All US presidents have their own official photographers, who follow them during their entire term in all their trips. The photography community in the US was waiting to hear who President-elect Barack Obama would pick. The National Press Photographers Association has learned that Pete Souza has accepted the position of official White House photographer.

Souza was also a White House photographer during President Ronald Reagan's second term in office.

Read NPPA's story here. But here is an interesting snippet from the interview:

Souza currently works using Canon 5D's and he says that he hopes to upgrade to Canon 5D Mark II bodies soon, as well as Leica M8.2 bodies. He says the work of the Obama photography office will be mostly digital, but maybe sometimes film if needed. The White House photography office made the transition from film to digital photography during the George W. Bush administration.

Reuben Powell is an unlikely terrorist, writes The Independent today. This artist has been photographing and drawing life around Elephant & Castle for 25 years. But, last week he was arrested and detained for five hours because his work posed an unacceptable security risk. He was handcuffed and had his genetic material stored permanently on the DNA database. Read more at The Independent.

For anyone thinking that the New Year would bring sense to police forces in their attitude towards photographers, Powell's case is a stark reminder that photography in public places continues to be under threat, as the numerous cases in December 2008 have shown (see here, here and here).

Reading the financial pages of our national newspapers, we could wonder if Jessops could be the next high-street retailer to bite the dust following the collapse of Woolworth and administrations of companies such as Zavvi. Only yesterday, for example, The Times wrote the following in its editorial on the financial crisis:

Three types of businesses are vulnerable: first, those that are inefficiently managed, such as Woolworths; second, those that are being overtaken by technology, such as Jessops or photo-processing; third, those, such as textiles, whose relative costs are surely too high for them to be sustainable in Britain much longer. These are businesses that will – and if you believe in creative destruction, should – fail.

The Observer on 04 January also quotes analysts predicting Jessops will, alongside JJB Sports and Clinton Cards, collapse. In a trading statement last year, Jessops had reported a decline in sales. However, it also announced that it had signed an extension of its banking facilities to 31 December 2011, on significantly reduced interest rates.

Analysts might on to something, but let's not forget that too often they see the photography industry as a dead industry, disregarding the fact that photography has become one of the UK's biggest (if not the biggest) hobby.

Talking to BJP, a spokeswoman for Jessops said that the company will release in the next few days its usual Christmas Trading Statement. In the meantime, Jessops won't comment on the speculation.

PhotoEspaña, the International Photography and Visual Arts Festival, is calling all aspiring photographers to sumbit their work for a portfolio review. Descubrimientos PHE Madrid is open to photographers of all nationalities, ages and disciplines. If successfully selected, the artist will have the opportunity to present their work to a panel of eight reviewers and will have their work displayed as part of a collective exhibition in the Official Section of the festival. Reviewers include Mónica Allende from the The Sunday Times Magazine, Vincent Marcilhacy from Agence VU and Lesley A. Martin from Aperture Foundation. The closing date for submission has been extended to 25 January. Register at www.phe.es/descubrimientos_en. Winning reviews will be held at the Complejo el Águila in Madrid on the 11, 12 and 13 June.

2008 was a leap year, but it was also the year of the leaks (sorry for the bad pun!). Last year, six major new camera models were unveiled: the Canon 50D and 5D Mark II, the Nikon D90, D700 and D3x, and Sony's Alpha 900. In some cases, BJP and other magazines had signed embargoes preventing us from reporting on these cameras until their official launch day even when forums were publishing the full specifications ahead of that launch. One good example was the launch of the Nikon D3x, which was leaked by no-other than Nikon itself (see article here).

And now we are back with more leaks and rumours, and Nikon is the first one to be confronted to the problem this year. A Russian magazine is publishing this month an article about the "upcoming" Nikon D400 digital SLR.

The Russian magazine claims the D400 will have these specifications:
- 14.3 million pixel resolution CMOS sensor
- 100-6400 ISO range
- Frame rate: 7fps
- Compact Flash enabled
- 3-inch 922,000 pixels LCD screen
- Magnesium body
- 1080p HD video recording with 24fps.
- With a price tag of $2000.

So fake or leak? We would be inclined to say it's a fake, but judging by 2008's leaks...

The first official portrait of US President-elect Barack Obama has been unveiled. Taken by Pete Souza, who on 04 January was announced as the official White House photographer (see our previous report here). It's the first time in history, according to the Office of the President-Elect, that an official portrait of a president is taken using a digital camera.

The portrait was taken using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera (which shows that Souza was able to upgrade from his 5D camera... I guess being the president's official photographer opens doors!), using a 105mm focal length with an ISO speed of 100. F-stop was f/10.0.

While we're still on the subject of President-elect Barack Obama, here is a stunning slideshow by Nadav Kander. The photographer gained access to 52 members of Obama's incoming administration, from his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to Secretary of State-Designate Hillary Rodham Clinton. The portraits, published by the New York Times, come with an audio discussion between the photographer and the Times' director of photography, Kathy Ryan.

Check it out here.

Last night, Radio 4 held a debate on the changing privacy laws in the UK.

"Max Mosley's successful court action against News of the World for invading his privacy has sent shockwaves through the newspaper world, which fears that this and earlier judgements will inhibit investigative journalism. How can the courts balance the conflicting rights of privacy and freedom of speech?"

Check out the 45-minute debate, which includes Sir Charles Grey, a high court judge, on Radio 4's Unreliable Evidence homepage here.

In an illuminating New York Times article (that begins with an interesting take on the Flickr generation), Noam Cohen reports on two examples of how photography archives are working with user-generated community websites to add to their research. In return for free usage of pictures (to accompany, for example, a Wikipedia entry), the archives are taking advantage of the site visitors’ collective knowledge, to add historical data to pictures and generate new debate.

Today's biggest news came from Europe, with the announcement of the Impossible Project. The name refers to a quote by Edwin Land, the inventor of photography.
"Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible."
Florian Kaps, creator of Polanoid.net, with a team of former Polaroid employees, investors and the help of the research and development department at Harman Technology in the UK, is resuming production of integral instant film.

BJP talked with Harman Technology about the move. Our exclusive interview can be read here.

The new black-and-white film will be released under a new brand name. Any ideas?

But you can get more details at The Impossible Project website or even on SavePolaroid, a site of Polaroid fans who have helped bring about this announcement. And for more from Florian Kaps, check out Polanoid.net and PolaPremium.

Today is Obama's day, in case anyone had not noticed with all the front page articles, TV coverage and Tweets… And in the photography community, people are also turning their lenses toward Washington DC. Kodak is a good example. They dispatched Bob McNeely to accompany the President-elect in the days leading up to his historic Inauguration as the 44th President of the United States.

Robert McNeely has a lot of experience at the White House. In 1977 he became a staff photographer at the White House with a primary responsibility to cover Vice-President Mondale. In 1992 he became the campaign photographer for Bill Clinton and entered the White House with Clinton as his personal photographer, according to Kodak. His work from the years with President Clinton was published in the book "The Clinton Years".

Later today, Kodak will have some exclusive shots of the inauguration. Make sure to check out their blog here.

Simon Hoegsberg, a 32-year-old photographer from Denmark, thinks his 100 meter long (and 78cm wide) image might be.

We're All Gonna Die - 100 meters of existence is a montage featuring 178 people, all shot from the same spot over 20 days on Warschauer Bridge in Berlin.

His aim, he says, was to capture "the uniqueness of 'ordinary' people". And if you scroll along it on his website, you certainly come across some interesting characters.

He shot the portraits in the summer of 2007, and has spent the last 17 months making the montage. Looking at his website, it's typical of the kind of work he does – often involving some kind of formal framework for an inquisitive exploration of humanity or national identity, sometimes involving a journey or typology.

My favourite series are his Low-fat diaries - a 1700km journey across Europe armed with a camera, a notebook and just 14 Euros - and Copenhagen / Istanbul - a 3500km journey using free transport courtesy of the Danish capital's bicycle scheme in search of "the goodness in people".

I like the contrast in these two diary entries from the latter project:

Day1 I have cycled 90 kilometers. I’m sitting at a Shell gas station six kilometers from Vordingborg (a town not far from the Danish/German border). A couple of minutes ago a man carrying three empty Tuborg beer bottles went into the shop. He came out again carrying three new bottles. He’s drinking his bottle with a fat lady with no front teeth and a fat boy who could be their son. An equally fat guy holding a French hotdog in his left hand frowned at me when passing me in his car. In the rear window of his car a big hand made of fabric was giving the finger to people driving behind him. I didn’t ask myself to shake my head. My head shook automatically. They’re all Danes.

Day 30 Bulgaria is a wonderful country. The country where I’ve felt most welcome of the eight countries I have traveled through. I was a jerk this morning. I woke up in a town, but did not buy food or water for the trip through the mountains to Sofia. I imagined I’d come across a restaurant on the way. After cycling and wheeling the bike ten kilometers I was dehydrated and weakened from hunger. A boy and three adults were approaching me on their bikes. I held a hand in the air. They stopped. I asked them “Is there a restaurant in the mountains”? They said “No”. A young woman who was part of the group stopped the car she was driving. She exchanged a couple of words with the group, got out of the car, pushed the driver’s seat forward and crossed the road carrying a white plastic bag in her hand. She said, “These are some croissants for your trip”. The eldest man of the family asked me if I wanted some water. I exclaimed a long-drawn sound that meant yes. The woman asked me a question, and while I was answering it the man gave me two bottles of water. When the group had left, I ate the three vacuum-packed croissants one after the other. I drank one of the two bottles of water, smoked a cigarette and caught myself shaking my head in reaction to what had happened. The family itself didn’t seem to be proud of having helped me. For them it was only natural. Three croissants, big deal! For me it was a stroke of luck but no miracle. The Bulgarians are like that. That is what I’m trying to say.

Check out the rest of the diaries, and Simon's other projects, here.

A pilot project between Flickr and the US Library of Congress has proved successful, a report says.

Launched on 16 January 2008, the Library’s collection of archived photographs went global in an attempt to maximise public views. An invitation, of sorts, was also sent to Flickr users to become more involved with the project, by allowing them to tag photographs with keywords or phrases that would make photographs easier to index and find.

Within 24 hours of launching, Flickr reported 1.1million total views, a number that increased to 1.9million a week later. Recent figures show the collection of photographs receives an average of 500,000 views a month and has long since crossed the 10million mark in total views.

There was a lot of speculation surrounding the project about whether the collaboration would undermine the Library’s reputation for impartiality, but the Library defends its position, by saying that the ‘benefits appear to outweigh the costs and risks’.

So why has it been so successful? First of all, asking the web community to get involved was sure to spark some interest in the project, the Library says in its report. Secondly, material that may not have been easily found on the Library’s website is now accessible and can be made a ‘favourite’ by Flickr users. The Library also says success can be attributed to the Flickr blog, which spread the word of the project and the fact that high quality images without copyright restrictions are being provided to the users.

Our verdict? Well, with 18 institutions, including the National Media Museum in Bradford and the National Galleries of Scotland, now contributing to The Commons on Flickr, it seems that harnessing the power of online communities is the way forward for large historical libraries looking to save cost and publicise their collections.

BJP has talked to the National Media Museum about their six-month collaboration with Flickr. Find a full report on our website here.

The Commons can be found at www.flickr.com/commons.

In out latest issue, award-winning photojournalist Edmond Terakopian tries out the Canon EOS 5D Mk II's video capabilities by shooting his very first film, Muse. He also shot footage during a news assignment covering Gaza protests in London earlier this month.

Read Edmond's review here (Part 1) and here (Part 2) (no registration needed).

Here are the videos:

MUSE by Edmond Terakopian

Muse from Edmond Terakopian on Vimeo.

News footage by Edmond Terakopian

To view either of these films at full 1080HD, please visit: http://terakopian.smugmug.com/

NB - With the latest Mac 10.5.6 OS update, occasionally Safari will not load the video page on the first attempt. Please either refresh the page twice, or temporarily use Firefox.

iStockphoto has partnered with the Sony World Photography awards to help find the world’s best amateur photographer. The micro-stock company, owned by Getty Images, will be the official selection committee for the 2009 amateur awards.

There are nine categories opened to amateurs, including portraiture, architecture and fashion. The iStockphoto panel will judge each entry and shortlist ten photographers from each category. The official judging committee, comprised of photographic experts, will then choose eight of these for the final showcase in Cannes from 14-19 April. Winners will be announced on 24 February. The overall winner will be flown to France to accept the SWPA title and $5,000 prize.

To enter visit, www.worldphotographyawards.org.

The three main wire services - the Agence France Presse, Associated Press and Reuters - as well as a group of US television networks have complained to President Obama's administration for being shut out of the president second swear-in ceremony.

On Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts visited the White House on the advice of the President's lawyer to have Obama swear a second time his pledge to serve the country "faithfully" after mixing up the words during the official ceremony on Tuesday 20 January.

However, only four reporters were allowed in to witness the ceremony, and only one photo came out of the session. It was taken by Pete Souza, the President's official photographer. The news agencies have now lodge a complaint with the Office of the Press Secretary.

To be fair, the press might get another chance at covering it. President Obama didn't use a bible for his second ceremony, and already religious groups are objecting to its legality...

Follow BJP on Twitter here

For the past three months, the British Journal of Photography has been available through Twitter. Now, what's Twitter? Officially, it's a micro-blogging website, in the sense that posts can only be 140-characters long. Another way to look at it is to compare it to Facebook's status message functionality. Users basically updates their contacts on what they are doing now, up-to-the-minute. Sounds trivial and boring? Far from it. Twitter creates more than a one-way or two-way conversation. Instead, you get an entire community talking to each other. Twitter becomes an indispensable tool to learn live what is going on in your field of expertise, and allows you to broaden your list of contacts.

Twitter can be accessed from a variety of devices. Either through a web browser on any computer, or using a phone application – such as Twitterific on the iPhone, or simply through text messages.

By following BJP on Twitter you can be kept updated to the latest news anywhere you are, and we can report from any event with live Tweets – for example, BJP editor Simon Bainbridge reported live from the Prix Pictet ceremony in Paris, effectively announcing the prize's winner before anyone else.

Last year, Twitter was one of the fastest growing websites in the UK. It experienced a ten-fold increase, making it the 291st most visited site this site of the Atlantic. Thousands of photographers are already using Twitter to update their followers – including picture editors, curators and galleries – about their latest work.

On Twitter, you'll find the National Media Museum, or the J. Paul Getty Museum and ThinkTankPhoto, for example. You will even find Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross!

Follow BJP and 1854 here: twitter.com/1854

For more about Twitter, read these articles:
Twitter traffic up 974 per cent in a year
Why Photographers Should Care About Twitter
Twittering Tips for Beginners
Watching Obama's Inauguration with Twitter

That last article shows the power of Twitter as a source of real-time news. This is how news organisations such as CNN learned of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year, for example. It's also an excellent way to judge the impact of an event on everyday people using the search.twitter.com functionalities.

Happy Twittering!

Fiona Bruce, the BBC news-reader and former Crimewatch presenter, has found that one of her ancestors was a convicted fraudster who abandoned a failing business to escape his debtors, writes The Times newspaper.

Bruce is the subject of a forthcoming episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, the genealogy series on the BBC. Using archives from the British Journal of Photography, the BBC found that her 'great-great-grandfather, William Crouch, was sent to prison at the turn of the 20th century after attempts to establish himself as a society photographer backfired'.

In 1904, Crouch was convicted at a Westminster court of obtaining £317 (nearly £30,000 today) 'by false pretences' from would-be trainees.

More than 100 years ago, the British Journal of Photography wrote: 'The prosecution allege that no real business was done at Crouch’s ‘studio’. The pupils . . . occupied themselves by photographing one another, while Crouch spent his time at the ‘studio’ in reading the newspapers and smoking. Often there was not even a camera available for use.'

Watch the episode on 09 February on BBC1.

Last year, a few weeks after the death of esteemed photographer Philip Jones Griffiths, BJP wrote about how the Philip Jones Griffiths Foundation planned to collect the photographer's images, books and writings together in a permanent space called the Philip Jones Griffiths Foundation for the Study of War, ideally located in Wales.

At the time, Neil Burgess, who runs the NB Pictures agency and is also at the helm of the Foundation, told BJP that 'there were still discussions going on with institutions in Wales as it was very much Griffiths' desire, if we found a permanent home, to have it in Wales'.

Apparently, the Foundation is still looking for its home, at least according to this short audio piece by BBC News Wales. Check it out here.

RELATED ARTICLES
Welsh home for PJG's archive? - 23 April 2008
Philip Jones Griffiths dies - 26 March 2008

You can also see Philip Jones Griffiths' last appearance at the Frontline Club, where he talked about his Vietnam Work.

Truly, they do things differently in Japan. A directive by Keidanren, a sort of Confederation of Japanese Industry, asks its members – Canon et al – to send workers home early twice a week. Why? So that they can make babies, of which their appears to be a dearth in the Land of the Rising Sun. Apparently, the now near-normal 12 hour working day is to blame for the low (1.34 children per couple) birth-rate, hence the initiative. Mind you, sending the staff home ‘early’ means 5.30pm, so a similar move in this country might struggle to capture the public imagination.

Source: CNN.

Yesterday, BJP was revealing that taking photos of police officers could be considered a crime from 16 February. That's when the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 takes effect. The act amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer.

In effect, the new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the 2000 Act, will target anyone who 'elicits or attempts to elicit information about [members of armed forces] … which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'.

So if you end up taking a picture of a police officer, you could be arrested if that officer thinks the image could be used by terrorists.

You can read our full article here.

However, photographers are not taking it lightly, deciding to fight back. For example, one photographer has set up a Flickr group inviting people to publish photos of police officers they might have taken or will take even after 16 February. Join it here: http://flickr.com/groups/1011510@N21/

How are advertisers responding to the doom and gloom or the recession?

By producing uplifting campaigns, of course, which urge consumers to take a break from the credit cruch and bite into something positive.

Coke recently launched a new global campain with the tag line, "Open Happiness" – a change from the "Coke Side of Life" line introduced just three years ago – which will be rolled out globally in the coming weeks and months.

"Times are changing, and what people want and need right now is a time to pause and hit the refresh button, so to speak, and rediscover life's simple pleasures," Joe Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer for Coke told Ad Age recently. "We're not here to say Coke is going to solve the economic problems of the world or the Middle East crisis. Our view is that Coke is a small moment, a simple moment of pleasure in people's very hectic day. ... When you look back at the history of Coke, for a hundred years it's been that optimistic spirit. And that has certainly been reflected in the work."

And T-Mobile's wonderfully executed flashmob at Liverpool Street Station in London has proved to be one of the most successful viral campaigns of recent times, generating millions of hits on YouTube.

...can you shoot successful travel photography? It could be closer than you think. As travel photographers and libraries such as View Pictures and PMCA explain in our special issue on travel this week, shots of London and the UK can be big sellers. But just what you shoot is another matter. Stock photographer Peter Phipp recommends shooting the icons, while View picture editor Kate Ledwith advises picking a specialism (in View's case architecture) and shooting it well.
I think there's more mileage in the latter approach, particularly when amateur photographers, who shoot the usual suspects so well, can now sell them so easily online. And it seems I'm not the only one. Chris Coe, organiser of the Travel Photographer of the Year, and the art directors of Wallpaper and Conde Nast Traveller all agree, recommending in our other special features this week that photographers develop an individual eye, whether shooting at home or abroad.

Bangladeshi photographer Munem Wasif took the photography world by storm last year, staging a solo exhibition at the prestigious Visa Pour l'Image festival and winning a commission from WaterAid, after reaching the final of the Prix Pictet prize.
His WaterAid pics are going on show in London soon, but in the meantime, he's staging an exhibition at Chobi Mela, Bangladesh's huge festival of photojournalism. Wasif's images of the Bangladeshi jute industry go on show at Kalpana Boarding, Shahkhari Bazaar on 03 February, and his images are just one of many reasons to attend the event. With over sixty exhibitions, 35 participating nations and conferences and workshops including luminaries such as Stuart Hall and Noam Chomsky, Chobi Mela puts Bangladesh firmly on the photography map.

Photographer Chase Jarvis is currently on a four-day shoot using the Nikon D3x. While that might not sound unusual, Jarvis has decided to share its experience with Nikon's flagship camera using Twitter and Facebook. He explains why:

Why Twitter and Facebook and not the blog? Well, I've got better on-the-fly access to both those platforms in my pocket via iPhone. Easy peasy. I'll do my best to summarize all this via the blog--perhaps in a video--as soon as I can; but until then, I'll give the down and dirty as often as I can from my pocket to yours. As such, I'm accepting Facebook friends and follower inquiries are welcome on my Twitter account.

You can follow him on Twitter here and on Facebook here. And while you're on Twitter, you can follow the latest photography news from BJP and 1854 here.

Last year, BJP revealed images of Olympus' first Micro FourThirds prototype. The camera uses a new concept developed in collaboration with Panasonic delivering all the advantages of a digital SLR camera, but in a compact body – by doing away with a camera's mirrorbox.

Now, rumours have it that Olympus is days (or weeks) away from officially announcing its first two Micro FourThirds models. According to EnGadget, which cites a Russian source, the M-1 and M-100 are 'about the size of a bulky point-and-shoot, with the former boasting a 3.2-inch LCD monitor and HD video capture'.

Now, we have to wait and see... but such cameras could prove very attractive to professional users looking for a high-quality compact that can be fitted with third-party lenses (using an adapter).

See our review of the world's first Micro FourThirds camera – the Panasonic G1.

Hmmm... Feeling paranoid?

Brighter now?

Nostalgic?

Excuse me?

Yay!

That's nice, but what's all this got to do with photography?

Londoners have been noticing these strange messages around the Underground recently. They're the latest installment of Platform for Art, which since 2000 has been presenting new artworks to 'enhance and enrich the journeys of millions on the Tube every day'.

(There's a grand histroy of this on the tube, and from 1908, managing director Frank Pick began commissioning leading artists such as Man Ray, Edward McKnight Kauffer and Graham Sutherland to work on innovative poster campaigns.)

The latest commission is Anna Barriball's typographic artwork About 60 miles of beautiful views, featuring enigmatic texts. The reason for featuring them here is that each of the texts is taken from the back of found photographs. Tenuous I know, but we thought we'd share.