’ve been seismic. I’m actually old enough to remember going out on the road with an enlarger in a suitcase. The whole industry changed massively. Obviously, the rise of digital technology is the massive revolution. Every eight-year-old on 42
8 October 2016 I www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I subscribe 0330 333 1113