Ron Morgans

The International Photography Awards

2012-02-01T16:04:00.000+01:00

Splendid Watermite by Martin Oeggerli - 1st Special Photography

Let Them Eat Cake - a portfolio by John Wright - 2nd Ad Fashion Pro

The Look - by Yulia Gorbachenko - 1st Beauty Pro

Women of History - by Peter Lippmann - 1st Fashion Pro

Last year I brought you the IPA Awards. The 2011 winners have now been released in New York and feature the finest photography across the professional and amateur classes globally. There are so many categories you must visit the site to catch them all, an opportunity to see great photographers at work. Here's just a taster to get you started.

Happy 70th Birthday Muhammad Ali

2012-01-17T09:26:00.000+01:00

ALI ON HIMSELF

Rnd 1 - I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale, only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I'm so mean I make medicine sick.

Rnd 2 - There's not a man alive who can whup me. I'm too fast. I'm too smart. I'm too pretty. I should be a postage stamp. That's the only way I'll ever get licked.

Rnd 3 - I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.

Rnd 4 - I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I'm in a world of my own.

Rnd 5 - If you dream of beating me, you'd better wake up and apologise.

Rnd 6 - There are two things that are hard to hit and see. That's a spooky ghost and Muhammad Ali.

Rnd 7 - One of these days, they're liable to make the house I grew up in a national shrine.

ON JOE FRAZIER

Rnd 8 - Frazier is so ugly he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wildlife.

Rnd 9 - Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head.

ON GEORGE FOREMAN

Rnd 10 - I've seen George Foreman shadow boxing. And the shadow won.

Rnd 11 - It's a divine fight. This Foreman - he represents Christianity, America, the flag. I can't let him win. He represents pork chops.

ON FLOYD PATTERSON

Rnd 12 - I'll beat him so bad, he'll need a shoehorn to put his hat on.

ON SONNY LISTON

Rnd 13 - Sonny Liston is nothing. The man can't talk. The man can't fight. The man needs talking lessons. The man needs boxing lessons. And since he's gonna fight me, he needs falling lessons.

ON HOWARD COSSELL

Rnd 14 - You're always talking about, Muhammad, you're not the same man you were 10 years ago. Well, I asked your wife, and she told me you're not the same man you was two years ago!

ON GOLF
Rnd 15 - I'm the best. I just haven't played yet.

With thanks to Eurosport

Revisiting Scott of the Antarctic

2012-01-06T13:04:00.000+01:00

Expedition photographer Herbert Ponting


The fated five men at the pole took this last picture with a string attached to the camera before setting out on their last journey

Captain Robert Falcon Scott became a national hero after his expedition to be first to the South Pole in 1912 ended in tragedy. Having successfully reached the Pole he discovered Norwegian rival Roald Amundsen had beaten him there by five weeks.

On the 800 mile return journey the five man team encountered deteriorating weather, frost-bite, snow blindness, hunger and exhaustion. First, Edgar Evans died after a fall, then Lawrence Oates, hampered by a war wound to a leg, left the tent to walk into the blizzard with the immortal words, "I am just going outside and maybe some time."

Reduced to three, the team covered a further 20 miles before making their final camp. Trapped by a fierce blizzard for nine days their provisions finally ran out. Waiting for death Scott wrote many letters, to his wife, his mother, his old commander, to many dignitaries and penned a Message to the Public explaining their predicament and finally his last scribble which read:

"Last entry. For God's sake, look after our people."

Of the five men, Scott was the last to die on the 29th March 1912. His memory was celebrated across the British Empire and he became a hero and a legend to be known forever as Scott of the Antarctic.

Now the Natural History Museum in London is staging a major exhibition celebrating Scott's three year journey to the Pole and his many scientific achievements on the trip. They have gathered all his specimens and artifacts, tools, diaries and clothing alongside a life-size representation of Scott's hut.

It runs from 20th January to 2nd September 2012 and celebrates an era of exploration and courage.

Cops with gun cameras

2011-11-21T09:52:00.000+01:00

Police marksmen could be fitted with miniature cameras on their guns to record contentious incidents. The Telegraph tells us, it's a bid to restore public confidence after recent shoot-outs including the killing of Mark Duggan in Tottenham, North London.

Scotland Yard say the policy is 'under development.' The paper goes on, 'similar technology has been used for years by combat troops and Special Forces, but this would be the first time that matchbox-sized cameras have been attached to guns.'

Err..no. Guns and cameras have existed side by side since 1882 when the Scovill Manufacturing Company released the Kilburn Gun Camera for $27. The stock was an extra $5. It was a 4x5 wooden plate camera mounted on a shotgun stock.

Later in 1882 came the Revolver de Poche or pocket revolver, which is, in fact, a camera.

In the '30's, in the lawless American towns, Police used Colt .38 revolvers with black & white roll film cameras attached to ID the bad guys if they got away. Pure pistol cameras have been around in many guises over the years, too.

In 1954 Mamiya released a pistol camera as did the Doryukamera company, using 16mm film and Nikkor lenses.

The Military have used camera guns since the 1914-1918 war. The Hythe Gun Camera MK111 was built like a Lewis gun and used to train pilots in gunnery in open cockpit fighters. In WW11 the Bell & Howell company developed a 16mm gun camera with a 35mm lens. The camera fired when the aircraft guns fired. All that brilliant footage of dogfights in that world war comes from them.

Not a new concept - but this time technology will make them vastly superior to the past.

1882

Revolver de Poche

Colt .38 police revolver with camera

1954 Mamiya pistol camera

1954 Doryukamera Company

The Hythe Gun Camera Mk111 fitted in the cockpit of a WW1 fighter

Feed the bears at your peril

2011-11-12T11:40:00.001+01:00

In the Bering Strait off Alaska the USA and the Russian Federation rub cold shoulders only a 100 miles apart. The town of Nome is well known on the Alaskan side. Lesser known is Anadyr, the capital on the Russian side, a freezing town with 11,000 population. Life in this very eastern part of Russia is severe with temperatures that drop to minus 40C in wintertime. Curiously -40 celsius is also -40 fahrenheit.

One way the polar bear population survives is by begging, a dangerous occupation for bear and man alike, but the locals and the bears seem to get along. Or so these pictures that appear on the English speaking Russia site www.englishrussia.com seem to show. You can see more on the site.

It has an eclectic collection of quirky Russian pictures and any reader with a fascination for old Soviet Russia photographs (like me) with too much time on their hands can while some away browsing its snapshot collection.

A brilliant portrait of Muhammad Ali

2011-11-07T09:55:00.000+01:00

My good friend photographer Michael Brennan has a superb exhibition of his work with the legendary Muhammad Ali opening in November at the Artworks Gallery in Pasadena Los Angeles. It will be Ali's 70th birthday.

The centrepiece is a stunning close-up of Ali, taken in 1977 and is described by the gallery as 'capturing the fighter's vitality and determination.' I think it does more than that. The fighter himself describes it best. When he first saw the picture, Ali said of it, "I can feel the texture of all the sweat and hard work. I can feel my life."

Michael describes taking it: "He (Ali) had been sparring and a television guy had been in the ring with him shooting film but for a few seconds he came into the corner of the ring where I was and I saw the expression on his face. I could see everything that lay behind it. In a hundredth of a second I shot the picture I had always dreamed of. Ali used to joke that he gave me access I could never expect from Barbra Streisand or Frank Sinatra." It was typical of the man that Ali wanted to be helpful to a young photographer making his way.

I met Ali at a press conference at the Piccadilly Hotel at the height of his fame and can only describe meeting him as a shock and awe moment. He exuded an aura I've never experienced in any other sportsman or celebrity. He riveted a crowded room and you knew you were with someone very special.

A limited edition of the portrait, signed by Ali and Michael Brennan, will be available for sale and a portion of the exhibition proceeds will go to The Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center and Movement Disorder Clinic.

This winter the portrait will be inducted into the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian as part of the permanent collection.

In addition, there will be on display a very rare collection of Brennan's photographs from a series entitled "Ali and his Educators" taken in 1980. Michael travelled extensively to locate and photograph those elite few men who had actually faced Ali in the ring. Most have fallen into obscurity since their moment with the most famous boxer of all time. Their careers varied from a chief of police to a building contractor, a convict to a CEO.

Brennan has photographed some of the most iconic personalities of our time including The Queen, Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana, Pele, George Best, Mick Jagger, Jack Nicholson, Mother Teresa and John Lennon to name just a few. In 1970 he was awarded British photography's highest accolade, "Photographer of the Year," presented to him by Princess Anne.

For those in Pasadena the exhibit opens at Design Within Reach on 8070 Beverly Blvd from 10th Nov to the 17th when it moves to the Artworks Gallery.

More Brilliant Wildlife Photography

2011-10-14T23:16:00.001+02:00

2011 Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year - Winner

Daniel Beltrá (Spain)

Still life in oil

Crude oil trickles off the feathers of the rescued brown pelicans, turning the white lining sheets into a sticky, stinking mess. The pelicans are going through the first stage of cleaning at a temporary bird-rescue facility in Fort Jackson, Louisiana. They've already been sprayed with a light oil to break up the heavy crude trapped in their feathers, which has turned their normally pale heads orange and their brown and grey feathers mahogany.

Racket-tail in the rain by Petr Simon. Addicted to photographing hummingbirds Petr spent two weeks in Ecuador getting the shots recorded

The charge by Eric Pierre. A herd of Muskoxen, spooked by wolves, charge the photographer in the snow in Canada.

Extreme foraging by Ron McCombe. A female Red Grouse scavenges for seeds in -10 degrees on the Scottish Borders.


Balancing act by Joel Sartore. A mountain goat carries out a death-defying manoeuvre for a mineral lick in Glacier National Park, Montana.

The brilliant Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards 2011, run by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine, opens on the 21st October when the winners are announced. I enjoy this annual treat of the best in wildlife pictures from environmental photographers world wide. They are always truly stunning works by dedicated cameramen and women. Here are just a few of the highly commended section.

Brit Wildlife Photo Awards

2011-10-03T15:13:00.001+02:00

Champagne Starlings by David Biggs

Mystical Deer by Mark Smith

Standing Room Only by Philip Kirk

Tabby Cat with Blackbird Nestling by Doug Mackenzie

One of the compensations for me of slipping into Autumn are the photographic awards. Around the globe guys and gals in tuxedos and party gear are quaffing Bolly celebrating great photography.
First up is British Wildlife Photography. Thousands enter and a few are chosen to be published in a beautiful coffee table art book for posterity. The winners get shown in a free exhibition at Alexandra Palace in England before embarking on a nationwide tour sponsored by a whole raft of worthies.
These are just a few of this year's pictures.

A Tale of Two Red Cars

2011-09-22T22:31:00.000+02:00


Bugatti Vayron

This is the tale of two motor events that took place last month. Now, I'm a sucker for a fast sports car. Especially if it's red. I go all googly at the sight of one. Immature, I know. Call it childish, I just can't help myself.

The first motor event was the release of the world's fastest convertible, a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Red Edition. It was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show. This super car, powered by a W16 engine delivering 987hp, is capable of a top speed of 253 mph. 0 to 62 comes up in 2.7 seconds and it's packed with the latest in motoring technology.

The second unveiling was at Pebble Beach in the USA. A 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa was sold at auction. Although this car raced at Le Mans (without winning) it's a snail compared to the Veyron's performance figures.

The Veyron was $2.4 million. A world record and it's new.

The Ferrari was $16.4 million, also a world record and 54 years old with plenty of miles on the clock.

This Bugatti is a rich boy's car because you need a healthy ticker to even get insured to drive it. This Ferrari is a rich old man's fantasy car. The one he promised himself if he ever made it big. Personally, being a poor old man, I must settle for the matchbox toy version of the Testa Rossa. No tech but all class.

The Wall Street Journal reports that although the income of the rich, who buy these vehicles, has remained flat since 2008 for obvious reasons, paradoxically the price of these classic cars continues to soar, showing that the prices of collectible cars may be de-coupling from the Western stock markets and its top income earners.

So who's buying them and forcing the prices up? Step forward the inscrutable nouveau riche from the Far East and China. The world really is changing.

Ride the skies with NASA

2011-09-21T15:35:00.000+02:00

Click to enlarge

Following Ole C Salomonsen's great picture (below) of the Northern Lights, NASA have released this space age shot taken from the International Space Station in Earth orbit over Eastern Australia on September 11th. It captures the Southern Lights formed as charged particles streaming from the Sun, known as the solar wind, interact with Earth's magnetic field.

The resultant collisions with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen in the upper atmosphere release energy in the form of photons, emitted at wavelengths the human eye sees as 'green.' The sun's rays reflect off plants at the same wavelength, which is why plants, too, look green to us.

You can see the stunning NASA video here:

Stunning display of the Northern Lights

2011-09-13T10:39:00.001+02:00

Click on the picture to enlarge

This spectacular picture of the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights, seen over a pond near Hillesoy, Norway was titled Earth and Space by Ole C Salomonsen, the Norwegian photographer who took it.

It has been named runner up (and my favourite) in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year, 2011 awards organised by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and Sky at Night magazine.

Wikipedia tells me:

'An aurora is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere. The charged particles originate in the magnetosphere and solar wind and are directed by the Earth's magnetic field into the atmosphere.'

So now you know.

A free exhibition of the best pictures can be seen at the Observatory until February 2012 and they are quite stunning. You can see some here:

BBC Science Environment.

9/11

2011-09-10T08:27:00.000+02:00

I can't read about 9/11. Even now it's 10 years on. It's all over the news. Old revisited footage, planes penetrating the top floors and airport CCTV of the plotters at large mixed in with smiling, happy snapshots of the dead.

The thought still shears my gut.

I know why the media show it. Hell, I was one of them. I've done this stuff on other past disasters. Plenty of them. The forward planner churns it out and off you go to regurgitate it, clippings in hand.

But not this one.

I don't know if I ever will be able to face up to it. I wasn't involved, not even in the Country where it occurred. It's the sheer obscenity of it that chokes me up. Like wanting to visit a slaughterhouse. Why? This tragic group of people have passed on, never to be forgotten but surely not to be revisited for the sake of TV ratings?

The pious producers will say 'because they should not be forgotten.'

I get that, I really do. Just like the Holocaust should not be. I just don't believe that's the true motive.

As I said, not for me. The negativity chills my blood. My deepest respect to those touched by this evil day - but it's not a fairground ride and I'm not ready for it.

Perhaps the generation unborn in 2001 will view it dispassionately without wrestling with the need for vengeance. It just makes me want to cry out with the pain of it.

Freaks!

2011-09-09T11:43:00.000+02:00

How's this for a front cover! Author Caroline Smailes collaborated with Nik Perring to write 50 illustrated short stories about unique and quirky characters, misfits if you like. The talented Darren Craske created the art.

The dynamic and beautiful Caroline successfully authored 'In Search of Adam' followed by 'Black Boxes' and 'Like Bees to Honey.'

Nik produced an acclaimed debut short story collection titled, 'Not so Perfect.'

I can't wait to get inside it and see these fascinating freaks up close! At last something good to look forward to in April 2012 instead of your tax returns.

Harnessing Scotland's wind power

2011-09-02T12:43:00.001+02:00

My good Scottish friend, David Cairns sent me this amazing picture he took of Stirling Castle surrounded by an army of wind turbines in the Braes O'Doune. The lower image shows it as it was. The castle has withstood many bloody sieges in its long history including that of Bonnie Prince Charlie. I hate to think what the modern Prince Charles thinks of it. Scotland has plenty of wind but also much water to generate hydro-electric power. Surely water power is a nicer, cleaner, more environmental source of energy than these three-armed monsters cluttering up the beautiful hillsides of the glens?

Bob McGowan

2011-08-15T16:09:00.001+02:00

Ex Daily Express reporter Bob McGowan passed away in a clinic in Benidorm last Thursday. Bob was old school Fleet Street. He covered six wars including the Falklands War where he travelled down the South Atlantic aboard Canberra with the British invasion force. He went ashore with 40 Commando and the Paras and reported back to Express readers the tragedies and triumphs that befell the UK forces in successfully retaking the Islands.

Bob's accounts were not written from an MOD briefing room about the masterplans of the Generals and Admirals for the Falklands recovery. He travelled alongside the ordinary soldiers, sailors and airmen, using the language they used, their profanities and their prayers, their comedies and fears recounted from amongst them daily as the conflict unfolded, suffering censorship and frustration. He produced a book of his experiences, collaborating with ITN's Jeremy Hands, called "Don't Cry For Me, Sergeant Major" that is still one of the best eye-witness accounts of frontline warfare ever written. It's on Amazon if you can get a remaining copy.

Those who knew Bob will not be surprised that he bore his short illness with fortitude and courage. Many condolences to Pauline, Emma & Douglas.

Navigating Between Science and Art

2011-07-14T00:52:00.000+02:00

Portrait of a giant knight in his own kingdom - a cat flea

Great Owl Butterfly eggs

Martin Oeggerli, the internationally famous scientific photographer, has produced a stunning coffee table book of 104 pages of images from the near invisible world he studies. Martin founded Micronaut, a library of images using the electron microscope in the Swiss cancer research universities in which he works. You can see a preview of the book here:

The book has an introductory essay by Sibylle Sunda in which she says this.

Life on planet earth has been explored, catalogued and artistically fermented over and over again. Yet, there is a lot more waiting to be discovered - vast, imposing and utterly beautiful!

Martin's book is certainly proof of that.

War photography The Guardian way

2011-07-05T00:03:00.000+02:00

Adam Ferguson Afghanistan

There are some things The Guardian does supremely well. War photography is one of them, a lost art to most UK tabloids. The Guardian has put together this site of pictures with the title "The Shot That Nearly Killed Me" and it's brilliant. UK papers have lost those superb staff photographers with wartime experience who carried on Britain's great legacy of conflict coverage. From Terry Fincher in Vietnam and The Congo, Tom Stoddart in Sarajevo and Mike Moore in the Gulf War to the modern day cameramen in Afghanistan these men and women are driven people. There's no money in it and little glory. Occasionally there is tragedy, too. But they risk all to record man's inhumanity to man. It's as though they say 'somebody's got to do it and I will.' Most are not careless with their lives but family men and women with loved ones. But they care about what is happening to the people caught up in the horrors we only hear about. I think they are great, every one of them.
Thanks to Karen Kay for pointing this feature out.

The Head of MI5 and a traitor's grave

2011-06-23T13:22:00.001+02:00

Sir Roger & Lady Valentine Hollis open the local flower show

Harry Chapman-Pincher has released Treachery:Betrayals, Blunders and Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage, published by Mainstream Books, a riveting expose of Britain's security service. Harry has been on their case since the sixties when I worked with him at the Express. In particular he has relentlessly pursued the truth about the boss of MI5 during the Cold War, Sir Roger Hollis, whom he believes was a double agent for the Soviets, despite government denials. And I agree with him.

This is the story of how I found a shepherd in a pretty Somerset village who unmasked Sir Roger as Britain's greatest ever traitor.

Ever since the Cambridge Spy Ring defected to the Soviet Union in the 50’s there has been speculation about the role of Sir Roger Hollis, head of MI5 from 1956 to ‘65. Kim Philby was dubbed, ‘the greatest spy of the century,’ when he fled to Moscow at the height of the Cold War. He had been tipped off of impending arrest as had been Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, both Foreign Office officials. And all turned up in Moscow years later.

Philby was said to know the identity of every British spy, and many American spies in the Soviet Union. Britain was already reeling from the Christine Keeler scandal and her entanglement with War Minister, John Profumo and his ‘KGB spy’ friend, Stephen Ward. Why had the Intelligence Service not tipped off the Macmillan government? Britain was made to look foolish and questions were asked.

During the ‘50’s and ‘60’s a large number of MI5 operations were failing and the suspicion was that the KGB had a mole inside Britain’s Secret Service. Fingers were pointed at Sir Roger Hollis and his deputy, Graham Mitchell. Many authors have speculated on Hollis’s guilt, the latest being Harry Chapman Pincher’s book, released this month.

The Service set Hollis and Mitchell against each other to watch for cracks in their cover, but none came. Subsequent debriefs of Soviet defectors, coming the other way, showed that Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, John Cairncross and later, Anthony Blunt, were responsible for many of these operations failing. They had been tipping off their KGB spymasters for years from their comfortable jobs inside the Foreign Office, leading their controllers to call them ‘the magnificent five.’

Yet the disasters continued after the notorious Cambridge Spies had ‘gone over’ to the Soviets. There had to be another mole, high up in the Service but, in 1974, Lord Trend led an inquiry into Hollis and had found nothing.

In the ‘70’s, at the height of the speculation, I was asked to locate any existing pictures of Hollis. On the Mail I had done the picture research for Stewart Steven’s book on Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service and now he wanted Hollis. All the usual picture sources for Hollis had been ‘cleaned’ by the spooks. There was nothing of Britain’s spymaster-in-Chief. In London I located two photographs of Hollis that the ‘cleaners’ overlooked. A portrait and an old wedding photo of his first marriage at St Margaret’s Westminster. Both were ancient history so I went digging.

Hollis had been born in Wells, Somerset and I followed his trail West. I knew he was a passionate golfer which led me to the posh Burnham and Berrow Golf Club in Weston-super-Mare where he had been captain. Like all golf clubs there was a roll of honour board on display. The names of proud past captains were in gold leaf on mahogany panelling.

The board of honour entries were blank for the years that Hollis was captain of this exclusive club. When I asked the members, there were shrugs all round: “Never heard of him.”

I reasoned, maybe that’s what they did in those Cold War days, hid in anonymity. I found the retired captain of the club’s Artisans section who still lived in the town. This nice old chap confirmed:

“Yes. Sir Roger was club captain. He presented our annual Artisans trophy, but he never mixed with us much. There were never any pictures taken.”

So I moved on to the Bath & Wells Chorister School where Hollis had been a governor. The annual magazine always carries pictures. The years in question were missing. More shrugs.

On to the local paper who said: “Go back through the files.”

I flicked through ten years of the Wells Journal, a lovely little local paper, week by week.

And there he was. Undiscovered by the security ‘cleaners.’ The caption read:

‘Sir Roger and Lady Valentine Hollis open the local flower show.’ An elderly gent in a suit with his smiling wife holding a basket of chrysanthemums.

I was on the right track for Britain’s Cold War spy master. Now I had an address. ‘Primrose Cottage,’ Catcott, a tiny typical Somerset English village, the sort on postcards in souvenir shops. But Primrose Cottage was the address of Catcott village Post Office. Surely Sir Roger didn’t sell stamps on the side? I scoured that village and found there was a second, identically named Primrose Cottage, way out in the back end of it. A perfect ruse to lead the unwanted from the real address. It was worthy of a George Smiley novel.

The centre of local life, as in all these villages, was the church. Catcott church is a tiny, beautiful Norman church in stone. A stone wall surrounded the trim churchyard of eighty or so gravestones. I hunted those graves for clues but there was no Hollis. Inside, the forty pews were unmarked. The walls the same. I was doubting Sir Roger ever lived there. Then it happened.

There was a church notice board in the porch with a pinned letter:

‘Will the ladies of the Committee please replace the chairs after use.’

Signed Val Hollis. Edith Valentine Hammond had been Sir Roger Hollis’s secretary for many years in MI5. Peter Wright in Spycatcher asserts that they had a long standing affair and she even refused promotions to stay with him. Finally, after Hollis divorced his first wife, they married and she became Edith Valentine Hollis. Now, long after his death, she was still tending this church. Therefore, I thought, he must be buried in it?

So I visited the local pub, the source of all knowledge. I took a pint with a wonderful, old local shepherd who wore a traditional, leather lambing apron. We spoke about Hollis. I quizzed him on the mystery and his answer revealed all.

“Sir Roger? He’s there, all right. He’s in the churchyard wall. They took out a flint and put ‘im in there. There ‘aint no marks, though. You won’t see ‘im.”

This shepherd had attended the funeral. My ephemeral spy master existed! His body had been cremated and his remains had been stowed behind a stone in the wall. His death had been expunged from all public record.

I had pictures of previous MI5 bosses who, when laid to rest, were honoured by black horses, caparisoned with tall, sombre plumes, pulling the funereal hearse, garlanded with flowers. Fitting tributes for a lifetime’s service once their secret identity was no longer necessary. This Cold War chieftain was in an unmarked grave.

Britain’s Establishment has always used an unmarked grave as a sign of treachery, going back eons. So why for Sir Roger? MI5 gives you short shrift on the matter.

‘It was claimed that Sir Roger Hollis, who was Director General of the Security Service from 1956-1965, was a Russian spy. The Trend inquiry of 1974 cleared Hollis of that accusation. Subsequently, the evidence of the former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky confirmed this judgement.’

In Britain unmarked graves are the resting place reserved for notorious criminals like Myra Hindley and Dr Harold Shipman. Earlier for Nazi war crimes perpetrators like Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goering and Adolf Eichmann.

And yet Sir Roger Hollis was ignominiously hidden away behind an unmarked stone in a country graveyard wall, only his widow and a local shepherd left to tend his memory.

Thanks to you all!

2011-06-16T17:24:00.001+02:00

My kindle e-book, Murder at the Royal Wedding, is getting much attention. Most good, some not so! Thanks to all below who thought it worth a mention:

Roy Greenslade

Andrew Pugh

What has Facebook and the criminals of Sydney 1912 got in common?

2011-06-08T12:29:00.000+02:00

Facebook hit two milestones this week. Firstly, VP of Facebook Europe, Joanna Shields, announced that 30 million UK citizens were now on the service. That’s half the population of Britain.

Secondly, web security firm, Sophos, declared that Facebook had secretly rolled out their facial recognition software to Europe. The USA had it in December. This software programme scans all uploaded pictures and checks them against a database of names. They say it’s ‘to help subscribers relieve the boredom of tagging names to their snaps.’

Nothing nefarious going on there, then. Perfectly above board, I hear you cry.

So, half the population of the UK are on a facial recognition database in America. Soon followed, no doubt, by the rest of Europe. Facebook knows who you are. Google street view knows where you live. Apple’s iPhone GPS knows where you’ve been. Where IS George Orwell when you need him?

Of course, face spotting has been going on since the caves. In a split second our clever brains sort the bad monkeys from the good ones as a necessary survival skill. Like Dr. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth) in “Lie to Me” who knows what people are thinking even before they do. Something inherent in us sets off a precautionary warning. And sometimes it’s wrong. Looking at police mug shots somehow preconditions us to believe the person in them must be bad. Poor old Hugh Grant looked less than glam in his LA police mugshot.

This reminded me of a wonderful book called “City of Shadows: Sydney Police Photographs 1912 - 1948.”

The Australian Historic Houses Trust rescued from a flood a vast collection of forensic crime photographic glass plates created by the New South Wales Police of that era. Author Peter Doyle turned them into a fascinating book.

These monochrome pictures of the backstreet pimps, pushers, conmen and working girls of Sydney spring alive on the page. They are both fascinating and noir. Viewing them they force a reaction from that bit of the brain that ‘judges’ others by using natures original facial recognition software.

You can buy it HERE:

And see the pictures HERE:

Is she calling me a tit?

2011-06-03T11:04:00.000+02:00

http://tinyurl.com/6laowtk

The excellent Cathy Zhu Chen at the book site CriminalElements.com has commented on Murder at the Royal Wedding thus: "One can almost feel the papillae on one’s tongue shrivel under the utter blandness." You must be impressed by a girl who can quote papillae, a 17th century Latin word. Those of you who don't know, it literally means a 'nipple' or 'small protuberance.' Is she calling me a tit?

What we have established is that her review is of the press handout. The estimable, and fair Cathy has now agreed to read the book and post again her thoughts on it. I hope to impress her this time.

USA Today reviews Murder at the Royal Wedding

2011-06-02T18:24:00.000+02:00

USA Today 02-06-11

Our colonial cousins have taken exception to my latest kindle book, Murder at the Royal Wedding. USA Today have reviewed it in non-glowing terms. Tasteless or extremely tacky? says the esteemed Carol Memmott in the book review pages. Not, you'll notice, the writing or the edge-of-seat excitement, but the premise of an assassin targeting Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, written by an ex-Fleet Street hack.

May I remind her that The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, an ex-Fleet St. hack himself, became a cult legend in paperback and on the big screen in Hollywood, with a story of an assassin stalking Gen. Charles de Gaul, head of the French Government, on an official parade in Paris? As we all know, nothing happened to De Gaul, it was a story. That's what author's do, we make stuff up, Carol.

http://tinyurl.com/6hetd9m

Murder at the Royal Wedding

2011-05-08T00:58:00.004+02:00

£1.14 or $.99!

Released today on kindle! A demented ex-con, with a Princess Diana obsession plans to kill Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall at the Royal Wedding. Only a disgraced royal cop and a wild, girl paparazzo can stop the assassin but the clock is ticking...

Read all about it (as we used to say before the internet.)

Verdict On Wedding Front Page Picture

2011-04-30T16:53:00.000+02:00

Congratulations to the Daily Mail. Amazingly they got the page one picture treatment of the wedding right! This was pure Mirror territory and they blew it. There's a time on major picture stories when gushing type and 'angles' are unnecessary. Picture editor's should tell back benches to butt out. Emotion = minimalism.

The Times made a good stab at being different. Sadly, on the wrong story.

Alright, the FT and the Guardian are pretentious heavies. They're allowed to be boring.

The Telegraph were so close - then suffered a bout of cropping fever.

The paparazzi and the royals

2011-04-26T00:40:00.000+02:00

On a hot August day in 1992 a well-known paparazzo approached me and said.

“What would you say if I told you I could get pictures of Fergie having her toes sucked by Johnny Bryan?”

I was Picture Editor of the TODAY newspaper then and the scandalous pictures had been on the grapevine. I was desperate for them. I said.

“The Mirror’s got them for 75 grand. I can’t afford that.”

His eyes twinkled.

“No probs. I’ll get them for a quarter of that. I’ll have them here by midnight.”

With that he grinned – and so did I. Every red top in the world wanted those snaps. I feared a caning by my Editor if we appeared without them. On such things tabloid picture editors’ jobs depend.

A call on the stroke of twelve saw me in a darkened Wapping car park for the ‘meet.’ A touch of ‘deep throat’ about it all, especially under the very windows of our owner and deadly rival the SUN. Sure enough he had the scandalous snaps. He had done a deal with a print worker in Italy and he clutched a still warm copy of Oggi magazine, straight off the presses and flown to London within hours.

The deal done I sliced them up and slapped them into that night’s first edition of Today, only hours after the Mirror. At twenty grand they were a bargain.

That’s how the paps operate. Smart, solo units, thinking on their feet. Some deride them but are they any different from Francis Drake raiding the Spanish ships for gold, or the Merchant Adventurers of old? The readers wanted to be titillated by scandal amongst the privileged classes. It was supply and demand.

Earlier, the pap who took the Fergie pics discovered where the Pope went swimming in his red socks. He rigged the Holy Father’s holiday villa with CCTV cameras and the pictures went round the world.

His forerunners were equally adept sharks in the pap pool. The UK’s first, Ray Bellisario, climbed a tree in the dead of night in Windsor Great Park, overlooking the lake and waited. A day later Princess Margaret went water skiing in a wetsuit. He was nick-named, ‘the Peeping Tom’ and telefoto lenses in those days were called ‘long toms.’

He would walk the Mall pushing a pram, his long lens snuggling where the baby should be. He plagued the royal family for a decade. Prince Philip finally asked the Queen,

“Can’t we bloody have him put in the Tower!”

She replied.

“Not these days, dear.”

It was said Philip walked the corridors flipping open the visors of the suits of armour in case Bellisario was inside.

The paps didn’t always get their way. In the late sixties ‘Peeping Tom’ pictured the Queen walking in the grounds of the Palace with the Duke of Windsor, then shunned and outlawed by ‘the Firm.’ The royals were furious and denied it ever happened. No UK editor would dare call the Queen a liar, and the picture didn’t appear in print until thirty years later, in 1998.

In the late fifties a picture was taken by an ‘insider’ of the Queen and Philip in bed, eating breakfast from a tray. The Express, terrified to use it, gave it to French magazine, Paris Match, hoping to report the ‘scurrilous’ use by the foreign press and thereby, use it themselves. But all parties got cold feet and it ‘disappeared.’

It was a reporter who took the picture that finally outed Princess Margaret’s affair with Roddy Llewellyn, a man 17 years her junior. Ross Waby of the Daily Mail visited Mustique, Margaret’s hideaway island, as a rich tourist. He posed his wife for a picture and caught the two lovers in the background. The pics caused a sensation.

Later the Express planted cameraman, Stanley Meagher, in the rafters of Streatham Ice Rink. He stayed for six weeks to capture the first skating lessons for the young Princess Anne.

Diana’s charisma and the availability of miniature cameras made her pursuit a money-maker for the new breed of ‘stop at nothing’ paparazzi of the 90’s. She was stalked and an industry grew up around her. Millions of pounds were made from her pictures. Because she lived in Kensington it wasn’t hard to guess her movements.

I was now Daily Mirror Picture Editor. Every day ten paps offered me her picture. I only covered diary events with my royal photographer, Kent Gavin. I didn’t need him to chase her. The paps filled the blanks.

By now TV had joined the chase. The picture of the decade was a video grab. Martin Bashir’s BBC Panorama interview, in which she admitted adultery with James Hewitt and revealed the role of Camilla in the marriage, depicted a Princess in anguish, and the stills showed it.

The beginning of the end for the Princess came when Diana insisted the Queen withdraw her Royal Protection Officers. She was doing 'deals' with the pressmen, tipping them off where she would be, scoring points against her husband in their battle and the S.O.14 officers were in her way. But they had kept her safe on the streets. By shunning them she was literally alone, thrown to the wolves. The fringe paps could now get at her and made her life hell, insulting her, screaming at her. They were not proper cameramen, just chancers who bought a camera to make money from her. She turned to Mohamed Fayed for protection.

In doing so she lost her trusted Royal Protection Officer, Inspector Ken Wharfe, of the elite S.O.14 bureau at New Scotland Yard. He was with her for ten years until he resigned, frustrated by her machinations with the royal press pack.

He says tellingly in his book:

* “Diana’s death, I kept thinking, was senseless because it could so easily have been prevented, but it was not photographers and journalists who killed her. My department had had the care of her for some fifteen years: Mohamed Fayed’s team of ‘bodyguards’ had had charge of her security for eight weeks, and now she was dead. They failed in their task and it angered me beyond words.”

A sentiment with which I could only agree.

* “Closely Guarded Secret” by Ken Wharfe. (Michael O’Mara Books.)

Are The Banks To Blame For The Pap Attacks On Wills And Kate?

2011-04-14T10:44:00.001+02:00

The new breed of ‘stop at nothing’ paparazzi, who pursued Kate Middleton’s mother and sister on mopeds, prompted Clarence House to warn newspaper editors via the UK press watchdog, citing ‘harassment by agency photographers.’ This ‘agency’ distinction is telling. The royal establishment, battle hardened by the same pursuit of Diana, is aware of the new dangers the pap packs pose to William, Kate and the Middleton family.

Hunting William’s mother became a dance, a ritual. The staff cameramen may have joined in with less gusto than the paps but join they did, encouraged by their bosses. Diana’s canny royal protectors, the elite men from New Scotland Yard’s S.O.14 bureau, knew how to strike deals with the press snappers to ensure privacy. A royal holiday started with a discreet ‘photocall’ on a beach somewhere, conditional on being left alone for the week. Foreign paps broke it but not the British press corps.

The first time the 19 year old Diana emerged in that see-through summer skirt whilst working at a play school, the hunters simply repeated the actions they had used so successfully in an earlier decade with that era’s glamour princess, Margaret Rose Windsor.

The unhappy Margaret was forced by the establishment and the church to give up her divorced lover, Group Capt. Peter Townsend. The press photographers began a chase of proportions never before seen on British royalty. And circulations boomed. She was snapped in a swimsuit by the first UK stalker pap, Ray Bellisario, known as “the Peeping Tom.” Once separated from her husband, Tony Armstrong-Jones, also bizarrely a photographer who worked for the Daily Express, a photo of her with her new lover, Roddy Llewellyn, a man 17 years her junior, was taken by reporter Ross Waby, acting like a rich tourist and posing his wife with their targets in the background in Mustique, her Caribbean hideaway. The British press were galvanised and she was pursued relentlessly. Circulations boomed again. Royal deference was finally over. The Daily Express placed snapper Stanley Meagher in the rafters of Streatham Ice Rink for six weeks to capture the young Princess Anne's first ice skating lessons.

With Diana the papers smelled a new boost for readership and every editor, news editor and picture editor drank their fill of the ‘candid’ shots made available every day. The tabloids’ first schedule line was always, “what’s Diana doing today?”

Although Frederico Fellini coined the word ‘paparazzi’ when shooting “La Dolce Vita” in the fifties, to describe Italian snappers on motor-scooters as a swarm of mosquitoes, he later changed the translation to “somebody who wants to break your balls.” Royals on the end of a picture snatch attack might think that more appropriate.

Paparazzi are celebrity photographers whose pictures are confrontational. Zealots only to the cause of making money. Nothing wrong with that but it’s the way a fringe element goes about it that causes the damaged relationships. There’s a difference between paps chasing celebrities at nightclubs and film premieres and the hunting of royal family members. The paps don’t always see it that way.

The snap shooters are aware of the hypocrisy that goes with club publicists and PR’s making sure they know the whereabouts of their ‘stars’ then effecting to shield their celebrities from their attentions when the C-listers cry out, ‘somebody take my picture!’ But C-list fame is temporary unlike class. The true stars, the Jack Nicholsons, Michael Caines, knew how to light up the paps. No thrown punches, just smiles making great, saleable shots. Richard Burton was known to carouse into the small hours with chosen reporters and cameramen.

Nobody is forced to be a celebrity. The world’s richest man, living in anonymity, can ride a pushbike unmolested by cameras. Certain clubs are ‘targets’ and stars choose to go there or not. No doubt there are many clubs where you could fornicate on the dance floor and nobody would turn a lens on you. Drink has always fuelled the incidents outside nightclubs and the paps and papers thrive on the results.

But the same rules cannot apply to British royalty, who are an institution which needs contact with its people. They need to be safely seen, hence the warning about ‘harassment by agency photographers.’

Not staff photographers, you’ll notice and there’s a reason for that.

The financial meltdown not only damaged banks. It slashed tabloid newspaper staff too, and the first to go were the media trained staff photographers. The broadsheet Daily Express, in its pomp, had 51 cameramen in London, 37 in Manchester and 31 in Glasgow. Now it has two. The Daily Mirror, first to use pictures in 1904, had 30 in London - now cut to just two. This leaves untrained, wannabee paps, with no knowledge of the rules of engagement, chasing whoever they think will make them a buck.

It’s a recipe for confrontation.

The tabloid picture editors can simply cherry pick the snaps that interest their paper, only paying for what they buy. With no expensive staffers, cameras and cars to subsidise they can buy in the pictures they want and shun those taken on ‘renegade’ missions by fringe citizen cameramen.

The paparazzi have privatised press photography. The upside? Serious cost cutting. The down? Some unfortunate confrontations in the streets as some private snappers set about their trade. The tabloid picture editors need their snaps more than ever in a celebrity obsessed world. The more confrontational the better, safe from criticism by pointing out, ‘we didn’t do it. The pictures were offered to us.’

And so the uneasy truce will continue into the reign of Wills and Kate with many skirmishes yet to come. New era, new enemy.

The Deadwood Stage is rolling again

2011-03-08T17:31:00.004+01:00

I love collections of old photographs. The more dog-eared and yellowed the better. Snapshots in time, depicting long gone lives in an era we know only from history books, TV and Hollywood. Yet the real thing always surprises me with its freshness and originality.

The US Library of Congress has just released a fabulous collection of the work of photographer John C.H. Grabill. He recorded the daily lives of the folk of the Wild West town of Deadwood in the 1880’s. Not the Deadwood of Doris Day and Ian McShane movies but the real frontier town, capturing the life of these intrepid pioneers who fought and tamed the Sioux Indians whilst panning for gold in the Black Hills. Colonel George Armstrong Custer led his troops into the hills to discover the precious metal and start the gold rush of 1874.

The same Col. Custer who lost his entire command of 300 men soon after at the battle of Little Bighorn. Only one horse survived.

Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, the Sundance Kid and Colonel Custer walked these streets. In the UK the Daily Mail Online carries a collection of the best.

The photographer, John C.H. Grabill, has disappeared in time, like the grainy, black & white people in the photographs.

An End for Wildlife

2011-03-02T18:47:00.007+01:00

The Natural History Museum in London reminds me that this year’s great Veolia Environment Wildlife photography exhibition is coming to an end. These telling and important pictures are on show for just a few more weeks before going on tour.

Here are two photographs depicting the damage being wreaked on wildlife in our throwaway lifestyle.

Turtle in Trouble by Jordi Chias Pujol from Spain.

Jordi came across this desperate scene when sailing between Barcelona and the Balearic Islands, hoping to photograph dolphins. 'I spotted the abandoned net drifting along the surface,' says Jordi. As he dived down to investigate, he could see the loggerhead turtle tangled up in the netting. 'The poor creature must have been trapped for some days, it was so badly knotted up.' Though it could just reach the surface to breathe by extending its neck, it was still sentenced to a long, cruel death. 'I felt as though it were looking at me for help as it tried to bite through the netting.' Jordi released it, allowing one individual a second chance. Given that all species of sea turtles are endangered, they need all the help they can get.

Sacrifice by Steve Winter from the USA.

It took three days for this Asian elephant to die. It had been shot by villagers as it was rampaging through their crops after monsoon floods had forced it out of Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India. Though the shot itself didn't kill the elephant, the bullet had been soaked in acid, and the animal eventually died from septic poisoning. Here, a man prays in front of the body. 'Locals have a mixed relationship with elephants,' says Steve. 'They see them as dangerous and destructive and yet sacred, too,' icons of the Hindu elephant-headed deity Lord Ganesh.

The Museum are now looking for entrants for the 2011 competition.

Climbing the Sistine Chapel

2011-02-12T07:46:00.007+01:00

This amazing 360 degree Virtual Reality Tour of the Sistine Chapel was created for the Vatican by the Villanova University in Pennsylvania, USA. Click on the Vatican link for the original and you can move around it with the mouse held down and enlarge it to see the ceiling frescoes in perfect detail. A brilliant piece of work.

Michelangelo didn’t want to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It was originally painted with golden stars on a blue sky and he was in a period of his life when sculpture was his driving passion. He also thought the commission was the work of his enemies, wanting to bring him down by demanding a job far beyond his capabilities.

Raphael, Bernini and Botticelli had already added works of their own. Michelangelo had other things to do but it was unwise to refuse Pope Julius 11 in the sixteenth century when achieving patronage was the highest ambition and losing it was ruin.

Boy, did he prove his enemies wrong!

I’m indebted to John Lyth for sending this to me.

Getting to Burma's First Lady

2011-01-16T22:44:00.002+01:00

Renowned portrait photographer Platon reveals how he got to photograph Burma's First Lady, dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, whilst she is under house arrest. Burma is ruled by a military Junta and stands at number 176 out of 180 in the World Corruption Perceptions Index. Platon's tale is of subtefuge, cunning and good old fashioned brass neck which resulted in him taking this stunning portrait on the cover of Time magazine. Platon tells his story in an enlightening video on the Time Video site and is well worth a visit.

Wildlife Awards go on tour

2011-01-04T16:59:00.003+01:00

The Natural History Museum in London has on show the stunning images from this year's Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Now this great collection is travelling internationally. There are many categories for wildlife cameramen including some for young entrants. Here are two winners from many. To see more click on the link or, if you're passing by, visit the Museum.

This is Snatch and Grab by Arto Juvonen from Finland. Here a Goshawk pounces on a gull for lunch. Arto says, "Every time I look at the image, I can hear the gull screaming."

Titled, The Mobster, by Jim Nelger from the USA. Jim has photographed birds on his home patch in Florida for many years. He was focusing on a Great Horned Owl returning home when a Fish Crow appeared, jabbing the owl with its feet. The owl kept its dignity and shrugged off the interloper, continuing on its way.

The Face of Cancer

2010-12-21T22:26:00.003+01:00

Photography is an art with many branches and, when practiced by experts, never fails to amaze me. The awards season is when the best exponents show us their skills.

This week it's the turn of the scientist cameramen and the place to see it is the Images of Research competition held in Germany. Here are two from the entry list but you can see them all on the link.

1st place was "The Face of Cancer" by Dr. Martin Oeggerli, whose company, Micronaut GmbH, produces stunning images from the invisible world studied by the Swiss University research laboratories of Basel and Vienna. Here is a metastasizing cancer cell originally extracted from a human carcinoma. This is the second time Martin has won this award.

3rd place in Fascination of Research was this computer tomograph of a leopard, sectioned in a CT scanner by Steven Seet. Below is how he did it.

More from the IPA Awards

2010-12-16T22:52:00.006+01:00

The International Photography Awards released in New York are so awesome this year I make no apologies for showing you some more. I like them, anyway. The categories are widespread and pros and amateurs worldwide have their own sections.

"Goal" by Chan Kwok Hung from Hong Kong won the Moving Images Pro award. Here Myanmar trainee Buddhist monks relax after school in the traditional boys way with a football.

"Mother and son" by Californian Chris Minihane was placed in the Nature:Wildlife non-pro section and shows two rhinos heading home to the bush from Lake Nakuru, Kenya.

"Skate Dawg" by Lennette Newell from the States was placed in the Pro:Pets category. I include it because it makes me laugh each time I look at it!

Have a look at the home gallery of the IPA to see them all.

A Huntress at Fourteen

2010-12-01T16:36:00.008+01:00

This award winning picture by David Chancellor has cause something of a stir. It shows a 14 year old girl from Alabama named, Josie Slaughter, returning home from a hunt in South Africa with her kill, a young buck, across her horse.

Chancellor calls it 'Huntress With Buck' and entered it successfully in the National Portrait Gallery Awards in London where it won the prestigious Taylor Wessing Prize, worth £12,000.

David spent two days with the family on their hunt and the Gallery director, Sandy Nairne, says of the shot, "It's a powerful and beautiful portrait; a worthy winner amidst a strong international submission."

Chancellor explains the shot; "The contrast between the peace and tranquillity of the location, plus Josie's ethereal beauty and the dead buck, was what I wanted to explore. Here was a vulnerability and yet also a strength."

However, inevitably, there are those who disagree.

Speaking to CBS News one viewer says, "Too bad about the buck. But some rich people like killing trophy animals. It's what they do for distraction."

Another bites "It's appropriate that her last name is Slaughter." And so on.

The Gallery issued a reply; "The Gallery acknowledges that the portrait does portray an emotive subject. The role of the documentary photographer is to be objective and neither celebrate nor condone the subject."

The moral choice, surely, is for or against the hunters, the Slaughter family in this instance. You may agree or disagree with blood sports and the raising of your children as part of it. Britain's royal family ritualistically 'blooded' all their kids with fox blood at an early age. Hunting is one of the two oldest professions on earth, but it's a personal choice and it's legal.

But what David Chancellor is doing is being an observer, a recorder of events, albeit a very talented one. His presence didn't create the kill, it would have happened without him. We presume that was what the family were there at a hunt venue for.

Many years ago, when I was picture editing the Daily Express, my photographer, the legendary Bill Lovelace, came across a public execution in Bangla Desh. A large mass of locals were gathered to witness the bayonetting to death of three locals condemned as 'spies.' Bill and an AP cameraman recorded the horrific scenes. The picture spread in the Express caused uproar with Lovelace being accused of inciting the killings, which he did nothing of the sort.

A photographer's job is as a fly on the wall. Don't incite and don't interfere.

Well done, David Chancellor. A very evocative and thought provoking picture. It's up to the rest of us to make judgements about it's content.

The Death of Bullfighting

2010-11-28T22:19:00.004+01:00

A petition of 180,000 signatures to ban bullfighting has forced the closure of Barcelona's last bullring, the Plaza Monumental. Now it is being banned in the autonomous region of Catalonia altogether. Before it disappears freelance photojournalist Charlie Mahoney took an essay of pictures at the ring that are a brilliant insight into this ancient, dying bloodsport. They are reproduced in the splendid online newspaper the GlobalPost. Love the subject or hate it, his depictions of the fans and the bullfighters is a superb piece of photojournalism.

Charlie Mahoney's work in this field takes him all over the globe and has won him many awards. His brilliant website is well worth a visit.

International Photography Awards

2010-11-21T22:40:00.005+01:00

The photographic awards season is upon us and I decided to select a few I liked from the International Photography Awards. Just released in New York, the awards are open to pros and amateurs worldwide and has many categories. They all will compete for the overall prized title of Int'l Photographer of the Year and a $10,000 payday.

This one is called "A week in December." It's by Chris Frazer-Smith from the UK and won the Professional Book Cover category. It depicts a businessman passing a Muslim woman on a bridge in London and has a beautifully captured sense of movement, space and style.

This is "Backstage Dior" by Roxanne Lowitt from the USA, also in the Professional Book category. I love mono pictures and you can hear the clink of champagne flutes and smell the perfume. It's all about glamour.

Originality is so refreshing in photography. Here, Andreas Smetana from Australia captures the theme Teamwork by using sailors of the Australian Royal Navy to outline their warship.

And finally, one not for the squeamish. I believe photography must be directed to give it purpose and meaning. It's a powerful tool when used with passion, provoking a response in the viewer. Here, Tommaso Ausili from Italy collated an essay inside a slaughterhouse he titles "Hidden Death" to highlight the suffering and torment behind our food chain. It's not pretty but it's not supposed to be, but it is art.

Why the Paparazzi are necessary

2010-11-18T10:04:00.007+01:00

This is why. Today's Daily Mail has an exclusive paparazzi shot of Prince William's future bride, Kate Middleton, with her mum and dad after a visit to Westminster Abbey, no doubt to see her wedding venue close up.

Why's that so clever? Because the establishment didn't want you to see it. It's not a 'photo opportunity,' stage managed to suit them, with all the right things said, polished and painted. It's an intimate moment, an insight behind the scenes, it puts us inside the story, but, without the good old paps, we would never be privileged to be there.

It's what national newspapers used to do when they had staff photographers, when a picture editor could afford to waste some staff time doorstepping possible venues. An old Daily Express staffer, Stanley Meagher, once lay in the rafters of Streatham Ice Rink for six weeks to capture the moment the young Princess Anne went ice skating for the first time. But then they had 51 photographers in London alone, they could afford it. Now they have one.

Only the paparazzi can afford the time to invest in such adventures in the hope of a big pay day. And they deserve it as long as they keep within the laws. Without the paps, such touching insights would be lost. This picture by, Bushell-Almasi-Deidda/Eroteme, will become part of the historical record. It wouldn't exist without them.

And don't be fooled by any detractors. Class act celebs know exactly how to use the paps to their advantage, and that includes the royals, the others just don't know the publicity game.

Press photography has now been privatised.

Ancient vase for sale. Any offer accepted.

2010-11-12T18:59:00.006+01:00

So, my love and I found this vase in my grannie’s bathroom. When Grannie Flo passed on there it was, nestled between her Glastonbury wellies and the Aldermaston CND march banner she cherished unto death. Sniffing it, I guessed she used it to keep her stash of hash fresh, and later, to keep her false teeth in. It now whiffs of Steradent.

The vase is kind of bluish with a green fluorescence and, seeing a similar jug go for 53 mill at Bainbridges Auction House, we expect big things from our evaluation. Okay, not £53m, but maybe the late 30’s? We were a little peeved that the auction house would take £12mil in fees but, heyhoe, what the heck. It will leave enough to refurbish our shed into a serious player in the real ale brewery game. At least, we can clean the mysterious green mould off the containers.

Anything left over will go to my Mum’s weight lifting class to upgrade their equipment. The sight of middle-aged grannies toting purloined road bollards over their permed heads brings one to tears. I did suggest, at the annual vicarage bring-and-buy, they borrow the brass altar chalices to work out their diminishing, vapid triceps, but the vicar wasn’t best pleased.

The auction house that sold the vase employs eight people and their highest sale previously was £100,000. This latest hit, netting them the said £12m in fees, is £1.5m per head, although I doubt they will share the proceeds. I guess life isn’t like that.

And so, art lovers, here I stand, vase in hand. Don’t concern yourself with the cracks, the Araldite can hardly be seen. Although the Artists Mark may appear to be marker pen to the uninitiated and the ancient Chinese script maybe borrowed from a laundry bill Uncle Cyrus brought home from Singapore when he was deported for mistakenly flashing a Papal Nuncio in the seventies, any anonymous Chinese buyer won’t see that anyway.

I will take an offer.

Will & Maeve go Zingg

2010-11-09T18:43:00.013+01:00

Press HERE for some serious Swiss boogie.

Silvan Zingg is a self taught Swiss piano player who fell in love with boogie woogie the moment he heard the great black jazz pianists of the 20's and 30's. For ten years he has held a boogie woogie festival in Switzerland. Not only is the event memorable for its guest piano players but the fantastic dancers who strut their stuff. Just like Will and Maeve here. Have you ever seen a better dancer than this young guy?

Are Waterstones as Mad as a Hatter?

2010-10-26T18:02:00.006+02:00

Today I received a terse email from Waterstones:

“We see from our records that you have previously purchased an eBook from Waterstones.com whilst having a registered address outside of the UK and Ireland.”

Eight, actually. Oh, dear! What have I done? Broken some ancient ritualistic more? Driven sheep up the high street at Mickelmas? Sold a virgin a coloured headscarf? It gets worse.

“We regret that with immediate effect, we are no longer able to sell eBooks to customers placing an order from anywhere outside of the UK and Ireland.”

It’s a bank raid alert! Are granite-faced villains smuggling Bank of England layout plans hidden in downloaded Harry Potters? Is Alice’s Mad Hatter really crazy? Put that teapot down and raise your paws, rabbit!

Maybe Kathleen Winsor’s classic novel has been re-titled “Forever Amber Alert.”

But no. It’s just dear old Waterstones getting fusty again without thinking it through.

Let me explain: I live in Spain. One million expat Brits live in Spain. All read books in, wait for it, English. Now not all of them have an e-reader, but who’s to say they won’t in the future. It’s a safe bet a lot will if current trends continue.

They buy goods from a thousand UK companies from Lakeland to Marks & Sparks. Christmas will see the internet humming with goods to loved ones in Blighty. Millions of pounds worth, coming and going both ways.

But not from Waterstones, oh, no. They mince around with mealy mouthed phrases about ‘territories into which we can sell ebooks.’

Here comes a new technology product and immediately some Adolf wants total control. On the Internet, for heaven’s sake. Don’t they know those spooky airwaves travel over oceans and mountains? So the million English speaking Brits in the Iberian Peninsular must get their future downloads in their mother tongue from where, exactly?

Well, we’re already doing it. If I tell you where, these greedbags will try to stop it. I’ll give you a clue. It’s where you get all those aggravating spam messages for Viagra and the like. Now the e-book trade wants to drive book downloading underground, too.

Isn’t progress wonderful.

Is the Tate missing the point?

2010-10-26T00:22:00.003+02:00

Ready to Wear 1999 by Angela de la Cruz. Short listed.

It's the annual Tate Britain shindig for the Turner Prize in December. Always controversial, it's a great way to see the work of up-and-coming artists, whether you agree with the winning choice or not. Edgy art, outrageous art and obtuse message art vie for the £25,000 prize.

What a pity, then that the organizers don't show the same entrepreneurial zeal the artists do. On press day the gallery tried to make photographers sign a contract stating that their published work "must not result in any adverse publicity for the Tate." Obviously, many refused to sign and walked away, including the Evening Standard, Reuters and the Press Association.

What are these people at the Tate on? Do they think that press cameramen decide what goes into their publications? There are Night Editors and Editors whose job is to decide that. The poor camera guy is lucky if they even talk to him. So the Tate can 'publish' whatever they like on their walls, including dead sheep in formaldehyde, but the press can't? Who has made the Turner Prize such big business? Pictures in the Tate catalogue? No, it's the press men and the huge publicity it receives annually.

Do grow up, Tate - there's no such thing as bad publicity!

Eat, Pray, Love & Talk

2010-10-15T22:22:00.003+02:00

Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, in which a divorced woman finds herself through a world journey, gave this speech to the famed TED conference. She entitled it "a different way to think about creative genius" and it's very entertaining and somewhat enlightening, too. She has a site here. If the movie is half as good as her speaking then it will be a treat.

For those who might not have found TED yet, he's not a man, the letters stand for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and these conferences, held each year in Palm Springs, Long Beach and Oxford, England, carry the title, "Ideas Worth Spreading." The speakers are inspirational figures from all walks of life and the podcasts are free on their site with many fascinating speakers. Well worth a visit.

Covering the Chile miners for only £100,000

2010-10-13T22:58:00.008+02:00

What wonderful images came out of the Chile miners rescue. I watched in one sitting fascinated from 1 to 33. Utterly compelling news coverage.

However, the dear old BBC spent £100,000 sending 26 people to the mine shaft, set up camp two hundred yards away, along with the world's media - and proceeded to broadcast Chilean State TV coverage. The great images of the rescue capsule at the mine head and in the chamber with the 33 trapped men were all delivered by the government TV men. The presenter, Tim Wilcox, wittered on from half a mile away, forgetting his lines and standing looking at the back of a crowd of pressmen with insightful coverage such as "Maria is the mayor of the relatives encampment, if only you could see her. She really is a character, if she were here."

Meanwhile the stills boys were producing brilliant reportage photography such as this:

Hey, it's only license payer's money.

How to self publish? Ask an expert.

2010-09-28T23:20:00.004+02:00

So you want to publish a book? Your manuscript is ready/been round the agents/mouldering in a drawer (pick any one) and you've used your favourite swear word to describe how you feel about it. As in: "What the #¢$! I'll self publish it!"

It's easy, I hear you say. Everyone's doing it. That should read: (nearly) Everyone's doing it BADLY.

But help is at hand. Clare Christian, a doyen of the publishing industry, who has won awards and experienced both mainstream and self publishing at the top level, has opened her own website. Authors who need anything from a little advice to a lot of hand holding guidance are welcomed.

And the fee? An honesty box. You pay as much as you think her advice is worth to you.

An opportunity not to be missed if you are on the verge of publishing your own masterpiece.

A Dam worth its Salt

2010-09-26T17:31:00.013+02:00

They say salt gives you a heart attack? Now I know why!

How far would you go for a pinch of salt? Or rather, how high?

These Ibex in Italy climb with stunning dexterity, and not a little courage, to get a lick of it on the towering Cingino Dam.

Personally, I'd go without.

Everything has a funny side

2010-08-27T16:42:00.015+02:00

Okay, I've told you I like quirky stuff. Following the YouTube revelation of Mary Bale dumping the pussy in the bin, which I totally deplore, here's a contributor who has my sense of humour adding his/her version. Well, it made me laugh, surely there's a funny side to everything, however bad? But, as I said, I'm quirky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AKBel_mny8&NR=1

China's brilliant straddling bus

2010-08-05T17:46:00.012+02:00

When you’re battling your way to work this morning, feeling like a boiled owl and spitting feathers, do you hope that the men in suits in the Ministry of Transportation are bursting with innovations to help you out? Or do you suspect they plan more speed cameras, taxes, bicycle lanes and phased traffic lights to further frustrate you? And will you be selling your car to buy a bike to help them out?

It’s not the same everywhere. New transport systems peak, so historians tell us, after about 50 years. The canal, the railway and, latterly, the car all went into decline at half a century. Motorway building has reached its capacity unless we want to concrete over the countryside.

But something new always comes along. Usually it’s the emerging, technologically strong nations that supply it, as the Victorians did in their heyday. America appears too introverted to oblige, scratching at its own financial wounds, obsessed by big oil and politics.

The emerging powerhouse of the East is maybe where to look.

Since spending time in China a few years ago I am fascinated by this diverse, contradictory, dynamic, overwhelming continent. The dichotomy between old and new, rich and impoverished, communism and a modernist version of freedom makes this country, that covers an area the size of the USA, equally frightening and fascinating. To me, we seem like Lilliputians prodding Gulliver and hoping the strings will continue to tie him down.

Previously they built the first magnetic levitation train in Shanghai. The Maglev only runs 30k, shuttling passengers from the Airport to downtown Shanghai in eight minutes at 430kph, but it was hugely innovative. No track, no wheels, just electro-magnets. I featured it in my book, The Deadline Murders.

Now the Chinese have stepped up the transport game once more, this time in Beijing. When faced with too much traffic, a need to widen the road system and way too much pollution they wanted an idea to carry more commuters, knowing it was impossible to dig an underground system. Enter The Straddling Bus, a design to get more commuters to work with less emissions and less traffic.

It’s blindingly simple. Instead of widening the roads, they are building a trackway either side. Placed in it will be the wheels of a series of these straddling buses that each carry 1200 passengers 4 m above the roadway. Each allows the normal traffic to pass by underneath. The bus creates an arch across the roadway, allowing vehicles under 2m to pass through. The bus stops are set high and the commuters enter and depart from the roofline. And it’s run by electricity and solar energy. The first track will be laid in Beijing’s Mentougou District at the end of this year.

I think it’s brilliant Chinese inventiveness. Tell me we are working on something that clever?

R.I.P. A great legacy

2010-07-23T18:15:00.004+02:00

When the roots of an oak whither, the body of the tree can’t sustain its leafage and the leaves become redundant. It’s the way the tree's life evolves unless the cause is found and rectified.

In my particular interest, this is what’s happening to Press photography. It’s that terrible word, Redundancy. The root decline of newspaper sales is bringing about vicious staff cuts and with it the loss of specialised skills, honed by decades of on-the-street experience. New blood can’t replace it, freelance paparazzi don’t have it, reporters with cameras will never achieve it.

So what is it that’s lost?

It’s the knowledge once gleaned by an apprentice snapper working beside a grumpy old news editor on a local news agency/newspaper who works that apprentice all hours God gives for tuppence. Driven to make a flower show into a photographic marvel, naming everybody in it correctly. Or knocking a door in tragic circumstances to collect a picture of the bereaved, without adding to the angst. Befriending the zoo, the local theatre, or the ballet school on a quiet day for an offbeat picture. Or suppressing your fear and climbing with the steeplejack up the church spire during restoration. It’s the diversity of experiences rubbing against your untrained creative skills. It’s learning what to take pictures of. It’s creating something relevant.

It’s being a freelance, thinking on your feet, watching the news, anticipating events forced by the need to eat and pay the rent. Then producing a portfolio of well considered pictures so much better than those of others around you that your work forces its way into the national newspapers. Then that old news editor grudgingly buys you a pint.

And finally, one memorable day, spreading your wings, being invited onto the staff of one of the great titles or news organisations, achieving a life’s ambition. Once there you are tested again. You cover another diverse diary of daily assignments that stretch your life skills to their limits, whilst allowing you to display your matured creative talents.

If you got to the top of that oak tree you joined an elite, leaving thousands in your wake.

Not so today.

The grim reaper accountants are wailing to the newspaper barons, Newsprint is doomed! Get out fast! Save what’s left of your fortunes! And that’s what they’re doing. And so the prophecy is self-fulfilling. Almost daily photographers are being cut on the nationals and the local papers. The cry is: As we’re all doomed don’t improve the content, cut the staff instead.

What nonsense. An editorial hall of proper newspapermen has more imagination, drive, verve, piracy, guts and gladiatorial entrepreneurship than an empire of bean counters. Their wails simply reflect these quill based assassins’ own bland, anaemic outlook. Their holy grail is the punter-in-the-street with a cellphone camera. It’s cheap coverage, who cares about the content? That way is the death knell of quality picture coverage.

The papers will end up looking awful and amateurish. If the paper’s owners know this, they don’t seem to care.

But there is a legacy of hundreds of picture journalists past and present who do – and behind them the shades of thousands more who dedicated their lives to great picture coverage in our national newspapers. That’s why Fleet Street was remembered as the best in the world.

Are the Snaparazzi cramping the paparazzi's style?

2010-07-06T23:14:00.008+02:00

The Paparazzi bar in Bratislava

When top German paparazzo, Hans Paul, said of his celebrity pictures trade, “there’s hardly any money to be made anymore,” you have to take him seriously. Hans once made $120,000 from a single, pregnant Julia Roberts picture.

The pap snaps industry, said Hans, is under serious threat from the new kids on the streets, known as the Snaparazzi or MOPS – industry jargon for Members of the Public with phone cameras. Others report that apparently, non-photographers are turning pro in their droves: and they include ex-gang members, waiters, garage mechanics, bus conductors, the desperate unemployed and even the homeless, in order to make a buck. There are even children paparazzi. It’s now a new street sport. In the modern Oliver Twist, Fagin will run a team of kid paps.

Now there’s an iPhone app for .59p called CelebAround which buzzes in your pocket should you be within 500 metres of a celebrity. Presumably you then drop the wife and shopping to dementedly pursue the hapless C list starlet around Tescos.

Hans’ point is, of course, that all these citizen snappers are accepting peanuts from the tabloid Picture Editors for their ‘exclusives,’ because they don’t know the street value of their snaps. A picture sold for fifty quid by Mavis from accounts, who came across a soap star in a clinch with a married footballer on her lunch break, would fetch many thousands in the hands of a savvy pap.

The top Pap Masters like Darryn Lyons, the legendary boss of Mr Paparazzi, he counts his earnings in millions, is aware of this, and offers online to sell-on your phone celeb pictures at top prices. Many others do it, too, but the brilliant Darryn is the pack leader.

The national newspaper Picture Editors, of course, hate it. Pressured forever by their bean counters to cut costs, nothing pleases them more than when a fresh faced punter rings who, “just wants to see his picture in the paper. Pay me what you like.” That’s donuts all round!

What an extraordinary outcome for the trade I worked in all my life and, to a small degree, I am responsible for it. I’ll explain why.

The broadsheet Daily Express of the sixties and seventies sold 5 million in its pomp. Still rich from the post war need for entertainment it was said it had ‘a barrel of gold in the front hall for the staff to dip into on assignments.’ With no commercial television worth speaking of and the BBC still hidebound there was no opposition, except other papers.

What it had was a ferocious and, some say, corrupt Union system. They wanted to dip their beaks in the barrel, too and many fights ensued. I was its Picture Editor in the late sixties, early seventies. I had 50 cameramen in London, many more abroad and could call upon 37 in Manchester and 43 in Glasgow. All on big salaries with backup staff. So no need, you see, to buy in domestic pictures. We were self sufficient – but at huge cost.

(I once bought out an entire Boeing 707 at Heathrow just to fly a cameraman to rendezvous with the Queen Elizabeth. The liner was half way across the Atlantic and under threat of a hijacking.)

Enter the digital eighties. Moving still pictures got easier. Scan them and transmit without loss. Wonderful. Entrepreneur Eddie Shah launched the first colour edition paper, called, Today – and I picture edited it. Murdoch’s Sun had taken on the Unions at Wapping, leaving us alone. Staff photographer numbers were down to twenty, and four in Manchester. Now Agency snappers made up the difference. The paper still came out – but my digital picture systems made it easier for freelances to offer their work, helping to fill the paper. Editors then clamoured for Diana pictures and celebrities. Beady-eyed Management smelled a trend.

Who needs staff photographers? Why can’t we fill it with paparazzi and Diana pics.

Come the nineties, the Daily Mirror moved East and I joined as its Picture Editor to oversee the picture move. London was now gridlocked. No cameramen could get from East to West quickly so I set it up as a transmission paper. No darkrooms, just a trusty laptop, a car and a digital Nikon. When the IRA bombed Docklands and closed our offices, we got the pictures into the paper from a kitchen in south London.

Every innovation I introduced, from the first electronic picture desk to electronic video grabbing in the eighties, culminating in free-to-air picture submission and contracted electronic picture library access in the nineties, was done to speed up the editorial process. Get the paper out quicker and with better picture quality.

But the trend became obvious. Less staff were needed to produce national papers. Now papers are printed by tiny staffs, with bigger buy-in budgets. All Snaparazzi are welcome. The Nationals, with web news sites cutting into their sales, now have skeleton picture staffs. The once grand Express has two photographers, the Mirror two, but all have an open door policy for any offered pictures from anywhere.

And behind them all are an army of ghosts, made redundant by progress.

That is the price of change in a relentless world.

World Cup encounters of the famous kind

2010-06-12T10:50:00.003+02:00

Here's a dream football encounter. Pele v Maradona v Zidane. Of course, it never happened on the pitch but here the incomparable celebrity photographer Annie Leibowitz created it in a Madrid bar for posh luggage company Louis Vuitton. Click the link to see the film of this historic encounter.

And how much would this trio be worth at today's prices? If Cristiano Ronaldo is worth £80 million then these three would cost about the price of a NASA space shuttle flight to Mars - with Louis Vuitton luggage, of course.

Wild Wonders of Europe - stunning photography

2010-05-17T16:13:00.005+02:00

A bee-eater (Merops apiaster) tossing a bumble bee in Hungary. The bee-eater is a specialist in bumble bees, wasps, bees and other larger flying insects. It is one of Europe's most colourful and exotic-looking birds and lives in colonies burrowing into sand banks.

The Musk ox, or Ovibos moschatus, in the Dovrefjell national park, Norway

Dalmatian pelicans, or Pelecanus crispus, on Lake Kerkini, Macedonia. At 16 kilos and with a 3 metre wing span, the Dalmatian pelican is, together with the great bustard and the mute swan, a competitor for the title of The World's Heaviest Flying Bird.

Wild Wonders of Europe
ISBN: 9780810996144

I love masterful photography in all its genres. A camera in the hands of a top professional can, I believe, produce art. My background is in newspaper photography but I love all the other branches of the craft, too, especially great wildlife pictures.

On the 28th of May a brilliant book of wildlife photographs is launched by publisher Abrams. Its author is Staffan Widstrand.

The book is called Wild Wonders of Europe and features wildlife and landscape pictures shot in 48 European countries. Abrams grandly bills it as "one of the largest photography projects ever undertaken" and I can quite imagine this to be true.

This is a coffee table picture book well worth the £29.99 they are asking.

picture credits:

The bee eater is by Markus Varesvuo

The Musk ox is by Vincent Munier

The Dalmatian Pelicans is by Jan Peltomki

Apple wins Monaco Grand Prix

2010-05-16T17:57:00.004+02:00

Smart work by Apple to put their new iPad in the hands of BBC presenter Jake Humphrey for the Monaco Grand Prix today. With a TV audience estimated at an average of 650 million, peaking at one billion, what better place than the glitzy Monte Carlo race to be seen using the must have accessory of the year - especially when nobody outside the USA can yet get one! Just watch the pre-order list soar. He's smart, that Steve Jobs.

Front Line Cameramen

2010-04-29T23:56:00.020+02:00

I've been privileged to work with many great war photographers in my career, sending them off to cover 11 wars from the safety of my cushy desk in Fleet Street. Some are sadly not with us today and some still active around the world's trouble spots. Apart from a few war junkies they were mostly staff photographers and freelances thrust into the war zones by their newspapers and news agencies during times of conflict. They were not fearless individuals, careless with their lives but family men and women, dedicated to recording the true face of war with the front line troops. All were eyewitnesses to history in the making, taking the same risks as the soldiers, sailors and airmen alongside them.

Usually they came home to headlines and awards but, every so often, they paid the ultimate price for their dedication.

Since 9/11 nineteen photographers and journalists have died in Afghanistan, most recently Michelle Lang, aged 34, from Canada's Calgary Herald and Rupert Hamer of the Sunday Mirror in the UK. His cameraman, Philip Coburn, was badly injured and lucky to escape with his life.

Today I begin an occasional series called Front Line Cameramen which will honour one of the top men and women, past or present. To co-incide with the launch of his new website I begin with Mike Moore.

Mike has been a Fleet Street photographer for over 30 years with the Evening Standard, the Today newspaper and, currently, the Daily Mirror. He has won the prestigious British Press Photographer of the Year 3 times, Royal Photographer of the Year twice and News and Feature Photographer of the Year. He's also won 2 World Press Awards.

His conflict coverage reads like a map of the trouble spots of the world and include Afghanistan, Iraq, Angola, Bosnia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Rumania. He was embedded with the 4th Armoured Brigade in the Gulf War, spending two months as the only cameraman with the famous Desert Rats, living with them in the front line trenches. Penguin produced a great record of his time with them called Desert War. ISBN 0-14-016513-4. If you want a feel of what it's like going to war with the First Royal Scots it's on Amazon.co.uk at an impossibly bargain price and worth a hundred times more.

In quieter times he lives in England with his wife, Helen, and two children.

Nature's life forces with your breakfast read

2010-04-25T17:07:00.012+02:00

Living beneath the Icelandic volcano

Spirals of dust swirl about star V838 Mon. across trillions of kilometres of interstellar space, 20,000 light years from Earth. NASA

The pollen from a mallow flower. It's spines help it cling to bird's feathers.

Micronaut, supported by Pruftechnik Uri GmbH

Those awesome pictures at the very heart of the volcano I brought to you in the previous post drew an eruption of comments from around the world. The Boston Globe site was engulfed by over 7,346 of them in many languages. They also make fascinating reading, if you have the time. (click on the link if you want to read them.)

All interpreted them differently, as you would expect from such a diverse audience.

Some ‘saw’ the face of Jesus in the cloud, of course. Some praised Allah. Others praised the farmers who struggled on under its emissions. Many feared for the animals wandering lost in the darkness. The cynics dealt with it through corny jokes such as, “where are the virgins when we need them for sacrifice.”

All were stunned by the magnitude of Nature.

For myself, I was also thankful for the skills of the photographers and the brilliance of the modern equipment that made it happen, as you might expect given my background. Modern image technologies bring us closer to Nature. Using it we can try to understand the forces that go into evolving life itself. With the volcano it was lava landscape gardening the Earth.

This week two more brilliant sets of images showing life’s evolutionary forces were published. Each as different as they were similar. Firstly, NASA celebrated 20 years of the Hubble telescope with a release of some of its work. Secondly, the advent of Spring hay fever allowed the brilliant Dr Martin Oeggerli to show us close up one of the culprits causing it, using a Scanning Electron Microscope.

NASA’s Hubble is now an old lady, having been in space for 20 years. Dr Martin Oeggerli received his first camera from his dad only in 2004. Martin’s day job is in the University of Basel Pathology department in Switzerland, doing cancer research work. Hooked on photography he began using his own techniques to colour interpret the wonderful close-ups created there by the Electron Microscope. Now he is a world leader in the art with a company called Micronaut and many exhibitions. Chances are, if you see a close-up of some bug or micro specimen it is Martin’s work.

To me these two diverse images share a common bond. They are the use of science technology to reveal the beginnings of life itself. The pollen in creating the flower. The solar system in creating the stars on which life can live. And that is thanks to the skilled people who use it.

This brings me full circle to the volcano pictures.

Up close and personal with the volcano

2010-04-20T08:26:00.003+02:00

I am an old newspaper picture editor. In the modern world of budget cuts and redundancies I often despair of my profession's passing. Today my heart was lifted by The Boston Globe's coverage of the volcano. I can't print them for copyright reasons but Here is How it's Done.

Settle back, click on the link, and enjoy this brilliant portfolio. Well done, the Picture Editor of the Globe.

Why I don't trust Election Polls

2010-04-14T18:52:00.005+02:00

The UK is in the middle of a hard fought election. Each new TV bulletin features the latest public opinion poll results. They are supposed to show us where the parties currently stand with the voters. Independent litmus tests of our polling day intentions.

I don’t trust them from personal experience. Back in May 1979, with the Labour Party in power, amid a general disillusionment with James Callaghan as PM, the Leader of the Opposition, Margaret Thatcher, was campaigning against him. She was the new leader of the Conservatives. As polling day grew closer the poll predictions had Maggie leading by a canter. It was going to be a landslide.

I was then on the Daily Mail, a UK Tory paper. They set up an editorial Election Desk, a separate ‘mini’ editorial room. I sat with the election desk news editor as picture liaison man. As the political stories rolled in I picked out the picture worthy ones. Come the eve of polling day the news editor’s phone rang, just before print deadline time. It was Lord Rothermere, the paper’s owner, with his nightly check on the poll prediction.

The news ed. told him, ‘Thatcher’s running away with it.’ The good Lord paused and reflected, then issued his instructions. In his paper, on polling morning, there would be an overnight ‘shock’ swing to Labour of 7%.

And so, as the voters finished their egg and soldiers and prepared to go to the booths, the 1^st Edition ran with that prediction.

Cannily, he didn’t want the Tory faithful not bothering to come out and vote, assuming Maggie had won it easily without them. So he gave them a shock headline, and it worked, as we now know.

Chalk dust on your knees

2010-04-09T11:31:00.007+02:00

I’m not a fan of graffiti. I don’t consider it art, just trick typography. It doesn’t bring the satisfaction that art does. It's more a cry for attention. I like street photography and street art, just not four bloated letters filled in with a silver aerosol. That’s just my opinion.

But 3D Pavement Art or Chalk Art which uses anamorphosis to create the illusion of three dimensions, that’s something else. Magnificently transcending when done by the master exponents like German artists Edgar Mueller and Manfred Stader or American master painter in chalk, Kurt Wenner, who worked for NASA as a scientific space illustrator before his love of the Italian Renaissance painters took him to Rome to study them. The UK has Julian Beever who now works all over the world drawing evocative pavement scenes from his vivid imagination.

Anamorphosis has been used since the Romans to induce optical height and width. It was widely used in Renaissance and Baroque paintings.

But these modern masters in chalk create wonderful illusions on our streets and terraces. So successful are they that major companies employ them to spice up their product launches and their work often moves inside galleries now.

The Muscular Dystrophy Campaign runs the Young Pavement Artists Competition, an annual event with a nature theme for budding new chalk artists with great prizes to be won for the kids who enter. Who knows, maybe one of them will go on to greatness like the top exponents of this brilliant art form.

Here are just a few of the greats:

EDGAR MUELLER

KURT WENNER

MANFRED STADER

JULIAN BEEVER

She Played A Man's Game With A Woman's Weapons

2010-03-23T13:12:00.017+01:00

As a young man I read Joseph Conrad’s The Rover, Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Tennyson’s The Coming of Arthur and other worthy literature for my English Lit. exams. I don’t know if I’m better for it.

But I also discovered something else that set this 16 year old’s pulse racing.

Mickey Spillane. His hard-boiled detective, Mike Hammer, I thought was how grown-up men behaved and I tried to put on this hard face in the mirror, like Robert Mitchum. It didn’t work, of course, because I couldn’t keep it up and I looked ridiculous. It took a while to discover it wasn’t who I was.

But I loved them all the same. Those trashy covers always had a vamp, shoulders bared, seducing some tough guy in a tux. In those days you couldn’t read them in public, or in front of your mum.

Now those pulp fiction covers are treated by some as art. And I agree. They sell for a hundred times their original cover price at auction. But some of their authors may surprise you.

For instance, who is this from a novel called You Asked For It?

“If he hadn’t been a tough operator, Jimmy Bond would never have risked a weekend with a woman who used her magnificent body as a weapon to destroy him…

But it was a toughness that landed Jimmy his job with the Secret Service.”

Yes, it’s our own James Bond. The book was re-issued as Casino Royale but Ian Fleming had to take what he could as a new writer in 1955, and the cover art that went with it. He later wrote Chitty, Chitty, Bang Bang, his only children’s book.

Now, You Asked For It, sells at $144.99 on Amazon.com

Chitty, Chitty sells from $.22 on the same site to £1,200 as a first edition on Jonkers Rare Books. Here, incidentally, if you have a spare £22,500 you can also buy Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes, 1911 version.

Here’s another. The book is called, Nude Croquet and is a book of short stories.

Authors? W. Somerset Maugham, Alberto Moravia, Leslie A Fielder, William Faulkner, and John Cheever.

The sensational covers don’t reflect the text inside. These were the days of censorship. One publisher, Sanford E. Aday, was sentenced to 25 years under the Obcenity Act for publishing The Sex Life of a Cop, a novel. Now that book’s asking price at auction is $200 and California State University houses a collection of his works.

If you want to know more of these days of State intervention, the man to tell you is the renowned Stephen J. Gertz. His fascinating piece is here.

I guess the moral of this story is to be thankful for your first publisher, however lowly. Who knows what it could lead to?

Kindle for Mac

2010-03-19T17:58:00.004+01:00

Amazon.com have just released their new programme, Kindle for Mac. Us Mac owners can now download it for free and gain access to all Amazon's burgeoning Kindle e-book list without owning a Kindle.

Wouldn't be anything to do with Apple's iPad release, would it? All those supposed newspapers and magazines soon to be available, designed for the big screen iPad?

I say it's a welcome addition to the growing e-book armoury.

Grisham goes e-book? Catch 22.

2010-03-16T22:53:00.010+01:00

Great news for John Grisham fans like me. After a year of reluctance our thriller godfather has finally been dragged to the e-altar, ready to wed his 22 titles to our e-readers.

John didn’t like the idea of “putting all those bricks-and–mortar bookstalls out of business with my downloads.” Oh, God, where have we heard all this before? What a threat us e-reader owners must be! A whole 3% of the market. We aren’t contagious, just different.

All Mr Grisham’s titles are available, says Random House in The New York Times. Hurry now! says Sony Readers Store in an email rushed to my mail box this Tuesday 16^th March. Google trumpets the news on it’s pages.

Excellent! I eagerly click through to purchase for my Sony PRS700.

Err.. sorry, you don’t have an American address? No Grisham.

Knowing Sony is Waterstone’s in the UK, I click on to them. Grisham in e-books? Never heard of such a thing. Nothing showing here.

Must be on Amazon.co.uk, I think, and click through to them. They show a CD with 17 titles available in pdf format. We used to sell it but we don’t sell it now, it says. Try Amazon USA Kindle.

I move on to the US on Amazon.com. Grisham for kindle? Yes, of course. All 22.

So, a fanfare launch of mega proportions of the top dog in the genre to excite us thriller loving e-readers and - no product ready to buy on the day outside America.

Isn’t that just typical of the disjointed, convoluted, e-publishing industry? Please sort it out, guys. We all read the internet worldwide. We are all here waiting to thrust pounds and euros in your back pockets – please don’t treat us like urchins with our chins on the USA counter.

Population of America 307 million. Population of the world 6.8 billion.

You won't understand this if you're under 40

2010-03-09T18:32:00.003+01:00

Many women are returning to work after having a family. But are the old skills still there? Is there anything new to be learned in this unfamiliar new workplace?

Last Train From Hiroshima

2010-03-03T10:53:00.007+01:00

It's not often that the story behind the writing of a book is worth writing a book about. Here's one that has all the ingredients of a novel, and then a movie.

Author Charles Pellegrino has an impressive CV. Scientific consultant to director James Cameron on the blockbuster movies Avatar and Titanic. Credited with supplying the science recipe for cloning dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. He has authored or co-authored 18 books. What could go wrong, you ask?

Plenty. His latest non fiction book, The Last Train from Hiroshima, was snapped up by publisher Henry Holt & Co, a Macmillan company, for a huge advance. The said James Cameron then bought the film rights. The book delves into the world's first atomic bomb attack on that blighted city in Japan that ended the second world war and killed 140,000 people. The B-29 bomber was named Enola Gay, after the pilot's mother. The pilot was Colonel Paul Tibbetts, considered the best flier in the US Army Airforce. He was Dwight D. Eisenhower's personal pilot.

Ship designer Tsutomo Yamaguchi was one of the few who survived the blast. He fled by train for the safe haven of Nagasaki. And he survived that atomic holocaust, too.

All amazing stuff. Then the bugs blow in. The New York Times hunts Pellegrino's 'source.' A man named Joseph Fuoco who claimed to be on an escort plane with the Enola Gay. But he wasn't. He was an impostor, unmasked by the family of the real escort crewman, James Corliss who even got a medal for it.

Mr Pellegrino, of course, is stunned. Wouldn't we all be? "This book is a Toyota," said atomic historian, Robert S. Norris. Pellegrino's publisher asks the author for more details of a priest he describes in the book allegedly presiding over the funeral of a Hiroshima resident. The answer the author gives doesn't satisfy them. Holt & Co have to respond to a question from AP and say, "author Charles Pellegrino was not able to answer concerns about Last Train to Hiroshima, including whether two men mentioned in the book actually existed."

The inevitable digging into the author's background begins. Allegations surface that his Ph.D, earned in 1982 from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, is suspect. The institution tells reporters they have no record of his qualification. The author explains this as political maneuvering by rivals. He offers a re-write of 'Hiroshima' updating the missing details.

Avatar Director James Cameron comes out in support of his friend, Pellegrino. "All I know is that Charlie would not fabricate, so there must be a reason for the misunderstanding."

The publisher states. "It is with deep regret that Henry Holt & Company announces that we will not print, correct or ship copies of Charles Pellegrino's The Last Train from Hiroshima. It is easy to understand how even the most diligent author could be duped by a source, but we also understand that opens that book to very detailed scrutiny."

I don't know the rights or wrongs of it but I'm SO pleased I'm a fiction author. Henrietta Fox and Cass Farraday in my Fox & Farraday Mysteries are just figments of my fevered imagination. Honest!

What has Jane Austen and JK Rowling got in common? The Cotswolds.

2010-02-16T12:53:00.009+01:00

In an earlier post I mused about where old Fleet Street photographers go after a lifetime recording the news for our breakfast table reading. Usually they follow the same passion that got them into photography in the first place. Dave Hill continues his crusade to picture the four corners of the globe and its denizens. Clive Limpkin, after years on the frontline trouble spots, crosses India to record that sub-continent for his brilliant books.

Paul Felix is another of those dedicated snappers who filled our newspapers over many years but never strayed from his first love, photographing The Cotswolds.

To celebrate his love for the area Paul has now produced a website where you can keep up with Cotswold life and experience the beauty of all its seasons.

Cotswoldweekly.co.uk

For those outside England The Cotswolds is a range of hills in west central England, sometimes referred to as ‘the heart of England.’ It is 25 miles across and 90 miles long and is designated as ‘an area of outstanding, natural beauty.’ The name in olde Englishe means ‘sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides or a ‘wold’ and it has stunning villages with wonderful old names like Chipping Norton, Moreton-in-Marsh, Stow-on-the-Wold, Shipston-on-Stour and Wotton-under-Edge.

It also has its share of famous names. J.K.Rowling was born at Chipping Sodbury.

Gloucester Cathedral’s atmospheric cloisters were used in the filming of her Harry Potter movies.

Jane Austen lived in Bath from 1801 to 1806. The historic city is reflected in her novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

William Morris, one of the leaders of the 19^th century Arts and Crafts Movement was greatly influenced by the Cotswold countryside. He died there at Kelmscott Manor in 1896 and the area still buzzes with artists and craftsmen to this day.

The Cotswolds abounds with medieval Castles, 16^th century Manor Houses and Abbeys that survived Henry V111’s Dissolution of the Monasteries, all built from the yellow, Cotswold limestone. Oxford’s spires mark its eastern boundary line.

Paul Felix has photographed The Cotswolds life for thirty years. If you see a beautiful, pastoral scene in a book or a calendar, chances are it’s by Paul Felix and he has a huge library of pictures, old and new.

images top to bottom:

Thatched cottage in Shottery, once the home of Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway.

New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare died.

Abbey Church at Tewkesbury, reflected in the River Avon floodwater.

Yew Trees around the parish church doorway in Stow-on-the-Wold.

A field of buttercups at Broadway on a Spring day.

Feeling down? You need some Chris Grimes

2010-02-08T23:28:00.004+01:00

If, like me, you still miss the street humour of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Or the zany, mental gyrations of Spike Milligan who later morphed into the king of comedy, John Cleese. Or maybe the golden moments of Monty Python along with that brilliantly sarcastic, cynic Blackadder?

I have a cunning plan for you.

Step over and visit The First Post, Britain’s best cyber newspaper/magazine and see Chris Grimes in his latest, hilarious video short, "Knock, knock." Chris is undoubtedly in the footsteps of the masters of mirth. He describes himself here on his website thus:

“Actor, Comedy Improvisation Performer, Comedy Writer/Creative Short Film Maker, Voice-over Artist, Drama Workshop Leader and …Washing Machine Impressionist."

Yes, he plays a washing machine in a sketch on his website. He’s also Director of Wibble Films who made “Knock, knock.” No surprise then that he is a graduate of both the Central School of Speech and Drama In London and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

How many men can play Chekhov AND a washing machine! He is truly a national treasure.

My challenge during the Macmillan v Amazon wars

2010-02-04T18:28:00.009+01:00

For all the e-book owners out there with shiny, new Sony readers or Amazon Kindles just out of the packing cases. Or iPhone Stanzas, Palm readers and plain old mini laptops, all hungry for epub fillings. You're dying to fill up those empty megabytes but are confused by the Macmillan v Amazon battle? I've set myself a little challenge suited to the financial crisis to help you get started.

I've given myself a fiver to spend and a target. I want to download 112 books for it. Easy, I hear you say. Just go to Project Gutenberg. Have you tried that?

It's an archive. It smells of dust and parchment. Half a million frayed books to wade through, with little weevils running out. That's what it feels like.

So, I hunted further with my fiver in hand.

I found Girlebooks. (not that kind of girliebooks, pervert.)

This one is run by Laura McDonald and her mum, Joyce. The website at www.girlebooks.com is a wonderful site. Laura and Joyce are dedicated to finding books written by women, mostly by plumbing the depths of Gutenberg and making them available as ebooks for free. But that's not all.

Cleverly, they find suitable paintings to convert as covers for them and they look great. They offer five or six formats for download (whatever Gutenberg offers). They are, of course, old favourite classics. Elizabeth von Arnim, Louisa May Alcott, Katherine Mansfield, etc. A great opportunity to add them to your e-reader and computer e-library. Just to dip into whenever the mood takes you. An antidote to a rainy afternoon. Or to introduce to your children when the time is right. They offer 89 of these classics.

You can salvage through Gutenberg yourself but I found it hard going. I added The Herries Chronicles by Hugh Walpole. That's Rogue Herries, Vanessa, Fortress and Judith Paris. You'll find Edgar Wallace on the same page.

That's 4 more. I added Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll for my kids and grandkids.

Next came Harlequin Books. Great offers here. It's their 60th birthday. To celebrate they are giving away 16 books to download absolutely free. How could I resist! All Detective or Romance with a big following. So, in they go.

Next, the turn of the Sci-fi brigade. Suvudu Books are offering 5 free downloads of their latest titles.

That's 110 books so far, and not a penny spent.

Then I came to ManyBooks.net run by Matthew McClintock. He has 24,461 free e-titles! It was time to stop.

In an effort to spend my fiver I went to Waterstones and downloaded The Third Pig Detective Agency for £1.

I searched on. An intriguing and, I hope legal site was cheapebookshop.com. I felt I might be slipping into one of those old naughty bookshops in Soho. Titles like Discover the 100+ Lovemaking Toys Already In Your House or An Amazing Guide to Finding A Thai Wife.

I made my excuses and turned to leave then found on offer Save Your Driving License, secrets of how to get off when the cops stop you. All about slipping out of speeding, radar guns, totting up points, etc. That seemed an investment at £2.

That's 112 ebooks for £3.

So, I have £2 left. I think I'll have a pint with that.

Crying Wolf

2010-01-21T18:05:00.010+01:00

In an earlier post I showed you the winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards including this great shot of a wolf in the wild leaping a gate. It won cameraman Jose Luis Rodruigez a £10,000 prize.

Now the judges of the competition have ruled that it was a fake. Jose won't get his money. They point out the animal's similarity to a tame wolf in a zoo near Madrid. Although how they can tell one from another is beyond me.

Animal photography has many tricks, usually involving food reward. A polo mint up the nostril will get a horse to 'laugh.' Fishing gut round a dog's hind leg tethered to a cricket stump gives an appearance on film that the mutt is peeing inappropriately. Jose was unlucky with his tame wolf picture. Where is the fine line between a wildlife programme shot in the wild that cuts to selected close-ups shot inside a studio 'lair?'

Better luck next year, Jose.

Give confidently to Haiti

2010-01-14T19:27:00.004+01:00

When an appalling tragedy like the devastating Haiti earthquake happens you can be sure two things will happen.

Firstly, an outpouring of generosity and assistance from the public of Britain, Europe and America will raise millions in relief funds.

Secondly, a groundswell of fraudulent scam artists will emerge from under their rock to try to skim off some of that money – just as they did for Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the tsunami of 2004.

Now it’s reported that the fraudsters are rushing to register URLs capitalising on Tuesday’s natural disaster on the blighted Caribbean island where hundreds of thousands of people are at risk. Security researchers at the Internet Storm Centre have already logged the appearance of suspicious domains not connected to recognised charities. Some will be legitimate but some won’t.

There are government warnings released against these criminals but how many well intentioned people will see them, trying to pledge their hard earned cash to assist the rescue efforts? With the rise of Twitter, Facebook, etc. there are new methods of exploiting the public’s generosity.

The well respected website, The Register reports this:

“Scams have evolved since the days of Katrina so that Black Hat search engine manipulation is used to promote dodgy sites, Twitter tag-poisoning and even paid search engine placement ads may be brought into play to increase traffic flowing towards fraudulent domains. Cybercrooks may also attempt to trick surfers into downloading malware under the guise of codecs supposedly needed to view video reports of the Haitian tragedy, if previous experience is any guide.”

The FBI and the Better Business Bureau have released guidelines for all who wish to be sure their donations go where they are desperately needed – and not into the pockets of unscrupulous crooks cashing in on the misery in Haiti.

So please don’t stop giving. These appallingly afflicted people need your cash. Sticking to the well known charity names is always safe. The Red Cross, Save the Children, etc. You can consult the website of the Disaster Emergency Committee in the UK and the IFRC internationally for guidance.

The victims of this terrible disaster need you – right now.

Front line press tragedy in Afghanistan

2010-01-10T22:24:00.005+01:00

Rupert Hamer
Philip Coburn

Today Sunday Mirror defence Correspondent, Rupert Hamer, was killed in Afghanistan. His photographer, Philip Coburn, was seriously injured. They were in a US Army vehicle that hit an improvised bomb near Nawa, in Helmand Province.

They were on assignment embedded with the US Marine Corps. A US marine and an Afghan soldier were also killed in the blast.

This tragedy has brought heartfelt words of sympathy from the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Fulsome praise for their previous work with the armed forces also comes from a former commander of the British Army in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, as well as from many friends and colleagues including his Editor, Tina Weaver.

I never worked with Rupert or Philip but I know they were a brave and professional team in any conflict. I have worked with many war photographers and their correspondents, stretching from the end of Vietnam, the Biafran Wars of the 60’s, the Israeli Five Day War, the Falklands conflict and the invasion of Bosnia. I last assigned photographers to the invasion of Kuwait and the overthrow of Saddam in Iraq. My man stood on the roof of a hotel in Baghdad to record ‘Shock and Awe’ for the readers of the Daily Mirror.

All these brave men and women have one thing in common. Utter dedication to bringing the front line plight of our soldiers, sailors and airmen to our breakfast table newspapers. They wine, dine, cajole and court the top brass, doing whatever it takes to get to the private at the front. Often the MOD or the brass don’t want them there but they persevere. Their assignment is to photograph the sons and daughters of their reading public who put their lives on the line for our country.

Many journalists and cameramen have died doing so in the past. A total of 18 have died in Afghanistan since 9/11. Most recently, Michelle Lang, aged 34, from Canada’s Calgary Herald in a similar attack last month.

Now that tragedy has happened again. These newspaper warriors volunteer for these assignments. They are not fearless individuals, careless with their lives. They are mostly family men and women, like the troops they follow, but photographing the soldiers at the front means being with them and taking their risks, too. Oft times they come home to headlines and awards but, every so often, they pay the ultimate price for their dedication.

Rupert paid that price today. Philip nearly did. I add my condolences to Rupert’s wife, Helen, and her three young children as well as to the families of the US Marine and the Afghan soldier and my hopes that Philip makes a full recovery.

Is there life after Fleet Street?

2010-01-06T13:18:00.008+01:00

Rajasthan

Clive Limpkin in Belfast 1972

Where do the top press photographers go after a lifetime recording the wars, triumphs and disasters that befall us all? There are just so many years they can dodge bullets, celebrity minders and traffic wardens whilst shooting assignments to a daily deadline, cajoled and screamed at by picture editors under the Editor’s cosh.

Their love of photography doesn’t diminish - they just need a new focus. I have known many who turn to travel pictures. Or rather, travel essays because these brilliant band of top snappers are honed by their past trade to ‘see’ what we all miss.

One veteran of 35 years assignments for Britain’s nationals is Clive Limpkin. From the thick of the action in the strife-torn 70’s in Northern Ireland he produced his first picture book, ‘The Battle of Bogside’ which won him the Robert Capa Gold Medal from Life Magazine. Over the following years he travelled the world with his cameras for the Daily Express, the Sketch and Daily Mail whilst writing for the Sunday Times and Observer.

Now a travel photographer he and his lovely wife, Alex, have completed an ambitious tour of India and produced a superb picture book of their experiences crossing that subcontinent. It's not one to miss.

The book is called: India Exposed – The Subcontinent A – Z

This is what he says about it.

‘For first-time visitors it’s a gamble whether this overloaded, overpopulated, over-cooked, overlooked, anarchistic madhouse will have you vowing never to go near again, or booking the next trip — no matter what the cost. When friends ask for one good reason to visit, I offer them a billion — it’s the people. Whether because of the Hindu belief in karma or due to acceptance of caste lot, nowhere else do you get so many disarming smiles or waves in warm greeting. These salutations come not from those seeking your tourist dollar but from millions upon millions with nothing to their name who act like they’ve just won life’s lottery and want you to share it. And maybe they have. Each visit to India brings a small but perceptive change to personal ambitions and Western material priorities, downgrading the urgency of another raise, a bigger car, or a facelift. India is the real world—and most of the time, it smiles at you. Matching this enveloping welcome is a serendipity of surprises that I’ve met nowhere else in the world.’

The book is a fascinating insight into India off the tourist track with 200 colour photographs and mini-essays on life in the second most populous country in the world.

The book is on Amazon here.

For those interested in how he did it go here.

You can see some of Clive’s past work here

Two pointers to the future?

2010-01-03T18:13:00.006+01:00

Today I thank the Lord I’m not a traditional publisher. For years I’ve suffered sniffy sniggers and downright haughty ‘attitude’ from the traditionalists of the publishing industry because I commit their cardinal sin.

I publish POD and produce e-books.

Suddenly, they are crowding onto the gangplank of the good ship E-BOOK as if it’s the last ferry from Saigon and the Viet Cong are at the gate. All the while arguing amongst themselves about how to control this strange, detested new e-world.

This week two interesting sets of figures were released.

Firstly, Amazon announced that electronic book sales outsold physical books for the first time ever on Christmas Day.

Secondly, the Publishers Association published some damning figures revealing just how badly ‘trad’ publishing is fairing. They pulp, shred or quietly entomb 77 million books a year.

Why is that? Because of the ludicrous practice of bookshops ‘returning’ unsold items. This is surely not selling, it’s lending.

Dan Franklin, publisher of Jonathan Cape, says of the system; “it’s raving mad. The retailer takes no risk.”

So the bookshops simply over order, knowing that they can send back all they don’t sell, leaving the publisher with piles of stock returns to pulp or use as ballast in bulk carriers off to the South China Seas.

Add the crazy advance system and the shallow craving by publishers for celebrity names on their titles and you have a recipe for financial disaster. A £1m advance for Cherie Blair’s autobiography, which sold 23,412 hardbacks and 10,240 paperbacks. That cost £29.70 per book just to cover the advance.

Martin Amis’s The Second Plane sold just 4,493. How much did he get on advance for that?

I’m an author who publishes his own work independently so I see both sides of the argument. As an author I want big advances, who wouldn’t? But as a publisher I know it’s unsustainable.

Nielsen Bookscan finds that, of 86,000 new physical titles published in the UK in 2009, 59,000 sold an average of just 18 copies. EIGHTEEN!

That makes me feel much better about my POD paperback sales. I’m not getting rich – but I’m not plunging into unsustainable debt either. Offering my paperback thrillers also as e-books for Kindles, Sony e-Readers and the many other electronic hand-held devices is my investment for the future – and at better discount percentages, too.

So, do I feel sorry for the blighted traditional publishing houses desperately hunting for one best seller to pay for all the bad decisions they make? Decisions like paying millions to literary lions like ‘authoress’ Jordan – Katie Price’s alter ego, even though Rebecca Farnworth actually writes her books? If they want to toss good cash off a cliff good luck to them.

It doesn’t have to be at the expense of good writers. Print on Demand, done professionally, as well as properly produced e-books are, I believe, the salvation for the rest of us.

ps. I thought I'd use the Katie Price picture at the top in a salacious attempt to get more blog readers. She didn't actually write this post. I ghost wrote it.

Who is spying on the spies?

2009-12-18T08:10:00.008+01:00

In my thriller KILL CHASE the villain is finally nailed by a Hellfire missile fired from an Israeli Predator drone plane in the Gaza Strip.

Information revealed today in the Wall Street Journal explains that the US built Predator has been spied upon. The biter bit, you might say.

The unmanned spy plane is flown by wire via a military satellite. Its designated pilot sits thousands of miles away at a desk. The plane has 'eyes' of its own and cameras on a gimbal beneath its nose that stream pictures to the high command. On finding its target a Hellfire tank buster delivers death and destruction from above.

Unbelievably, its video data stream has not been encrypted for the last ten years. Perhaps the Pentagon figure that Al-Qaeda isn't smart enough to work out how to exploit it? Iraqi insurgents have been using a $26 Russian software programme called SkyGrabber to intercept the Predator's pictures and discover where it is. Then, of course, they scarper swiftly the other way.

As my heroine, Henrietta Fox, in Kill Chase might say, "you couldn't make it up."

So what's next after the e-reader?

2009-12-10T00:27:00.008+01:00

How many times have you heard or read the bleat,

“Nobody wants to read books onscreen. E-readers will never catch on.”

Well, I’ve heard similar moans over the years.

“Television will never replace radio” (anon)

“Nobody wants colour pictures in newspapers.” (Rupert Murdoch).

“The Internet will never replace news in print.” (Rupert Murdoch)

They even said the motor car would never replace the horse. Well, this year in the US alone they will have sold 3 million e-readers by Christmas. Forresters predict sales of over 6 million in 2010. There are no sales figures for the UK but what happens in the States follows here.

Next year will be the year of the e-reader. Nine new e-readers already on the market are battling for first sales to the new generation who want to read onscreen. Storage goes up - the new Nook stores 1,500 books. Battery life extends from hours to days. Free offers abound - the Libre eBook comes with 100 free books preloaded.

All it takes now is for the retailers to get on board. They don't understand them yet. The staff are confused by the customers questions. What format can I download? Where from? Eventually the tipping point will come. If Dixons could explain all that gadgetry we bought ten years ago surely this is not beyond a modern store? Of course it will come.

But what’s next after the e-reader? It's this. The QUE.

There it is at the top of the page. Developed over 10 years by two Cambridge University professors, the Que will be unveiled on the 7^th January 2010 at a trade show in Las Vegas, USA.

And this is where it gets interesting.

Made by Plastic Logic, the wafer-thin e-reader is exactly that. ALL of it is plastic, including the electronic circuitry. No silicone. This makes it lighter and flexibly shatterproof. It’s 1/3^rd of an inch thick, weighs less than a magazine, is 3G wireless capable with a large touch screen of 8.5 x 11 inches. It’s format compatible with PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel so that it’s perfect for business documents, news media or just good old novels in EPUB.

Plastic Logic is already doing deals with publishers to download newspapers and periodicals like the Financial Times and USA Today. Maybe the print newspaper publishers’ dream of a smooth transfer to a subscription based e-reader is not impossible after all. Imagine the money they would save by shutting down all those presses? Saving all that ink and those trees?Just give one of these to each reader who subscribes.

The first Ques will be sold by the giant Barnes & Noble book group in the US. Their library enables them to compete with Amazon’s Kindle before moving later into the European market.

But what then?

Next, the ultimate dream. Research on until it becomes electronic digital paper, able to be rolled up and stuffed in your briefcase or folded in your pocket like a handkerchief. Pull it out, flatten it and wirelessly download today’s newspaper edition on the train to work.

Pure Issac Asimov!

The Queen warns the paparazzi

2009-12-07T00:22:00.005+01:00

The Queen has decided to take action against paparazzi photographers who picture senior members of the royal family on private property. She has written, through her lawyers, to newspaper editors warning them of her intentions.

With memories of the hounding of Diana, Princess of Wales, still fresh in peoples’ minds and with fears of similar treatment meted out to Prince William and his girlfriend, Kate Middleton, this might seem to be a sensible thing to do. Quite right, you might say. They make themselves available to the Press at official functions and public events, which should be enough.

Every Christmas Day newspapers in the UK rely on pictures of the royal progress to church on the Sandringham estate to fill their front pages. Indeed, there’s little else happening that day to compete. I relied on it for thirty years to get me out of trouble each festive occasion for three different newspapers. So, are they at risk?

Believe me, the royals have enough protection, both legal and firepower, to deal with a small invading army. You try approaching Her Maj without accreditation. Your tootsies won’t touch down till you hit the cell floor. So why this draconian action now?

The Christmas break always sees the royals gather at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk where they enjoy doing what they like best.

Shooting things that fly or flee.

Pheasant that are especially bred for the guns. Stags that can be stalked and brought down with a distant shot. All that’s missing is their traditional love of chasing down a fox. It’s now illegal. Prince William hunts with Kate Middleton. By definition this involves death and blood. Imagine the front pages with those pictures splashed across them?

Last year photographs captured by a paparazzo, who hid in the bushes with a long lens, caused uproar. They showed the Earl of Wessex allegedly beating two gundogs with a four-foot stick. The RSPCA were so outraged they launched a cruelty investigation. The Queen is its Patron. The prince was exonerated.

In 2000 the Queen herself was snapped wringing the neck of a pheasant injured in the Christmas shoot. The pictures went worldwide. It’s not good PR.

Interestingly, says the Telegraph, last year the Queen’s grandchild, Peter Phillips, sold his wedding pictures for £500,000 to Hello magazine. His sister earned £125,000 from the same mag for pictures of her home with her boyfriend, Mike Tyndall. Every paparazzo’s dream.

Any paparazzi trying to get a sale from the bushes this year had better watch out. They might be mistaken for a pheasant.

Please welcome Jamieson Wolf!

2009-12-02T12:53:00.007+01:00

Hi, Jamieson. Welcome to the blog. Thanks for stepping off the virtual coach on your 14 stop tour to talk with us. You have an exciting new book for release? Tell us a bit about yourself whilst I put the kettle on. Did you always want to write? How long have you been writing?

Thanks for having me Ron. Do you have any Earl Grey? I’ve always written. Even when I was a young child, I was always writing stories and making storybooks. Something about the written words and story telling really called to me.

I didn’t start writing seriously until I was eighteen, though. I’m not sure why it took me that long to clue in to the fact I was born to tell stories; but I guess I had a lot to learn along the way.

I’m thirty one now, so I’ve been writing for quite some time; and plan to keep writing for as long as I can.

Q: Can you please tell us about your new book and why you wrote it?

Well, my new book is called HARD and it’s about a man named Owen. Here’s a bit about the book:

"Owen’s best friend makes him hard.

He’s been in love with Daniel for years, but could never tell him. If Daniel knew how Owen felt about him, Owen knew that he would lose him. And that his heart would break.

Owen dreamed of kissing Daniel, of touching him. But the most they had done was look at porn together. Owen knew that his dreams would never become a reality…

…until Daniel rents some gay porn by accident and he becomes just as hard as Owen…"

HARD came about in an odd way. Like most people, I am haunted by the past. Sometimes, when I’m not thinking of anything, memories will pop into my head; things I hadn’t thought about in years. One of these thoughts was about the first guy I ever fooled around with, a guy I’ll call Jason.

We had a falling out when Jason realized I was gay, even at that young age. But I never stopped thinking about him.

Years later, I realized that I was more than likely in love with Jason at the time. But I didn’t really know what love was. Heck, I didn’t even know what being gay was, not really. I just knew I was different; I just didn’t know how different.

When I sat down to write HARD, I had only one thought in my mind: what would have happened if my own story had gotten a happy ending? What would have happened if things had gone differently?

And the story of HARD was born.

Q: How did Hard come to be published and by whom?

Well, HARD was published in an odd way too.

I originally wrote it to be a free story that would be available at Breathless Press, a fantastic publisher of quality romance books. But they loved the story so much that they wanted to publish it instead of giving it away for free.

Even better, they wanted HARD to be their first m/m romance novel and have it launch their new m/m romance line!

So of course, I said yes.

Q: When and where is Hard available?

Hard will be published by the lovely people at Breathless Press on December 11^th, 2009, just in time for Christmas! You can find Breathless Press here: www.breathlesspress.com

Q: What else have you had published? Do you have an agent or do you think you need one?

Oh gosh, quite a few books, actually. I write gay paranormal romance and erotica for Cobblestone Press, straight paranormal romance for Breathless Press, speculative fiction for Cambridge Books and Write Words Inc and a variety of other books. At last count, I have over twenty books. If you want to take a look, why not click over to www.jamiesonwolf.com

I don’t think you need an agent to get published. There are lots and lots of independent publishers that would be willing to take you on if they like your writing. In fact, its easier to get published than it is to find an agent.

The only time an agent might come in handy is getting the attention of the bigger publishing houses. But the independent publishers have a real love for what they’re doing and will treat you right. Not to say the big houses won’t, but it depends on which direction you want to go with your writing.

Q: You write on many subjects. Is gay romance your preferred genre?

I kind of stumbled into gay romance, actually. It’s what I’ve written the most of, but I actually started with speculative fiction and fantasy horror. It’s my favourite genre to write in.

But after writing so many books with speculative elements, I was getting kind of bored. At the time I started writing gay romance, I was reading a lot of Harlequin romances (still do in fact). I thought to myself: Man, I could do this, but I’d do gay romance.

So I decided to do something completely different and write a gay historical paranormal romance. Nothing like throwing it all in the fire to see if it’ll cook, right? I had no idea what I was doing, but it felt good. It was fun, enjoyable and frightening all at the same time.

That first romance novel was Valentine which was published by Cobblestone Press in 2008. I’ve had seven other gay romances published since then, not including HARD. I find that in all my other work, I restrict myself, I box myself in. In the world of gay (and straight) romance, I let myself have fun.

Q: Describe your most favourite place to write. Do you have a routine?

Well I do all of my writing at my desk in my office. I share the office with my husband, but thankfully we don’t share computers.

I don’t have a routine except to write every day. Because I work full time, this means writing for at least an hour every evening. Sometimes I get a page, sometimes I get several. It just depends on the story and where it is at the time.

Q: Do you have a ‘trick’ to make the ideas flow? Is it a ‘Eureka’ moment? How does it work for you?

Well, after I finish a novel and its been sent off to the publisher, I usually give myself a week off. I think of it like a little holiday. I usually know which book I’m going to work on next so I spend that week thinking about that book.

During the week off, I won’t write at all. Instead, I’ll let the story and the characters build up inside of me until they’re ready to come out. By the time the week is done, I’ve been with the characters for a week and have worked out most of the plot. I never work out all of it as there are usually problems with the best laid plans.

Meaning, a novel never goes the way I think it will, even with all that brainstorming. I don’t plot or keep notes, usually, except if I have to research the story behind a book. Otherwise, I just simply sit at the computer and hope that something good comes out.

Q: Have your favourite authors influenced your style?

I don’t think so. In fact, because I love them so much, I try not to write like them. I love Stephen King, Anne Rice, Armistead Maupin, Caridad Pineiro, Nora Roberts, Jasper Fforde, L. Diane Wolfe, Sandy Lender, Caroline Smailes, JK Rowling.

Because I love these authors so much, I am always conscious of making sure I’m not copying them and making sure I’m always staying true to my voice. I do learn from them though; I watch the way they handle stories, observe the way the tackle conversation and dialogue, watch how they develop characters.

Reading makes you a better writer. You just have to find your own voice along the way.

Q: All writers get rejections. Do you handle it well, or throw teacups?

It depends, actually.

On a day where I get one rejection letter, I’m okay with it. My usual attitude is “Meh, you don’t know good writing when you read it.” And I’ll move on and keep writing.

On the days where I get more than one rejection letter (the highest amount of rejection letters I got in one day was eight) then I get down on myself. I’ll brood for an evening (or for a day or two) and beat myself up and wonder why I do this, why I put myself through all of this crap…

And the next day, I’ll sit down at the computer and tell stories again. I think if I couldn’t write, I’d go crazy.

Q: What kind of responses do you get from your readers?

I’m still surprised that I have readers at all! It’s always thrilling, fabulous and baffling that people read and love my books. I love getting random emails from readers who’ve read my books; they are a highlight of a day whenever I receive one.

I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten a bad email from a reader; of course, now that I’ve said this, I’ll receive twelve emails telling me I’m crap.

Q: If you won the lottery would you still write?

Yep. If I didn’t write, I’d go crazy. If I won the lottery, I’d be rich, but I’d still be a writer.

Q: What delights you – and drives you nuts - about publishing?

What delights me:

Knowing a publisher loves my work enough to publish it
Having readers react to a novel or story I’ve written
Discovering what kind of story I had inside of me
Seeing the cover art for the first time
The release date

What drives me nuts:

The editing
The editing
The editing
Waiting for reviews
The release date

Really, it’s all about finding a balance. If there was no bad things involved in publishing, I wouldn’t enjoy the good things when they came along right?

Q: What do you plan to do next?

Well I’m between books at the moment. I actually completed the National Novel Writing Month from the 1^st to the 30^th where the goal is to write 50, 000 words. That’s A LOT to write in a month but I’m happy as a clam to say I did it. I am taking a well deserved break while I brainstorm the next novel I’m working on titled The Written Word Book Five: Ghosts. I haven’t been in the world of The Written Word for a while and I miss it terribly.

Then it’ll be on to Invoking Darkness: The Other Book Two. After that, I’ll be writing A Subtle Magic: The Written Word Book Six and then on to Harder, the second book in the HARD Trilogy, then I Wish I May, the second book in the Wishing Star Series.

And after that? Well I still have to write Times Malaise, the second book in the Gods of Love Series, then Keeping Beauty, the third book in the Owen Diaries Trilogy. And then, after all of that, I hope to write the seventh and final book in The Written Word Series. And then, after all of that, I hope to write Valentine’s Promise, the final book in the Valentine series…

But, then again, I could change my mind completely. But that’s the order everything is in for now. However, the one thing I have learnt is that in order, there is chaos…

Q: You also make great video book trailers for other authors. Do you see them as an expanding market for you?

I do indeed. They’re a great way for authors to promote their novels in a visual format. The advantage of book trailers and book movies is that they reach those who might night read, or who prefer a more visual media.

I started Night Wolf Design (www.nightwolfdesigns.com) because there is a growing need for authors who want book trailers. For me though, it is just like telling stories, only with pictures instead of words.

I think of it as a visual form of storytelling.

Q: Do you have other work besides writing? How can we find out more about you?

I’m also a graphic artist, a photographer (amateur) and an artist. I’m working on a web site that puts all of my visual media art together in one place, but for now if you want info on me, check me out at www.jamiesonwolf.com

Q: Our usual final question. Will the e-reader take over reading as we know it?

You know, I don’t think anything will ever take away from the incredible pleasure of holding a book in your hands and reading it. Nothing will ever take that over.

I think, though, that ebooks and e readers are on the rise and their popularity is growing in leaps and bounds. Instead of taking over real books, I think the e readers and e books compliment paperbacks and hard covers.

And think about it; e books give people the convenience of reading where ever they are, when ever they want. That’s pretty cool, wouldn’t you say?

Q: It's great chatting with you, Jamieson. We wish you great success with Hard.

Thanks so much for having me Ron, it’s been a pleasure! That tea was delicious!

Tomorrow's Special Guest

2009-12-02T12:31:00.002+01:00

I have a treat for you male/male fans out there. Tomorrow an author of prolific talent and prodigious output will be stopping by on his whistle-stop blog tour. I can't reveal his name yet - but if I tell you he's written over twenty titles in many genres as well as being a super video maker and artist, you might figure it out from previous postings.

He has a new book released this December and it's hot. He's dying to tell us all about it!

More Wildlife Awards

2009-11-17T09:37:00.003+01:00

Here are just two winners from the stunning British Wildlife Awards. I showed you in an earlier post some great winners of a separate international awards collection. This is an awards focused on wildlife found in Britain.

"Red Squirrel in Kielder Forest" won Will Nicholls the under-18 British Wildlife prize whilst "Blackbirds Fighting" won David Slater the Wildlife Behavior crown.

All the brilliant pictures are on show in a travelling exhibition. The itinerary is found here.

Bored? Why not dance around the world?

2009-11-14T10:01:00.004+01:00

WhereTheHellIsMatt?

In his own words Matt is a 32-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut, USA who tired of playing video games and got bored. So he decided to dance his way around the world. He got sponsorship from a chewing gum company (clever him) and off he went.

He liked it so much he did it again. So many people on his travels liked it they said "come back and dance with us, too." So he did. This is the result. Sheer human exuberance. I found watching it a joyous experience. How can you wage war on people who like to dance? See what you think?

Here are the links: MATT and his SPONSOR Stride Gum.

iPhone art. Fun in a cell.

2009-11-08T11:13:00.015+01:00

I love the way art moves right along with us as we evolve. It seems our human species can't live without it. Since the early daubing on the walls of our caves depicting matchstick men bringing down a woolly bison we can't resist our arty side. Whether it's paint on canvas or spray can on metro train, we have to express ourselves somehow.

So what about the digi world in which we live? No problem. From photoshopping to electronic paint boxes all is possible. Now, even on the move we can splash and daub.

The ubiquitous iPhone has apps for the budding artist in us all. One is Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas (top picture.) It's a brilliant programme that turns your iPhone screen into your own blank studio canvas. Each touch onscreen creates Pollock-like artwork to your own design. It's addictive but dangerous. Show it to someone else and you risk never getting your phone back.

If you don't own an iPhone, don't worry. Go here and download it for any computer. It works just fine. When you get there watch the YouTube video if you want then enter 'JacksonPollockorg' onscreen.

If your bent is for typography here's a great way to unleash your typo skills on your iPhone. It's called 'TypeDrawing' and uses your choice of font and size to create your own artwork (pictures 2-4). It can be found here.

Go paint pictures!

One for PetrolHeads

2009-11-02T22:11:00.004+01:00

I'm an admitted speed freak. This means I love Ferraris. How about this old video of refuelling an F1 Ferrari by AIR! I still love it! Jensen Button, eat your heart out. Well done, Shell.

The Awards season is with us again

2009-10-30T10:15:00.003+01:00

The fun part of Christmas for media people starts with the picture awards. Last post was the stunning Wildlife Awards. Now it's the turn of the landscapers. This beautiful shot of the sun through the clouds over the Isle of Skye won Paris based snapper Emmanuel Coupe the £10,000 prize as the best of thousands of entries in the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2009 competition, set up by landscape photographer Charlie White. Anyone can enter. There is even a category for cellphone pictures.

The contest is supported by Natural England and the English National Park Authorities. The best 100 photographs can be seen at the National Theatre in London from December 5th. You can see past brilliant entries by following the link.

The picture is Emmanuel Coupe's copyright.

Brilliant photography from the Wildlife Photographer Awards

2009-10-22T17:35:00.000+02:00

UK Photographer Danny Green took this stunning picture entitled 'Starling Wave'. It won him the Nature Black & White Award in the Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest. He patiently stalked the birds to this huge roost at Gretna Green, using a slow shutter-speed to capture the swooping movement of the birds' flight. He says, "at its peak there were 1.5 million starlings in the sky."

Spanish photographer Jose Luis Rodriguez was the overall winner with this incredible shot of an Iberian Wolf jumping a gate in search of lunch. He explained, "this picture defines my career. I had dreamt of taking one like this for years but could only realise my vision now with electronic and infrared photography."

One of the great pleasures of picture editing has always been publishing the winners from these annual awards for great environmental photography. News event award pictures are an immediate fix as they document the ticking of life's clock and I have enjoyed judging many of them over the years - but these brilliant wildlife cameramen work to a different beat. I think their pastoral pictures touch the very soul.

The Natural History Museum in London co-sponsor these great awards with the BBC's Wildlife magazine and produce a superb exhibition of 100 of them from the 43,135 entries. You can see it there from October 23rd until April 11th 2010.

The Multi-Talented Mr Wolf

2009-10-13T18:35:00.002+02:00

I spend numbing hours searching out sexy names for characters in my novels. However, Jamieson Wolf was lucky enough to be born with his ready-made. A moniker fit for a bond-like hero or as an alternative to Heathcliff.

That's where the luck bit stops. Jamieson, from Ottawa, Ontario, is a prolific creator. A super hard working, imaginative writer who's creative output is not only endless but multi-faceted. He lets his mind roam, meandering his right-brain corridors, then writes romance fiction, fantasy fiction, short stories, non-fiction, anthology and reviews, pouring it out unfettered by genre 'labels.'

Isn't that how writing should be? He's only 31. The older one gets the easier it is to be set in the mind about what you write. Does it really matter? If you can write, do it. The joy of childhood is that nobody labels our output. We don't know, or care about genre. Cinderella doesn't tote a piece. Paddington Bear might be lost, but he's not whining to social services about it. Only writing about what we're 'good at' surely diminishes our creative wellspring?

So, if you want to write about a cat on a mat or Obama's philosophy on Muslim fundamentalism, do it. If your prose is creative and original, like Jamieson's, both will fascinate your reader. If it isn't, keep learning your trade, like me.

Did I mention Jamieson also teaches? This October his wisdom is expounded at the Muse Online Writers Conference. A change from his writing workshops.

Are you not feeling inadequate enough yet sitting in front of the telly? Let me mention he's also an accomplished artist. He works in mixed media, charcoal and pastels.

In between writing and art he finds the time to design and produces fabulous book trailer videos for his fellow authors. You will see them on YouTube. He obviously must read and notate their books to make the sense he does of the videos. Their content is informative and exciting.

So when does our Jamieson sleep? A good question. He's either found the solution to 24 hour wakefulness or he's learned the skill of being super-fast. I suspect the latter.

As one who tried (lamely) to produce my own book video I salute his undoubted talents. A rising star in both words and movies.

The thin end of a fashionable wedge?

2009-10-10T11:47:00.002+02:00

You may have seen the Ralph Lauren ad for Blue Label jeans that features an impossibly thin model named Filippa Hamilton? Filippa is, of course, not this shape at all. See the real girl above. She is quite perfect as she is, thank you. The controversy surfaced in the London Daily Mail after an ad agency graphics man went mad with the photoshopping.

To be fair a Ralph Lauren spokesman quickly put the record straight, explaining, "after further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman's body. We have addressed the problem and, going forward will take every precaution to ensure that the calibre of our artwork represents our brand appropriately."

Fair enough and good on them. It was a mistake quickly and openly corrected. I don't want to get into the 'thin versus real' model debate. There are others better qualified to do so.

I do want to talk about using enhancement in press photos. That I am qualified for, having been the first to use it in the UK national papers. I'll tell you how it all begun because it was me who started it.

On March 4th 1986 Eddie Shah launched Britain's first colour national newspaper. He called it TODAY. There had been colour in papers before, of course, but it was pre-printed weeks earlier. TODAY was 'on-edition.' Real news, sport and features in colour as they happened. I was its launch picture editor. I built, recruited and ran the picture departments. It was the magic of digitisation that made it possible and we were the first to use it. We had to use slide film and scan it into .jpg images. All highly innovative at the time.

Enter the first Adobe Photoshop. I had it but how to use it responsibly? For the first time we could change anything we wanted in a news picture. Before this, small armies of retouching artists were employed to 'airbrush' press photos, relieving the background and throwing forward the main characters. Occasionally an artist would cut and paste two people closer together to fit inside a tight layout. Famously, the Daily Mail once 'airbrushed' the genitalia off a prize-winning bull to save the lady readers' blushes. The farmer sued and won a fortune for defaming his champion.

Now my problem was where to stop. Would we 'shop' Maggie Thatcher hugging Arthur Scargill? Lord Lucan sunbathing in Barbados? It seemed to me that the answer was to forget it was new technology and apply the same principles we had adhered to successfully without it.

a) Only photoshop for quality improvement. i.e. remove physical print scratches, blemishes etc.

b) Absolutely no changes in news photos that altered the context of the event - ever.

c) Absolutely no changes to the physical appearance of any subject.

d) Feature page pictures could be manipulated for effect as long as it was not derogatory to the subject and with their approval. i.e. a showbiz star who always yearned to be a footballer heading a ball in Man Utd kit, etc.

note: An overzealous TODAY deskman on 'nights' once remodelled Steffi Graf's distinctive nose whilst on a training exercise - then left it in the news queue by mistake. We used it big on page three as a news story. It cost us a fortune and an apology.

The road to hell, of course, is paved with all our good intentions. It won't be the good doctor on the BMA ethics committee who clones Robert Mugabe or the DNA of Adolf Hitler. No, it's the fringe loonies who go too far. Once the polecat is out of the sack, everyone's at risk.

25 years have passed and photoshopping is rife with no obvious guidelines in place. Superstar X demands approval for her magazine front cover shot. "Dahling, just get rid of this, and this." Suddenly she's a size 8 looking ten years old. (not our Filippa, who was oblivious to her starvation photoshopping.)

Eventually we do not believe our own eyes. All credibility is lost. Who thinks stars on magazine covers really look that way anymore? The answer is, nobody.