YourSay... ç inviting letters, comments, tweets


£40 prize


letter


Please keep comments to 350 words maximum


H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H


Photography costs rise while pay rates slump


On a ‘Fleet Street’ photographers’ social media forum recently, a senior photographer asked the question: “Does anyone know how cutbacks at Reach affect photographers?” How indeed. To start with, back in 1994, I was receiving a rate


of £165 from most commissioning newspapers (Telegraph, Guardian, Times, Mail, Express etc). A couple paid slightly more and a couple slightly less. The rates being paid this year are the same (or less) than


the rates I was being paid 30 years ago. Every year that the rates have remained static they have, in effect, been cut back a few per cent. I believe inflation since 1994 has equated to 94.16 per cent,


which means a rate of £165 back then would be £320.36 today (see https://www.inflationtool.com/british-pound/ 1994-to-present-value). I am still regularly offered £165 to do a newspaper job so, yes, there have been cutbacks. And, of course, there is more to it than static rates. In 1994, the photographer shot on film, whereas today a


photographer is expected to own and use a collection of digital equipment – such as a DSLR camera, computer, mobile hub and software. This is all much more expensive that the 1994 toolkit and, of


course, these newer items have to be updated regularly. As newspapers embraced the new digital and


internet ages, pagination and paper size were reduced, meaning fewer opportunities for photographers To answer that initial question: the cost of working as a


photographer has dramatically increased and the remuneration has plummeted.


Pete Jenkins Nottingham


H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H


Image evolution from darkrooms to digital I enjoyed reading Peter Popham’s piece (It’s another world now, February/ March). Peter was writing from a writer’s point of view and it got me thinking about how things have changed for press photographers. As a retired former staff photographer at the Manchester Evening News (MEN) from 1969 to 1997 and, before that, from 1962 to 1965 at the Southport Press Agency then and from 1965 to


24 | theJournalist


1989 at the Chronicle, Wigan, I have seen quite a few changes. Although I never had to use a plate


camera as a photographer myself, I was involved with other photographers who did use them during my five-year apprenticeship in the darkroom at the MEN. My own use of plate cameras was when doing copies of pictures during my apprenticeship years so I do know the procedure for their use. My years as a photographer began when using my own Rolleicord 2.25


square roll film camera until progressing to using Minolta, Nikon and Canon 35mm cameras, all involving the wet processing and printing method.


Then – at the MEN at least – along


came digital and, in 1996, the MEN bought its first (and only one at the time) professional digital camera. It was a rather heavy Canon Kodak camera body with, I think, about two or three megapixels which I think cost £8,000, plus laptop and mobile phone.


Email to: journalist@nuj.org.uk Post to: The Journalist 72 Acton Street, London WC1X 9NB Tweet to: @mschrisbuckley


The whole kit would probably have cost about £12,000. A couple of years later, each staff photographer was issued with improved versions of digital cameras. Photography would never be the


same again. Digital cameras and the Internet changed everything. It brought an end to the wet processing method that had been around for more than a century and would eventually see the end of film and hard copy prints – at least in newspaper press photography – and also the closure of the darkroom. But more on that in a later edition of The Journalist. Bill Batchelor Bournemouth


Christine Keeler: a fascinating TV guest I was intrigued by Jonathan Sale’s piece on the Keeler story (The Keeler Instinct, February/March). I was only six when this explosive


story broke, but it made an impact on my middle-class parents at the time so it didn’t go unnoticed by me. Much, much later, I co-produced


Notes & Queries with Clive Anderson for BBC2 where we attempted to answer: “Should sexual indiscretion lead to the downfall of government?” This was an irresistible challenge to


our studio guests, who included Michael Dobbs and Andrew Neil. But it could not have been the same without Christine Keeler who participated thanks to the series editor Lila Creswell. Keeler was by then completely broke, living in a basement in Battersea and being looked after by one of her sons. Creswell met her a few times and


talked to her at length, eventually persuading her to come on the programme. At the studio, she was completely charming, but when she saw Neil was billed to appear, she took umbrage and told us that she would never appear together with him. She got a private green room well away from him and was well looked after.


DENIS CARRIER


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28