This blog is generally intended to hail interesting use of pictures and well-designed spreads, but sometimes a photograph brings the reader up short for the wrong reason.
Charlize Theron turns up out of the blue on page 15 of today's Times. Why? Because she is beautiful I guess. The caption offers no justification; in case it isn't clear in the cutting above, here it is in full:
'Lighter side Interviewed in Esquire magazine, Charlize Theron says she is not at all like the “dark people” she plays on screen'
It is customary for high-end magazines to demand that newspapers use their covers alongside any newsworthy pictures, hence the baby Esquire on the actress's shoulder.
But how much puffery is required to secure access to a studio shot such as this? Besides the inset cover, the magazine's name appears in the caption and in Terry Richardson's picture credit.
It is a striking photograph, but it belongs in the glossy mag for which it was intended, not disguised as news.

Ah, but what's this? Looking back through the cuttings file, SubScribe discovers that the light-and-dark Ms Theron has a new film out. For here she is in the Times ten days ago, when the accompanying caption told us: 
'A star rises in the West The South African star Charlize Theron at the world premiere of her film A Million Ways To Die In The West, at Westwood, California'
This time she's looking over her other shoulder - so at least it is balanced coverage.

The Times is keen on pictures from the arts, particularly if they involve women. A pink hairdo is all that's needed to get in. Even nipples seem to be allowed if they are artistic enough, judging from a nude Drew Barrymore and some painted women contorted into a skull shape.  Pop concerts, shows, films, exhibitions and opera are all fair game, but SubScribe suspects that John Witherow's passion is for dance. Barely a day passes without a ballerina or two leaping across the page - today we had ballet on page 5 and Chinese dance on 32. 
Here's a far from comprehensive selection of stand-alone arts pictures from the past couple of weeks - including one from the Glyndebourne Der Rosenkavalier, cross-reffing to the review in T2 in which Richard Morrison dismissed Tara Erraught as "unbelievable, unsightly and unappealing". Needless to say, the photograph is not of Ms E.

Most of these pictures are vibrant and attractive, but as SubScribe has written in the past, if papers are going to use stand-alone images, they should give the sub room  to craft some words to give the picture some point. Otherwise they are just space-fillers, puffs or eye-candy. The Mail is the master of this game, investing in researchers who can create something special out of the most mundane shots. The Mirror also showed what could be done last week with its Johnny Depp picture, as you can see here.
The Times has shown some exceptional picture editing in the past few months, but the ballet is being overdone. There are rather a lot of cute animals too - but who's going to object to those? Here's a sample:

There are also, it must be said, some dramatic wildlife pictures in the collection that certainly don't qualify as cute.
And finally, an example today of departments failing to talk to each other. The bank holiday girl in Worthing who appears on page four, below, could easily be looking across to the family on the beach 39 miles away in Southsea - or 29 pages away in business.

 This is Yorkshire's Busy Bee, guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.
Jean Bishop is 93 and she has been dressing up as a bee since her husband died 14 years ago,  to raise money for Hull Age UK. 
Last year she was named Fundraiser of the Year at the Daily Mirror's Pride of Britain awards, and celebrities rallied round on the night to raise £9,000 so that she reached her goal of collecting £100,000.
Today she is in the Independent on Sunday's Happy List, an antidote to the Rich List which celebrates a hundred people who enrich others' lives rather than their own. Others featured include the Teenage Cancer Trust fundraiser Stephen Sutton, who died ten days ago, and "the world's oldest barmaid". Dolly Saville, 100, who has worked at the Red Lion in Wendover for 75 years.

Friday 23 May, 2014 A cute piece of work here from someone at the Mirror, likening Johnny Depp - in character as a murderous mobster - to his former girlfriend Kate Moss. 
There are nits to pick: the heading, the fussiness of the design, the lame quote at the end, even the fact that it's 16 years since Depp and Moss were a couple. It is also, of course, complete nonsense.
But none of that matters because somebody has thought "Hey, you know who he looks like..." and then found not only a photograph of Moss with sunglasses and hair pulled back, but also a picture of the couple together where she is also sporting the Croydon facelift. Good work. Really good work.

Tuesday 20 May, 2014 Tulips among the chrysanths make a pleasant change from Her Majesty among the roses and Titchmarsh among the lilies for the opening day of the Chelsea Flower Show. 
This photograph by Dan Kitwood made the front page of the Independent - under the cute heading "Full petal jacket" - and page three of the Times. Sadly both papers used the photographer's less-than-helpful caption "An exhibitor looks at a stand of chrysanthemums".
Here we have an interesting chap in a blue suit covered in tulips, earrings and an unusual hairstyle (shame about the positioning of his arms, but you can't have everything). 
What a pity he is unidentified or, if it was impossible to find out who he was, that a little more imagination was not put into use. The picture editor did his or her job by plucking this from the endless celebs and arty blooms, the subs should have done their bit.
Elsewhere, the Telegraph stuck with the familiar line-up, with the Queen on the front and Titchmarsh inside - where was Joanna Lumley? The Express also went for the comfortable, while the Mail gave Amy Willerton the publicity she craved by making her 'birth of Venus' interpretation its main Chelsea photograph. The Guardian paired its front-page Chelsea Pensioners with an entirely horticultural centre spread, below. Not a royal in sight.
Now let's hope for something beyond the giant walking plant when the show closes on Friday.

A very powerful picture on the Times centre pages yesterday of a father clutching his son after he escaped from the Turkish mine gas blast. This was the opening foreign spread and, apart from this picture, it lacked its usual panache. SubScribe wonders why seven dead in Ukraine - a story that has been running for months - outranks 150 dead in a mining disaster that has left hundreds trapped underground hoping for rescue.
Other papers caught up with the picture today...and the Times reassessed its news values...

The Duke of Cambridge hosted a dinner for 200 stars of the arts and fashion world last night to honour the designer Ralph Lauren and raise funds for the Royal Marsden hospital. 
The gravel drive leading up to Windsor Castle served as the red carpet, with guests pausing to pose for the photographers. Those attending included Kate Moss, Helena Bonham Carter, Benedict Cumberbatch and Cate Blanchett, but the papers' choice was Emma Watson. 
Here's how they treated three similar photographs 

What an exasperating paper the Daily Mail is. Just as you think you can't stand another shrieking, moaning, self-righteous headline, you turn the page and find something like this. 
The cartoonist Tony Husband has documented his father's decline into dementia comic-strip style. It is warm, candid and, of course, sad. 
The Mail describes it as a picture book unlike any other. It isn't - Raymond Briggs and Matthew Johnstone have been down similar roads before - but that's a niggle (as is my objection to the word ANY being capped up in the standfirst). 
It is still a special piece of work and it is brilliant that a paper has the confidence to devote three pages to it. It's not news. It's not a feature. But dementia touches so many families that there can be no doubt of its relevance to readers. For Husband and the Mail to make it available for 60p is admirable. And, of course, it's free to read on the website (it has been shared 23,500 times). For once the Mail has used an adverb appropriately when it says "We proudly print it in full".

Friday 9 May, 2014
The Guardian again. Well, it's easy for them - they give over the centre spread to pictures every day. Quite. It's an affirmation of the importance of images to a newspaper, of a single shot that invites the reader to pause and study. You don't get that with television, you certainly don't get it with radio and you rarely get it with the internet. Do we even have the patience to wait the 20 seconds it takes for a video to load as we skim through Buzzfeed or Facebook or Twitter? Today's offering combines an intriguing planetary composition with some sharp caption writing and an excellent heading - Oceans' eleven - if it's not clear enough to read on this screen.
This is one of a series of four pictures by Mandy Barker entitled Penalty. The photographer wanted to show the how much plastic was accumulating in the oceans, so she issued an online appeal for people to send her footballs found washed up on the beach. As the caption explains, they were photographed as found, "unwashed and unaltered, some containing seawater, others drained. Some were home to creatures, including a shrew, an ants' nest and a family of crabs, while others showed signs of having been bitten by turtles and fish."
The paper points to a 1970 Mexico World Cup replica ball and a couple stamped with the signatures of Trevor Brooking and Kevin Keegan - so we know that some of the balls have been bouncing around on the waves for decades. 
This is a great example of a caption tempting readers to explore for themselves. Now we know what the picture is all about we can make our own discoveries: the ball in blue rope netting, the dragon symbols, the Hello Kitty, the Shoot No 5, the L.W.Sherrin rugby ball amid all the round ones. And when we've finished our game of spot the ball, we can pause to look at the shapes, the levels of distress, the outer skins that have vanished. 
It's not news. But then, neither is Katie Price.
You can see the picture on the Guardian website here

Thursday 8 May, 2014
An extraordinarily powerful image from Barbara Walton of EPA in the Guardian. 
Demonstrators were out on the streets of Bangkok to celebrate a court ruling that the Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was guilty of abuse of power and must leave office.
This boy, decked out in the red, white and blue of the anti-government protests, surveys the scene with a wearied -  almost cynical - eye and pursed lips  that age him by decades.
How old is he? Nine? Eleven? Yet he has the air of a ranking officer in his thirties or forties.
What can this child know of the politics of Shinawatra and her brother Thaksin, forced from office in 2006 and now living in exile in Dubai? 
At one glance, he looks so at ease in all the paraphernalia, down to the yellow whistle and the gun - can it be real? - that it's inconceivable that he was unaware of the statement it was making. 
But look again, and he becomes a child again, posing as the hero of an  XBox game. Who is to know which, if either,  is the true interpretation?

Wednesday 30 April, 2014 
There could be only one picture of the day: Sir Peter Blake at the unveiling of his mural "Appearing at the Albert Hall". The triptych, which is in the hall's foyer, features more than 400 artists in Sgt Pepper album cover style. It's an irresistible game trying to see how many you can name. A version of the photograph above makes the front of the Guardian - with a great heading - and the Times also uses the central panel on page 3, with a little quiz to set readers searching for five faces. The Independent runs a slightly wider shot across a gutter (which doesn't help), but the picture is strangely absent from the Telegraph, Express and Mail - watch out for a whistles-and-bells catch-up spread from the Mail later in the week. The Mirror and the Sun do best. Both show all three panels across a full spread. The Mirror (above right) gives a key and names everyone, the Sun directs readers to its website for the list. That's what everyone should have done. 

Thursday 1 May, 2014 No one likes a know-all, and "I told  you so" is a phrase to be despised. But I did, didn't I?