+As Patrick Demarchelier prepares to open a retrospective exhibition in Paris, The Daily Telegraph interviewed the photographer who has grown tired of 'what he describes as today's "perfection-obsessed" society and the photographers and image-makers who "want to turn all women into models".' Asked who he would love to shoot, Demarchelier, famous for his Princess Diana's photographs, answers: the Duchess of Cornwall. 'I'd love to do her, but she would be very hard to photograph because she's not photogenic. She's got an interesting face, but I'd need a lot of time with her because I haven't seen any pictures of her where she looks beautiful. Rather than ask her to my studio, I would go to her house and make sure she felt really comfortable and confident. Then I'd get her to laugh - really laugh.' Read the interview here.

+An Associated Press photographer was arrested at the Republican National Convention while covering protests. Matt Rourke was in St Paul, Minnesota, when he was covering the 'unrully end to an otherwise peaceful anti-war protest,' the Committee to Protect Journalists reports. 'Covering news is a constitutionally protected activity, and covering a riot is part of that coverage,' said David Ake, an AP assistant bureau chief in Washington. A broadcast crew and host for Democracy Now! were also arrested. Full story here.

+MSN Money won't be in professional photographers' good books. In its regular '10 ways to get yourself a pay rise' column, it advices its readers to top up their income with a little bit on the side. 'Maybe one of your hobbies or interests could generate a handy second income. If, for example you're a keen (and good enough) photographer you could have a nice little earner on your hands working Saturdays as a wedding photographer'. Last July, we wrote that wedding photographers were seeing their income shrink. I wonder if MSN Money has the solution for them.

+Magnum Photos is celebrating Eve Arnold with a special exhibition at the Magnum London Print Room on Gee Street. The Independent has a profile of the photographer who was the first woman to join the photo agency and who followed Marilyn Monroe for ten years until her death. The photographer Elliott Erwitt said of her that 'she had a way of getting on with people, the mighty and the modest, in a way that was quite extraordinary. Photographers often keep a distance [from their subjects] but she didn't. She became part of the lives of many of the people she photographed. Maybe her size had something to do with the way she worked with people. She was a tiny, unaggressive kind of person who you wanted to pick up and be nice to.' Read the full story here.

With the release in April of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who was cleared of all charges after two years in jail, we might have hoped that the US military would have been more careful in the future. But news came yesterday of another photographer, who freelances for Reuters, being detained.

Ibrahim Jassam was arrested on Tuesday morning after his house was raided in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad. An US military spokesman Lt. Patrick Evans told Reuters that Jassam was detained because he was 'assessed to be a threat' to Iraq and coalition forces. Read our full story here.

As Reporters Without Borders says 'possessing a camera or a film camera seems to be taken as evidence that some journalists are involved in terrorist networks'. That last quote could easily be applied to countries other than Iraq. The UK springs to mind.

A French photojournalist has come under fire in France for her pictures of Talibans fighters responsible for the death of 10 French soldiers.

Two weeks ago, a group of Talibans killed 10 French soldiers after ambushing them. Véronique de Viguerie, a photographer working with the French news magazine Paris Match, met with Commander Farouki, the Taliban leader responsible for the attack.

Talking to French radio Europe 1, de Viguerie justified her images. 'I believe I did my job, and I hope this will not offend anyone.'

But it did. Speaking to the same radio station, French General Michel Stollsteiner objected to the publication. 'To see a French magazine show these images is revolting. I find it indecent 15 days after the death of these soldiers to see these images, which bring nothing to the debate,' he says. '[The journalists] must have gave them something to be allowed to take these pictures.'

However, Eric de Lavarène, who works with de Viguerie, is adamant: no money exchanged hands and it wasn't the first time they met with the Talibans. 'There is a conflict. We cover one side: the coalition and NATO forces. And it's also the wish of a journalist to cover the other side. Communication and propaganda come from both sides,' he says.

De Viguerie adds details about how she met with the Taliban fighters. 'It took some time, and we used some of our contacts out there'. She used a fixer/interpreter to get to the Talibans. However, they would only meet with a woman, de Lavarène says. 'They don't trust foreign men. They only trust the women.'

In her thirties, de Viguerie says that she wasn't too comfortable meeting them. 'But, when you follow the rules and when you have the authorisation of their leaders, we become their guests'.

The pictures can be seen in this week's issue of Paris Match, or online at www.parismatch.com.

After Canon and Nikon had to face leaks about their new digital SLRs, it's now Sony's turn. A series of ads have been published in a Danish magazine unveiling the firm's next flagship camera the A900! It features a 24.6 million pixel resolution sensor, Sony's Dual BIONZ image processing engine, "Intelligent Preview," a 3inch "Hybrid LCD," a burst rate of five frames per second, a 9-point Centre Dual-cross AF and, of course, Sony's SteadyShot image stabilisation system.
Engadget has more here.

The camera was expected to be unveiled only next week. BJP will have more soon.

The first Visa d'Or has been awarded yesterday evening in Perpignan, France.

The US newspaper Dallas Morning News received the Visa d'Or of the international daily press at the 20th Visa Pour l'Image festival.

The Dallas Morning News received the award, as well as €8000 from the French railway company SNCF, for its report The Bottom Line written by Mona Reeder.

In The Bottom Line, Reeder explored, using images, Texas' poverty and other poor rankings in a series of subjects such as environmental protection and immigration. Earlier this year, the reportage won other prestigious awards such as the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism prize for domestic photography or the Community Service Photojournalism Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Check back later today and over the week-end for more news from Visa Pour l'Image.

Canon has uploaded a strange teaser on its website. Featuring a moon and the shadow of a digital SLR, the teaser hints at a "destined evolution".

It has photographers talking about the possible long-awaited announcement of the the 5D Mark II or 6D as some people label it. Maybe Canon's press conference at Photokina in two weeks will clear things up. To view the teaser page, click here.

BJP has finally arrived in Perpignan for the 20th Visa Pour l'Image photojournalism festival. Deputy editor Diane Smyth and news editor Olivier Laurent will be reporting from the event all week-end, with extra features such as video interviews and reports coming over the next few days.

We just finished talking with photographer Yuri Kozyrev, who has been in Iraq for the past six years, reporting for Time magazine. He talked to us about the meaning of Visa Pour l'Image, why Iraq is, for him, the most important news story of the moment and how he works in a country plagued by violence. We will be posting, later today, the full interview.

In the meantime, Visa Pour l'Image has announced that Canon renewed its sponsorship of the event for the next five years. Canon has been the festival's principal sponsor for the past 19 years.Spokespersons at Visa are saying that 'this is the first time such a major and long-term sponsorship arrangement has been signed'.

'Visa pour l’Image pays tribute to the talent and courage of the best photographers in the business, and Canon is proud to reinforce this sentiment,' says Mogens Jensen, head of Canon Consumer Imaging Europe.

Getty Images photographer Brent Stirton has received the Visa d'Or Features last night in Perpignan at the Visa Pour l'Image photojournalism festival.

Stirton won for his reportage, commissionned by Newsweek and National Geographic, in Virunga National Park, Africa's first National Park, which is home to the endangered mountain gorilla. The park is also the only source of hardwood in the war-ravaged region from which to make good quality charcoal. The charcoal manufacturers use the rebel occupation to conceal their business activities. Complicating things further is the fact that two major rebel armies occupy the park: the CNDP under rebel Congolese General Laurent Nkunda, and their sworn enemies, the FDLR Interhamwe, who have lived in the forests since they were chased there after the Rwandan genocide.

For the same reportage, Stirton won the first prize singles in the Contemporary Issues category at this year's World Press Photo.

Image © Brent Stirton/Getty Images, courtesy of Visa Pour l'Image.

Philip Blenkinsop has won the Visa d'Or News awards at Perpignan's photojournalism festival for his reportage of the China earthquake.

The emotional announcement was made on a Perpignan street after the official award ceremony was rained off. Jean-François Leroy, Visa Pour l'Image's director, went directly to Blenkinsop at the Le Divine restaurant where the Noor photographer was dining.

Jean-François Leroy with Visa d'Or News winner Philip Blenkinsop

'I feel like Paris Hilton,' Blenkinsop said as he received the award surrounded by dozens of photographers. 'I'll need to punch one of you out.'

Blenkinsop won €8000 donated by French magazine Paris Match. 'It's not about the money,' Blenkinsop said. 'It's the most incredible honour. It means more to me than any other prize. I have so much respect for Visa. It gives you courage to keep going.'

He added that over the past 12 years he had missed the Visa festival only once. 'I come back because I support this man [Leroy] and this crew. If I were ever stuck in a nasty little jail, I know they would do all they can to get me out. I know you would fight for us,' he told Leroy.

Blenkinsop thanked his family - the Noor photo agency. Finally, he praised Perpignan's mayor for supporting the event. 'That's the longest Jean-François has ever let me speak,' he concluded.

Jean-François Leroy hugs an emotional Philip Blenkinsop

Jean-François Leroy launched his Visa Pour l’Image photojournalism festival 20 years ago. The leading force behind all the operations, Leroy has a reputation for his strong opinions – which he says is misinterpreted as being bad temper. BJP’s Olivier Laurent talks to him in Perpignan.

Jean-François Leroy in Perpignan. Image by Olivier Laurent.

BJP: Véronique de Viguerie [the Paris Match photographer who took pictures of Talibans responsible for the death of 10 French soldiers] has been criticised for her work. Care to weigh in?
Jean-François Leroy: There is no controversy. Veronique does her job, she reports. It doesn’t mean that I support the Talibans. It seems that it’s only today that France realises it has been at war for the past six years. When a newspaper published images of Iraqis fighting the weapons of American soldiers they killed, no one minded. It’s not an apology of violence. What do these images show? They show that the Talibans are organised and that we are not winning it. It’s not propaganda. If the media had shown the video of the attack the Talibans posted on the Internet, then yes, that would be propaganda. Last year, Véronique was at Visa. Her exhibition was about the Talibans. So it’s not a media coup, it’s the result of years of work. The work of a journalist.

BJP: Back to the festival, it seems that such event is only possible in France, a country that continues to publish photo reportages in its magazines while others, including the UK, seem to favour the written text over photos. Why is that?
Jean-François Leroy: France is the cradle of photography. It gave photography to the world. This festival would not be possible anywhere else. I see photography attracting people in the US or in Italy, but it’s true that France is a bit of an exception.

BJP: Is photojournalism in crisis for the lack of exposure photographers get in the press?
Jean-François Leroy: For the past twenty years we have been saying that the print media doesn’t do its job, but this year I had 12 magazines ordering me photo reportages from 12 photographers. I show them that when one magazine invests time and resources in a photographer, they get something amazing. So, yes I am happy, but I’m still worried. I would prefer if this would happen all the time and not just for Visa’s 20th anniversary. But, I tell you, next year, I will have 20.

BJP: Some newspapers have started using larger images on their websites (see out article in the next issue of BJP). Is this encouraging?
Jean-François Leroy: If only they paid for these. Everywhere I hear that the advertising market online is going through the roof, but no one spends money on the photos. This year, I must have had offers from more than 20 magazines offering to publish Visa online. They wanted to promote the festival online but they didn’t want to pay for any of the pictures. I said no. I get two images per exhibition I can use however I want (still with limitations of course) that’s it. If you want more images, you have to pay for them, and that’s normal!

BJP: This year saw Getty Images becoming an official sponsor for the first time.
Jean-François Leroy: Getty is a very nice partner, as long as they don’t ask anything I cannot in good conscience do. They do have excellent photographers. Getty is a great marketer by showing that they can make money, but they still do have a pretty damn good editorial division.

BJP: And Canon just announced it would support the festival for a further five years. Was this surprising?
Jean-François Leroy: Five years was the best news. I spent so many difficult winters when I lost sponsors. Canon’s contract was coming to an end this year, so it was excellent to get them to sign for five more years. I’m luck to have smart partners – they are not sponsors, they are partners. Two years ago, Kristen Ashburn of Contact Press Images won the Canon Female Photojournalist Prize with her 6x6 black-and-white analogue photos. I was worried they might not be happy about it, but they just told me “It’s the jury’s choice, we cannot and don’t want to intervene.” Signing for five years shows the confidence they have in us.

BJP: Some critics think that the festival shows too much of the same photographers. After 20 years, do you still have a fresh eye? How do you choose the photographers and photos that will make Visa?
Jean-François Leroy: How do I choose the images? It’s my bad taste. I had someone tell me yesterday: “It’s not your fault if all your friends are the best photographers in the world.” Take Paolo [Pellegrin] for example, he grew up with us. He came to me 19 years ago with his work. Now, he is a superstar, he is fully booked for the next year, but he still comes to Visa. Do I still have a fresh eye? Ask the different collectives, look at Guillaume Herbaut and others. I look at everything I’m sent. If you send me a CD of your work, I will look at it and answer you. I receive a lot of crap projects, but I still answer them all. The day it will bother me to look at someone’s work, I’ll be done. I had the chance to create the festival I wanted. If you don’t like it, just create yours. Good luck.

Visa Pour l’Image will go on for another two weeks. The third week, which is not advertised, will see Leroy and five photographers visit Perpignan’s schools to inform pupils about the photojournalism’s values. This year, to celebrate Visa’s 20th anniversary, the commemorative slide show will be shown in Paris on November 03 and 04. The next day, Leroy will go on holiday.

Diane Smyth talks to Philip Blenkinsop (middle) and Stanley Greene (right) Image © Olivier Laurent

‘When photographers have an agenda, when they put their heart and soul into it, when they breathe and sleep and bleed with the people they’re photographing, that’s when they get the best work,’ Philip Blenkinsop told me, just hours before he was presented with the Visa d’Or for his reportage on China’s earthquake. ‘Photographers who expect to be paid for it are in the wrong business. You should be doing it because you’re passionate about issues and injustices and want to shine a light on them and give people a voice. If you don’t get paid for it that’s tough, but you keep going and keep trying. The greatest payment you can have is to know that you’ve done that in a responsible way.’

Blenkinsop gave his interview for the BJP alongside Stanley Greene, a friend and fellow member of Noor – the photo agency launched at last year’s Visa Pour l’Image. ‘Philip is a true journalist,’ said Greene. ‘He risks everything to go and do stories nobody knows about.’

But although both men have devoted their lives to photojournalism and passionately believe in the power of photography to advocate for change, they also added that sometimes the photographer’s greatest responsibility is to simply stop taking pictures. Blenkinsop critised the 24-hour media culture encouraging photographers to generate instant news, explaining ‘I never feel that pressure [to take the quick picture]. You have to keep your integrity. You see it and you leave it because you know the shallow nature of those images.’

On the face of it, Brent Stirton’s portfolio is riven with contradictions. Having started out as a war photographer, he’s since shot Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s first child and more recently found fame with a set of images of African gorillas. But, says this year’s Visa d’Or Features winner, to him there’s no contrast. There’s just the 21st century world as the best way to get his message across in it. Diane Smyth found out more.

BJP: Do you ever feel there’s a contrast between your environmental projects and the type of photojournalism more usually seen at Visa Pour l’Image, which depicts human issues and suffering?
Brent Stirton: No – all these things are connected. The plight of the gorillas in the Virunga National Park is directly linked to Congo’s ongoing conflict and the battle for scarce resources. The war in the Congo is the worst in the world – 5.4 million people have died there since 1996. But the problems are a result of pure corruption, greed and power plays and the same can be said of pretty much any war. We spend too much time isolating incidents and not enough thinking about the connections between them.

BJP: How does the celebrity portraiture you’ve done with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie fit into this work? [Stirton’s photographs of Pitt and Jolie’s first baby, Shiloh, was sold to people magazine for $7m in 2006]
Brent Stirton: The whole mission of photojournalism is to bring about positive change and education, that’s really about it. I could shoot for 20 years and not raise the kind of finance those images raised, all of which was put directly into hospitals and programmes which will directly change peoples’ lives. It’s all one and the same to me. It’s frustrating that there is more money for celerity photographs than photojournalism but I don’t lose any sleep over it. It’s the world we’re in. People work very hard and come home to their distractions. Humans haven’t been out of the cave very long, we’re not very bright. What Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have done is to take that celebrity equation and turn it on its head. When you consider it’s something originally set up by a 26 year old woman it’s really remarkable. I think people should spend more time applauding that and stop looking for the holes in it.

BJP: How has the internet changed photojournalism?
Brent Stirton: We’ve created a 24-hour news cycle to feed an advertising machine. We’ve allowed our economic motivations to outweigh where we are as a civilisation in terms of documenting that civilisation. We’re not thinking about how long it takes to really think about issues. I don’t want to think about sensational pictures, I’m thinking about meaningful, intelligent images.
But I also think that the internet is an opportunity for photojournalists. Look at MediaStorm – Brian Storm turned Paul Fusco’s photographs of Chernobyl into a multimedia presentation and 18m people saw it in the first week. How much money could you make if you charged each person $1, or even 20 cents? [As a photographic community] we’re mishandling this thing. We’re doing a poor job at telling people how much difference they could make if they donated just a small amount of money. We need to get better at attaching value to our images. We need to think of them as commodities with emotional resonance and attach financial value to that.

BJP: It’s interesting to hear you refer to a photograph as a commodity and using the language of business. Have photojournalists been too squeamish about the economics?
Brent Stirton: Photographers have been too precious – it’s ridiculous. This isn’t about us, it’s about the message. We’re reactionary by nature but we need to take that reaction and think about it, to look at the potential.
We’ve made the mistake of resenting business people. Government response to HIV has been nothing less than shameful, genocidal in some countries. The business community has stepped in, providing research, providing retroviral drugs because they can see that if they don’t do something their labour force is history. They’re making a practical business decision which has lead to an improved understanding of humanistic values. I believe HIV infection rates would have been 30 per cent worse without the business community. I want to work with that community, so I’ve been working with the Global Business Coalition, an organisation that includes the 400 most powerful companies in the world. I also work with government thinktanks. In a sense I’m not interested in editorial, I’m interested in influencing business and political decisions. If you’re not doing that, what you’re ultimately doing is indulging yourself at the expense of others.

Visa Pour l'Image's professional week is over. But the exhibitions will still be open to the public for the next week. Here are a few pictures of the world's largest and most prestigious photojournalism festival held in Perpignan.

Hotel Pams is Visa Pour l'Image's hub. Photographers, journalists, photo editors and others meet to discuss their latest work or just to chat over a drink.

Check after the jump for more pictures.

Nina Berman has been coming to the Visa Pour l’Image photofestival for the past 16 years. The quiet little ‘odd ball’ as she calls herself had her first exhibition in Perpignan in1997. This year, her work, she tells BJP’s news editor Olivier Laurent, is in contrast to anything else exposed.

Nina Berman exposes her 'Homeland, USA' series at the Couvent des Minimes. Picture © Olivier Laurent

Berman worked for seven years on her ‘Homeland, USA’ series. The pictures explore the meaning of militarism, security and identity in the US. ‘Some of the issues that were always interesting to me are how people create these small worlds with tight world views,’ she says. ‘This now has broader implications with the introduction of all these weapons.’

After the 9/11 attacks, there has been an impulse in the US to contribute to the defence of the country, Berman says. ‘There is this pure feeling for people to work towards a community purpose. But, then, it gets distorted.’

Berman’s photos show senior citizens in uniforms searching tennis courts for bombs or weapons. ‘I can understand them, but up to a point. Then, they seem insane. I was trying to find where this fantastical world and reality met up. People are quite happy to participate [in these security exercises], they feel they contribute to the security of their country.’

One of the iconic images in Berman’s show is that of an old woman wearing a surgical mask. She is taking part in a bio-terror drill. However, what was striking for Berman was how the woman looked. ‘She had put her hair up, she had make-up on. You pick up on that. The contrast between her looks and the mask creates the humour in the picture.’

‘Homeland, USA’ started right after 9/11. However, Berman took time off this project to work on another body of work that has received international recognition. She photographed the consequences of war with the disfigured bodies of injured US soldiers. ‘When I would photograph them, I would ask them what they thought war would be like before they went to Iraq. They thought it would be fun.’ That’s when Berman decided to go back to her original project. ‘I wanted to go back to why, we as a nation, find war fun.’

Far from being an isolated phenomenon, Berman says that all across the country she found people engaging in this collective homeland security hysteria. From New York to Chicago to rural Indiana and the middle of Texas, she says. ‘There are plenty more I could have photographed, but I feel like I’m finished.’

‘I don’t know what I will do next,’ she says. ‘I’m usually motivated by some sort of confusion or outrage. I’m never really motivated by beauty. Maybe I could discover how to do it. It would be nicer.’

In the meantime, Berman is enjoying the festival. ‘I love Visa Pour l’Image,’ she says. ‘Any time a photographer can exhibit his work is a great thing. It’s very important for a photographer to see how his work looks. Seeing it in a magazine or online is not enough. You can’t know how your images work. It’s important to see non-photo people walk through it. I spend a lot of hours there watching people’s reactions. I don’t say anything and they don’t know I’m the photographer.’

In fact, Berman says that judging from the reactions of people visiting her exhibition in Perpignan, she had her publisher, Trolley, add a few images she had not included in her upcoming ‘Homeland, USA’ book, which will be published in October.

Young photojournalist Munem Wasif’s quietly powerful images draw dignified attention to the injustices suffered by his Bangladeshi homeland, finds Diane Smyth

Munem Wasif received the City of Perpignan Young Reporter's Award for his work exposed at the Couvent Sainte Claire. Picture © Olivier Laurent

Munem Wasif is an extraordinary young man. Aged just 28 he’s already staged an exhibition at Visa Pour l’Image (having won the City of Perpignan Young Reporter’s Award), reached the final of the Prix Pictet (alongside world-famous photographers such as Edward Burtynsky) and join the prestigious Vu agency (he was taken on in April last year). But what makes his achievements all the more extraordinary is that he’s done so from Bangladesh.

He could be forgiven for letting it go to his head, but that’s not quite his style. ‘I’m happy and at the same time a bit afraid,’ he says, when I ask him how he feels about all the attention. ‘These situations are very tricky because you can get loose from your route. When people get accomplished they also get onto the route of success, and that can be a trap. If you get these things [prizes and awards] you can start to want them again and again, and so you start to produce the same story again and again. For me it’s crucial to calm down and just take photographs.’

Wasif’s exhibition includes images from three different projects – one on the effects of climate change in rural Bangladesh, another on the oppressed Rohingya Muslims of Bangladesh and Burma, and a third on traditional life and customs in Duran (“old”) Dhaka. The images are shot in striking, yet elegant, black-and-white inspired, he says, by the classic photojournalism of Josef Koudelka and Sebastiao Salgado. He’s drawn from their tradition of concerned journalism too, but he’s mixed it with a humility and strength of character that are all his own.

‘If I make something in my country for my people I will be more than happy,’ he says. ‘Maybe I will not be acknowledged by the whole Western media – that’s ok. Sometimes you have to find balance. I shoot in black-and-white; half the market is out. I do slow stories, I don’t go to the hotspots; half the Western market is gone.

‘But the story I’m doing on climate change refugees is one of the most critical issues in Bangladesh now. If the sea level rises, 50 per cent of the country will be under water. The people who are living in these regions they’re really very simple. They don’t have air conditionning, they’ve never driven a car. They constitute, I don’t know, maybe zero per cent of carbon emissions and global warming. But they’re in the front line of climate change. So although I’m shooting in Bangladesh, actually I think it’s a global story.’

Sony is holding an European press conference in Edinburgh. BJP is there and will report later today on the latest news announced. But already the rumours are flooding message boards ever since an official ad was published in a Danish magazine last week. The ad refered to a new 20+ million pixel resolution digital SLR.

14:30 - The conference has started

Sony has unveiled its flagship DSLR - the A900
The 24.6 million pixel resolution camera features a 35mm full frame sensor, dual BIONZ processors. It shoots 5fps at the maximum resolution. Its viewfinder offers 100% coverage and features a 9-point auto focus.

The National Union of Journalists has released a video - Press Freedom: "Collateral Damage". The nine-minute video, put together by freelance photographer Marc Vallée, shows footage of police officers preventing press photographers from doing their job. It also takes a look at the Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team, which has been gathering images of and information about photographers and journalists reporting on protests.

You can view the video below. It will form part of a longer documentary project, which will be released in 2009. For more details, visit www.nuj.org.uk.

Photopreneur has taken a look at some interesting research from Enquiro Research on the use of photography online and its limitations. "The company has found that when placed on Web pages, images can act as barriers to action rather than the sort of eye candy that generates sales when placed on magazine covers. Users don’t just ignore them; they try to look around them. Worse, when action buttons (or “triggers”) such as subscription fields or purchase links are placed near or even on those images, users look straight past those too then click away."

However, the research shows that photographers are better at using their images than their clients are. But when it comes to getting a visitor to contact you, the best way to achieve this, according to Enquiro, is to have a contact page without any images, "a practice that most photographers seem to follow anyway."

Read the entire post here.

'[Photographer] Jill Greenberg is quite obviously an indecent person who should not be working in magazine journalism,' writes Jeffrey Goldberg, a staff writer at The Atlantic Monthly.

Goldberg's strong words came after a photo shoot of Republican Presidential nominee John McCain. Greenberg was commissioned by the US magazine to illustrate Goldberg's cover article. However, the photographer, who has a reputation for being a 'manipulator' of images, as she, herself, writes on her website, doctored the extra images not used by the magazine.

Image © Jill Greenberg

The result is a series of images such as the following with McCain's mouth with bloody shark teeth. Speaking to the New York Post, Greenberg says that for the final shot she pretended to use a standard modeling light, but instead lit him from below.

'He had no idea he was being lit from below,' Greenberg said, adding that none of his entourage picked up on the light switch either. 'I guess they're not very sophisticated,' she added.

The Atlantic editor James Bennet lambasted the photographer. 'We feel totally blind-sided,' he said. 'Her behavior is outrageous. Incredibly unprofessional.'

Goldberg added: 'Suffice it to say that her "art" is juvenile, and on occasion repulsive. This is not the issue, of course; the issue is that she betrayed this magazine, and disgraced her profession'.

The doctored images can be seen on Greenberg's website.

PhotoShelter announced last week that it had decided to pull the plug on its stock photography business - the PhotoShelter Collection - blaming it on the supremacy of a few companies such as Getty Images.

'Stock photography is a slow growing market dominated by a single player,' the founders said. 'There was a single moment for a company to capitalize in stock photography, and Getty took it. The use of stock imagery isn't growing fast enough to create a displacement opportunity, and Getty is far too aggressive (and smart) to allow secondary players to displace them in any fashion'.

In the same heartbeat, Corbis announced it would slash 175 jobs worldwide. And last month, Jupiter announced a net loss of $3.286 million. The series of bad news from stock photography companies seems to draw the same conclusion online: Getty has won the war.

Ever since its launch in 1995, Getty has been seen as the big bad wolf, eating up smaller competitors while driving prices, and consequently the photographers' revenues, down. Getty reminded the market of its leading position when it acquired, in 2006, the micro-stock image company iStockphoto.

Speaking to BJP in March, Getty's CEO Jonathan Klein said that Getty is always looking for new business models. 'We want to bring new customers to the market or we want our customers to buy more of our products. But, you need to have the right picture or have a lot of traffic to make it work. It is difficult for new entrants to have both.'

And photos don't seem to be enough for Getty. it has also moved into the video and audio stock business. However, this diversification is also proof that being a stock photography player is now not enough. In its 2008 estimated revenue report, Getty said that the creative stills division was expected to bring in 51% of Getty's revenues. By 2012, that number will fall to 29%, according to the report.

So has Getty won? Or is the latest round of criticism normal for a company that has achieved the status of leader? As Jean-Francois Leroy told BJP during the Visa Pour l'Image photojournalism festival, 'Getty is a great marketer by showing that they can make money, but they still do have a pretty damn good editorial division'.

Thoughts?

Just weeks after Nikon announced the first-ever DSLR with video capabilities (the D90), Canon has weighed in with the EOS 5D MkII, which features full high definition video capture plus 21.1 million pixel full frame stills.

Triggered from Live View Mode, the HD video capture allows users to shoot uninterrupted at full 1920x1080 resolution at 30fps. Once filming is started, photographers can fire off either single or continues stills, with video capture continuing after the final frame is captured. The EOS 5D MkII is Canon’s first DSLR to incorporate full HD video and, said Mogen Jensen, Canon’s head of consumer imaging, ‘opens a new chapter for EOS’. He added:‘It creates new possibilities for EOS photographers to capture and share their stories and stay relevant in a rapidly changing digital landscape.’

The EOS 5D uses a newly designed Canon CMOS sensor, with ISO sensitivity from 100-6400, expandable to 50, 12,800 and 25,600. This sensor is combined with a new DiG!C 4 processor to deliver what Canon describes as ‘medium format territory image quality’. A nine-point auto focus system is supported by six additional invisible Assist AF points, located inside the spot-metering circle. The camera can shoot at 3.9fps for up to 310 frames.

In addition, the new model includes a 3” clear view LCD, an improved menu system, automatic peripheral illumination correction and UDMA memory card compatibility.

The EOS 5D MkII (body only) will be available from the end of November, priced £2300.
Canon has also announced a raft of other new products, including an EF 24mm f1.4L II USM fast aperture wide-angle prime lens, three new PowerShot digital compacts, and two news Digital IXUS compacts.

For more information, visit Canon’s site http://www.canon.co.uk

The London Gallery West is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the final edition of Picture Post.

Considered to be the UK equivalent of Life magazine in the UK, Picture Post was published from 1938 until 1957. After only six months it was already selling more than 1.6m copies a week. However, sales fell with the advent of television.

The exhibition, curated by Colin Jacobson, senior lecturer in photojournalism at the University of Westminster, is running until 12 October. For more details, visit the gallery's website.

When the first Canon 5D was released more than three years ago, photographers flocked to the camera en masse. The digital SLR had one thing going for it: it was the first digital model to bring a film-like quality to images. No one was able to explain why or how. Not the photographers, and not even Canon. And for the past three years, photographers have been asking for a Mark II model that would increase the 5D burst rate, its weather sealing and include a sensor cleaning device, while keeping the same sensor and pixel count (12.7 million).

Canon has finally announced its 5D Mark II. While the camera keeps the same body, the rest is very different. Now sporting a 21.1 million pixel resolution sensor, photographers are asking: will the Mark II model offer the same film-like quality? BJP asked the question to Mike Owen, Canon's team leader in the DSLR product planning division. His answer: 'We hope so. We haven't done detailed testing yet,' he said. 'The benchmark is the 1Ds Mark III and we feel that the 5D Mark II brings a similar level of image quality.'

I guess photographers will have to judge for themselves once the camera is released in November. In the meantime, you can read BJP's article about the release.

Photokina, the world's largest photography trade show, is opening tomorrow in Cologne, Germany. The show, which is held every two years, is the one place to be if you are after the latest news - new cameras, flash systems, or even competitions.

BJP's news editor Olivier Laurent and editor Simon Bainbridge are in Cologne to report on the latest announcements. We will be meeting with all the major players to discuss their new products and what's coming next.

The show will kick start tomorrow, but you won't have to wait for some major announcements. Check back at midnight today for news and a dozen images of what could be Photokina's most talked about camera. BJP was given details in advance of its announcement, and we will share them with you tonight.

Leica was expected to stun the world tonight with a special press conference at Photokina in Cologne, Germany. Of course, the release was leaked online a few hours before the press briefing. However, BJP was able to see the S2 in an exclusive briefing held in London last month. Here are 13 pictures of the new system with its lenses.

The entire S range

Read more to see the 12 other images.

As the name suggests, Leica's latest camera is a successor to the S1, launched more than a decade ago.

However, the S2 predecessor could not have been more different. Released in 1996, the S1 was a scanning back and was designed for only studio photographers, as well as for archiving and documentation purposes.

Available in three versions – Pro, Alpha and Highspeed – the S1 could capture images for print sizes of up to A2 format in 300dpi. It was favoured for reproductions of arwork, photography of sculptures and digitalisation of transparencies, among other applications. The file sizes could reach 152MB with the Pro model.

The S1 could also support a series of third-party lenses from Hasselblad, Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Zeiss, Olympus, Pentax, Sinar and Mamiya. It retailed, at the time, from €10,000 to €23,000, and was discontinued in 2000 with Leica even removing all information of the system from its website.

BJP continues its coverage of the world's largest trade show: Photokina.
Sigma has kept six new products under wraps over the past few weeks to finally unveil them today in Cologne. The most notable product is the SD15 digital SLR.

This 14 million pixel resolution camera sports the Foveon X3 direct-image-sensor, which Sigma claims 'can capture all primary RGB colours at each and every pixel location arranged in three layers'. It also features the True II image processing engine, providing enough power to reproduce high definition pictures 'rich in gradation'.

Sigma has not released any additional detail about its DSLR, which is still under development.
Since October 2002, Sigma has introduced three DSLR cameras, the SD9, SD10 and SD14 to the market. In March 2008 Sigma also introduced a compact digital camera, the DP1 which uses the same large image sensor as is featured in Sigma’s digital SLR cameras.

In other news, Sigma unveiled its new 24-70mm F2.8 EX DG HSM zoom lens.

This large aperture zoom lens has a Super Multi Layer Coating to reduce flare and ghosting. ELD (Extraordinary Low Dispersion) glass, two SLD (Special Low Dispersion) glass elements and three aspherical lenses provide correction of all types of aberrations, Sigma claims.

This lens also features a Hyper Sonic Motor, to ensure a quiet and high speed autofocus as well as full time manual focusing capability. This lens has a minimum focusing distance of 38cm and a maximum magnification ratio of 1:5.3. The rounded 9 blades diaphragm creates an attractive blur.

It will be available for Nikon, Canon, Sigma, Pentax and Sony mounts. Price and availability have not been communicated yet.

Now, only for Sony DSLR, Sigma has also announced the upcoming release of the APO Tele Converter 1.4x EX DG and APO Tele Converter 2x EX DG.

The new tele converters are capable of maintaining the HSM function of telephoto lenses such as Sigma’s APO 70-200mm F2.8 II EX DG MACRO HSM and APO 50-150mm F2.8 II EX DC HSM whilst increasing the focal length by a factor of 1.4x or 2x.

The HSM (Hyper Sonic Motor) AF compatibility depends on the capability of the Sony SLR camera to support this function and on the maximum F number of the attached lens.

Still for Sony mounts, but also for Pentax is the 4.5mm F2.8 EX DC HSM, the first Circular Fisheye lens exclusively for use with APS-C size digital SLR cameras, and the 10mm F2.8 EX DC HSM diagonal fisheye lens for Pentax and Sony fitting cameras.

This autofocus circular fisheye lens has an angle of view of 180 degrees in all directions. When used in conjunction with digital SLRs with APS-C size image sensor, it produces circular image within the frame. The minimum focusing distance of 13.5cm and maximum magnification of 1:6 make it particularly useful for close-up photography. SLD (Special Low Dispersion) glass, Super Multi Layer Coating and inner focusing system provides superior image quality.

For the same cameras, Sigma will release the new EM-140 DG Macro Flash .

The EM-140 DG Macro Flash is designed to work with both AF 35mm film and digital SLR cameras. Dual flash tubes can fire simultaneously or separately. Using only one flashtube creates shadow, which can give a three-dimensional feeling to the subject. The flash features a guide number of 14 w/ISO 100. The modelling flash function makes it possible to check for reflections and shadows before actually taking the flash picture.

A wireless flash function is also available, when the EM-140 DG is used as master and the EF-530 DG SUPER as a slave unit for creating fine shadow details. High Speed Synchro and Exposure compensation functions are also available for advanced flash photography.

BJP will cover these new products in its next issue released on 08 October. In the meantime, check back later for more news from Photokina.

Yesterday, BJP revealed that Pentax had announced a new entry-level digital SLR, the K-m.

Sporting a 10.2 million pixel resolution 23.5x15.7mm sensor, the K-m has a compact, lightweight body, made possible by the development of a new stainless-steel chassis, the downsizing of the Shake Reduction mechanism and circuit boards, and the repositioning of the battery compartment.

And to complement this new DLSR, Pentax also developed two new lenses, the smc Pentax-DA L 18-55mmF3.5-5.6AL and the smc Pentax-DA L 50-200mmF4-5.6ED.
But that's not the only news coming from Pentax, they have also released an interesting chart of their lens strategy. The Lens Development Roadmap shows every single smc lens and where they fit in Pentax' range. Check it out here.

Pentax has also announced the launch of the AF160FC dedicated auto macro flash. This new accessory flash unit is designed for advanced close-up applications using the automatic exposure-control system of Pentax DSLR cameras.

The macro flash allows for uniform lighting on the subject in order to minimize disturbing shadow areas. It features a P-TTL auto flash system to constantly assure the proper exposure level by measuring the flash’s pre-discharge with the camera’s image sensors and assessing the subject’s lighting condition with the camera’s multi-pattern metering system.

For more details, visit the Pentax website.

Olympus has shown a prototype of the next digital SLR to complement its E-system.

Based on Olympus’ Four Thirds System, the new interchangeable lens DSLR will be marketed as a mid-level model, which will fit between the E-520 and the current flagship DSLR – the E-3.

The camera will share the same body as the E-3, as well as many of its features, according to Olympus. ‘It will inherit all the outstanding features of the E-3 such as the high-speed AF system using an 11-point full twin-cross sensor and the built-in image stabilisation mechanism with a correction effect of up to 5 EV steps,’ Olympus revealed at Photokina. ‘Other highlights will include a new and updated feature to replace the current splash and dustproof function of the E-3’.

Olympus has declined to provide more details about the camera, including its name. The new model is expected to be released in early 2009.

Laforet Visuals and Canon have released a HD video showing the capabilities of the latest pro camera the EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR.

The video by Vincent Laforet is available on the Canon Digital Learning Center or on Laforet's website.

It was shot with a pre-production 5D MkII, without any manipulation, and using these lenses:
FD 7.5mm f/5.6 (converted to EF mount), EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM, EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM, EF 50mm f/1.2L USM, EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, EF 135mm f/2L USM, EF 200mm f/1.8L USM, EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM, EF 500mm f/4L IS USM, TS-E 24mm f/3.5L, TS-E 45mm f/2.8.

Adobe, Apple, Canon, Microsoft, Nokia and Sony have just announced in a joint conference at Photokina the publication of guidelines to standardise metadata in JPEG files.

BJP was there, and you can read a full report on our website. But we thought we would share a few interesting points made during the press conference.

We now know that the guidelines will help developers across the six companies to engineer common metadata fields allowing for all imaging information to be transfered any other application without losing any data. While common details such as the name of the photographer, camera used and lens information are covered, the consortium also said that the fields would also support GPS information for the location of the photographer AND of the subject taken.

Adobe also said that currently 'in cases when data can be stored in more than one place, we duplicate it everwhere,' it said at the conference. Also, the consortium is looking at expanding its work to video files, especially since Canon and Nikon have introduced video capabilities to their newest cameras.

Fujifilm has shown a prototype of its GF670, a medium-format film camera expected to be released in 2009.

The GF670 is a portable folding camera jointly developed by Fujifilm and Cosina. It features a mechanism for switching between two film formats, 6x7cm and 6x6cm (120 and 220 films). Read our full story here.

In the meanwhile, here are 11 photos of the prototype.

Click here to see the other ten images.

In a surprising move, the US Senate has passed its version of the Orphan Works Bill on Friday.

The S.2913 bill provides a limitation on judicial remedies in copyright infringement cases involving orphan works. It was introduced by Democratic senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont on 24 April this year.

The bill is expected to pose a threat to international photographers by allowing pictures editors and art buyers to use free of charge images with unknown or incomplete copyright information, as long as they have made sufficient attempts to track down the absent copyright holder.

The senate version of the bill has long been opposed by international associations representing the rights of artists, including photographers. Another version, introduced in the US House of Representatives have yet to be put to a vote, however, associations fear that the House might choose to approve the senate bill instead.

The US Illustrators Partnership has called for US artists to call their representatives in Congress to oppose the bill. For more details, visit http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321.

Olympus has shown a prototype of its upcoming Micro Four Thirds compact digital SLR.

Significantly smaller than Panasonic's G1 model, which utilises the same size-reduction technology, Olympus' camera is expected to be released in early 2009. Shown exclusively at Photokina, Olympus was careful by pointing out that the final model might differ from its prototype.

For more information about the new camera, read our full news article here.

Read more for an additional six photos of the prototype.

David Bowen, a freelance photographer currently based in Norway, was featured in BJP in March 2002. Last week, he published a blog post about how he ended up being in our magazine.

He writes: 'The features editor was out of the office, in a pub having lunch.. so i wandered off to the pub, sweating and out of breath from the quick rush across from covent garden tube.
bursting into the pub i walked up to the bar and gently interrupted the landlord, who was chatting with a customer..
i asked for the editor by name - did he know him?
he told me he did not and so i walked around the pub searching.. asking at each table.. courteously interrupting all without any joy.'

Read more of Bowen's post here.

And, no, we won't let you know what pubs and restaurants the BJP editors are visiting these days.