A Practical Guide to Press Photography - 1

Over recent days I’ve posted some short passages from my book published way back in 1986 by Oxford Illustrated Press, ‘A practical Guide to Press Photography’. This book became a standard work in universities and colleges, and I heard of many college tutors who would read passages straight from it as part of there lectures. Anyway, I’m persuaded that much of the information in the book is just as relevant today as it was 22 years ago. As I’ve no intentions of re-publishing the book, I’ll be posting short passages from it from time to time – updating the information as I go. There are many tips that are just as useful to the hobbyist photographer as they are to the professional or aspiring photojournalist….

You can call a photojournalist a literate press photographer if you like, but I’ve always assumed that the two titles describe one and the same person. That is – someone who makes his or her living by taking photographs for publication in a newspaper or magazine. In the true sense of the word, I suppose a photojournalist should be capable of seeing the job through from start to finish: conceiving an idea, organising the assignment, taking the photographs, writing the story to go with them, and presenting the finished results as a useable package to an editor. Whereas a press photographer is more likely to be sent on a specific assignment determined by the editor and be responsible only for getting the pictures. A reporter will take care of the words.

The idea of reporting events in pictures is far from new . It goes back to the Stone-Age and beyond when primitive man first daubed hunting scenes on the walls of his cave. It happens that things are a little more sophisticated today. Mind you, looking around at present social trends, I sometimes wonder. However, the desire to convey and receive information in visual form is still just as strong. Pictorial reportage can transcend obstacles of language, race and culture to become a universal language of communication. However, it would be naïve to run away with the idea that all newspaper photographers are blessed with the missionary aim to change the world with the impact of their pictures. To most it is just a job like any other, and often a tedious job at that. Only on infrequent occasions will the average press photographer be well-placed to put across any sound of profound message in pictures; major stories and the type of on-the-spot news events that produce award winning pictures just don’t happen in front of every photographer every working day.

For the most part, the photographer will be involved in the manufacture of entertaining pictures from run-of-the-mill, and often re-hashed stories to feed the conveyor belt demand of a newspaper, be it local, regional or national.

I started work straight from school at the age of fifteen as a tea brewer and printer of the photo-sales on a local weekly newspaper. Having progressed through an apprenticeship, agencies, evening newspapers and freelancing to a staff position with the Daily Express, and then to have returned to freelancing again, my experience is fairly wide. However, no single photographer could hope to acquire a complete knowledge of every branch of photojournalism… the subject is just too diverse and life just too short. My aim with those posts is to pass on some of the proven techniques and short-cuts and to increase the understanding of press photography – not only to aspiring photographers – but to editors of all publications using the services of photographers.

I hope you enjoy the posts and look forward to your feedback and comments.

Learning to be a press photographer 3

On my sixteenth birthday I bought an old Vespa motor scooter and really learned what it meant to be ‘out on the road’. I fell off that thing at least once a day. As this usually smashed all the glass plates which I carried in a battered leather camera box strapped to the back of the scooter, the chief photographer ordered a special batch of ‘unbreakable’ 5 x 4inch celluloid film from Kodak. This didn’t stop me falling off the scooter, but it did mean that I no longer had to spend half the morning developing the pieces of broken glass plate negatives from my ‘night jobs’, and the rest of the day fitting them together in a sort of panchromatic jigsaw… many a Rose Queen’s ‘royal’ portrait has been scarred by the marks of sticky-tape across her pretty face.

Unlike the young photographers who enter the newspaper world today, for me there was never enough time to attend college to learn more about the theory of my chosen profession. I was kept far too busy taking photographs and getting them in the paper. But, I the little time I had to spare, I devoured photography books and studied the work of top Fleet Street and magazine photographers.

It was difficult within the constraints of an old-fashioned local weekly newspaper to indulge some of the new and wonderful ideas I had learned from my books and magazines, and many of the pictures I produced were received with something less than enthusiasm.

One occasion, the chief photographer took me on one side for a quiet word: looking at my latest creation and shaking his head solemnly, he said: “Bit too arty, lad. Too arty. It’s faces what sells local papers, faces – and I don’t mean like t’ bloody Mona Lisa.”

Learning how to be a press photographer

Printing the photo-sales for that local newspaper was a trial of strength and endurance for a fifteen year old. I trial for which I was ill-matched. But I would put extra sugar in my tea and, on my day of, I would hump around a heavy Dawes 5 x 4inch glass plate camera and fantasize that I was a fully fledged press photographer. My mother encouraged this self-delusion when she bought me a trilby hat (come on, it was the 1960s), but I could never quite muster the courage to stick a press card in the hat band. Besides, I was too young to join the union.

My travels started soon after I changed jobs and joined the town’s rival newspaper as an apprentice photographer: I was given the address of a local church hall and ordered to catch a number 17 bus to go and photograph a dress rehearsal for a church pantomime. I quickly became an authority on the town’s bus routes and looked so young that I was still able to use my school bus pass, travel for nothing and claim the fares on my expenses. It didn’t take long for the bus conductors to get suspicious though, and pretty soon the word went round to kick me off on sight – camera bag and all.

In those days we worked every evening on ‘night jobs’ – photographing functions and events from racing pigeon club presentations to up-market dos in the Mayor’s parlour at the town hall.

Most evening we would have maybe ten ‘assignments’ to cover and none of the club secretaries, society presidents or event organisers who had invited the newspaper to their functions seemed to want the photographer to attend before 10pm. Some of my colleagues would be kept hanging around all night by a local ‘big wig’ who demanded that they ‘run along and come back at ten o’clock’. I would have none of this and, by employing tactics of diplomacy, cunning and downright cheek, I would have a group of people organised and a photograph taken before anyone had time to object.

My workmates soon cottoned on to this ability of mine and, in return for driving me around in the firm’s mini-van, I would take on their jobs as well as my own and we would still be finished before ten. It was not uncommon for them to drop me at the door of the town hall and I would out again with the job done before they had turned the van round.

The technique was simple and has stood me in good stead ever since. Whenever possible. cut out the middle man who is likely to have an inflated idea of his own importance or be frightened of his job. Either go straight to the top or ignore the hierarchy altogether – just get the picture that matters.