Q’s

Hello and welcome to another musing, this one is a little later than planned as I came back from my break and went straight into catching Covid, which luckily hasn’t been too bad, but the fatigue has hit me very strongly and seems to be occupying my shell for a little longer than desired…This is so typical me, in that I’ve avoided it for so long but catch it 2 years late, thank goodness for the vaccine or who knows how bad me and mine would have been.

For this week’s musing while I was away, l got myself caught up in a news event, only a small one mind,nothing major but it reminded me of my background in making editorial/news imagery.  

This news event as you may have guessed was the elongated queues for security at Manchester Airport, now the local news had gotten hold of this story and wouldn’t let it go, there was stories all over the place mainly horrible ones and ones aimed at getting your clicks. 

From a personal viewpoint my previous wait times have been very short, around the 30 mins mark I think, but this one was nearer the hour and a half mark so obviously a difference but if you read the literature sent form the airline it does say to arrive 2 hours earlier, so you pays your money your take your choice. 

One thing I did notice while I was in the q (outside mainly) was the rise of people documenting it on their phones, trying to get a decent image from their place, not stepping out or risking losing said place but trying to snap it from their established vantage point, I’m not sure why these images were being taken, but it did lead me to think of the rise of the citizen journalism, some people have a mistaken belief that they may get paid for their stories and images, others more than happy to share images for free, and with tightening budgets local news are making increased use of this resource. I did see what I think was a news photographer, but he looked very harassed and stressed, not sure it was going his way that day, we’ve all been there, hope he got what he needed. 

I’ll put a little sidenote in here of when I used to make these sorts of images. In the olden days the main technical aspects would have been to use a longer lens to compress the scale and show the sheer length of the queue, probably dropping down to floor level to capture feet/suitcases all waiting, wavering between large and shallow depth of field for varying impact. Backs of heads and feet with nothing too identifiable so as it can be used again for different purposes and stories without any risk of mthe image effecting the story. 

Back to this story and this one is really a typical example of how we report news these days, there had been excessive reporting of the q’s in the local media, there has been stories of people missing their flights, (whereas I found airport staff were shouting out so people avoided this), stories of people turning up 13 hours early and the usual clickbait with comments and suggestions being put forward, police, army etc., I didn’t see the suggestion of paying a decent wage though, l will admit that this was only a brief observations of these stories on my part of course. These types of stories rankle me to this day. 

Another reminisce that this put in my mind was in my past about how the editors/journalists primed you for stories by telling what story they were writing and the image they wanted to convey that, this could vary quite dramatically from what as a photographer you witnessed. I do ponder on the moral implication of the reporting of these sorts of events and the effect that it has on people, all for what?

I think about the power of photography in these stories too, this is a prime example of words needed to clarify the image to strike into people’s consciousness, the obvious correlation with the far rights use of queues in imagery comes up as well, along with how the moving image captures these stories. Think those lines of exploration are more suited to the other side of my practice. 

To the image then, as a blog needs a picture like a story needs a click. This one comes from my break away, I went with my other practices hat on, so the images made were with that in mind but here is what I think makes a typical NP type photo, standing back at a museum and capturing the reactions to the exhibits rather than the specificity of the required reactions. 

A mobile phone is used to capture an image of a statue in a museum.

Let me know any thoughts, comments, feedback via the usual channels, oh and in case you’re looking for the monthly word photograph challenge, I haven’t forgotten. The monthly word for April it will be routine. That word again is routine. 

Thank you for reading.

Stay safe.