That's nice to know. But really this is about pausing between the worries about Ukraine and the mysteries of the Malaysian airliner to take in a moment in nature. Photographer and subjects had been waiting for that moment as fishermen hauled in their catch from Lake Kerkini. The pelicans scooped up any fish that managed to wriggle through the nets or was thrown back as too small. Georgi Kocakov, sitting on a pontoon, scooped up the scene with his camera and caught this oil painting of a photograph. (Picture credit: Solent News)
Yes, it's easy to pick the Guardian - after all, it gives the centre pages to a picture every day. Well, good for the Guardian. It is open to every editor to decide how to distribute space between competing departments. This photograph has no news value. It is just a group of pelicans squabbling over a fish. The caption tells us that they are on a man-made lake in northern Greece that has become a haven for migratory birds.
That's nice to know. But really this is about pausing between the worries about Ukraine and the mysteries of the Malaysian airliner to take in a moment in nature. Photographer and subjects had been waiting for that moment as fishermen hauled in their catch from Lake Kerkini. The pelicans scooped up any fish that managed to wriggle through the nets or was thrown back as too small. Georgi Kocakov, sitting on a pontoon, scooped up the scene with his camera and caught this oil painting of a photograph. (Picture credit: Solent News)
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Saturday 22 March, 2014 This picture is called Unexpected Sun and is a finalist in the Velux Lovers of Light photographic competition. The Times tells us that it was taken by the British photographer Luke Oyston and that there were 15,000 entries from amateurs and professionals. That's not bad for a single line of caption - but if you're going to invest half a page to what is essentially a bit of eye candy, why not make the space for a bit more information? SubScribe couldn't find the picture on the Times website, but there is a slideshow of all ten finalists in the iPad edition. Unfortunately, each has the name of the photographer across the picture, and there is still no further information.Turn to yesterday's Western Morning News and we find almost everything we might want to know. The News chose a different main picture - one of Bridport, taken by a local photographer, Stephen Banks. The paper talks to Banks and to Tom Dyckhoff, who is one of the judges. The remit of the competition, sponsored by the skylight company Velux, is to produce a landscape that captured and celebrated daylight. Entries have been come in from all over the world, although most of the ten finalists have a British connection. The prize is five nights in Norway when daylight lasts for 24 hours. The News runs all ten finalists on its website, along with details of the scene and the photographer. You can see also see them below. Thursday 20 March
This picture lurking on page 25 of the Mail turns a gash page into something worth looking at. Maybe the flatplan changed at the last moment or too much allowance had been made for Budget material. The Mail is not afraid to give over a page to a picture, but this doesn't have the meticulous planning that is the paper's hallmark. The layout, with a pair of doubles under the photograph, is ok but without any Mail panache. The same goes for the intrusive text box on the picture and the 'local paper' head complete with screamer. A better, clean, shot can be seen at Mail Online. The storm in question was last month, so David Parker's picture has probably been sitting around for a while. That doesn't make it any less worth contemplating. At first glance it's just a fallen tree, you hardly notice the 6ft 2in National Trust ranger Raef Johnson. Then when you look across at the yellow arrow, the scale of the tree becomes apparent. It's not news, but it's a welcome relief from all those pictures of George Osborne. Health warning A horticulturalist friend shivered when she saw the photograph, saying you should never stand in such a position as the wind can whip trees back into a standing position, with you underneath. This was obviously never going to happen here with such a mighty oak, but it's worth knowing. Wednesday 19 March, 2014
If you understand perspective, proportion and have an eye you can create things of simple beauty, like this set of photographs on page three of the Mirror today. The pictures were taken by 22-year-old Kosovan Adrian Limani and the figure playing with the Moon is his younger brother. Limani says: "All I need is my imagination, my brother and, of course, my camera." You can see a much sharper version on screen here. The Times also used the "football" shot on page 23, just before the comment section. But as a stand-alone double column sandwiched between a murder charge and monkey sex, it doesn't have the same magic. What a shame the set wasn't given the space made available for the half-page puff for the Phoenix Dance Theatre on the previous right-hander. On a personal note, this set particularly appeals to me because it reminds me of my much-missed former colleague, Rick Beeston, who posted a joyous set of photographs on Facebook after a holiday in Egypt just two months before he died last year. I hope his wonderful wife, Natasha Fairweather, won't mind me publishing one here just to remind us all what a great bloke he was. March 13, 2014
It's utterly trivial, but great heavens, it's spectacularly good. Hats off to Clare Cisotti for the picture research that made Tuesday's Mail spread comparing George Clooney and Prince Andrew something to treasure. Nearly 20,000 Palestinian refugees have been besieged in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria since last July, caught between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters. This river of humanity that lies between banks of burnt-out buildings is slowly flowing towards a United Nations food distribution point. The UN fights its way through to the camp every day and has distributed 7,000 food parcels in the past month, but that is not nearly enough. More than 80 people have died of starvation. Others have died trying to reach the most unsuitable food: CNN reported this week that three people were shot by snipers as they made their way to an open field to eat the grass. Yesterday the UN agency for Palestinian refugees released this Associated Press to try to give the world a clue about the scale of deprivation caused by years of civil war. Nearly 50,000 more are besieged in Homs and in the north near Aleppo. Even in February, this is going to be a strong candidate for picture of the year - and you can bet that there will soon be people claiming that it is a fake - so it is interesting to see how the papers treated it. The Guardian recognised the importance of the photograph, giving it a third of the front - and putting it above the titlepiece. The story that belonged with it was, however, on page 20. This was particularly uncomfortable, even with the little 'reminder' inset picture, since the copy was written as a caption story and stylish head completed the package. It would work only if the reader went directly to page 22 from the front. This was a shame because in going for what most would regard as maximum possible impact, the presentation failed. The Guardian is the one paper with a centre spread that is always given over to a photograph and today that fell on 18 and 19 - the page before the Syrian copy.
The Times made it the central picture on its opening World spread, leading on the Ukraine. There is a logic to this. The copy sits with the picture and the more important story of the day takes precedence. It would have been nice if the photograph could have been given another column to the right,but it is clear that the paper appreciated that it was an important picture.
who found $10m of gold coins while walking their dog. The i also put it across a spread, though heaven knows why. It splits the picture unnecessarily and overlays copy on it to boot. The Mirror gave the photograph most of the top of page 33, again sticking the caption in a box on top of it, while the Telegraph put it at the bottom of its final foreign page above the puzzles. The Express, Star and Sun didn't trouble with it at all.
But he was right. Full depth across two pages, with just a single column of text to explain what's going on, the picture is given maximum impact. Robert Hardman's copy has a few too many adverbs. But this is an extraordinary photograph showing what life is like today for vast numbers of the inhabitants of what should be a modern city. And in this instance it isn't the words that matter.
Tuesday 25 February, 2014 The Mail took a break from its limited stock of photographs of Harman and co as twentysomethings yesterday and instead had a nostalgic poke at the Duchess of York and her 'startling new look'. A further photograph appeared on page three, coupled with a headline asking "Has Fergie taken the dieting too far?" "Wearing her hair scraped back off her face, the Duchess of York looked tired and drawn as she left a restaurant in Manhattan..." The photograph showed no mercy. After the "Wow! Look at Julie Christie at 60" nonsense last week, here was a woman of 54 looking like a woman of 54. She had, the copy explained, been on a "gruelling three-month boot camp in the Swiss Alps" and had lost about 30lb. This was all the excuse the paper needed to produce a follow-up spread today, regurgitating thirty years of highs and lows in the Duchess's life through her face and figure. The Duchess shows no signs of retiring from public life and it could be said that there is still a public interest in her activities since her daughters are both high in succession to the Throne. So maybe there is a defence to this - the positive pictures do outnumber the unhappy ones. But how helpful this is in Eating Disorder Awareness Week, I'm not sure.
The one thing SubScribe would have liked to see in the Ukraine coverage yesterday was a 'before' picture of Independence Square. Lo and behold, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has today come up with an interactive gallery of photographs taken during this outbreak of violence and peaceful shots of the same scene shot from the same angle. Great stuff.
A difficult choice, but The Times wins. It would have been good if the woman with the tyres could have been bigger. I think I'd have swapped her for the priest. The grey of that picture would have reduced the jumble on the right and we might have seen more of the cross - which would have made it the significance of the photograph more apparent.
The Mail has more space than most to indulge in quirky specials - and it is way out in front in execution, devoting time and resources to detailed research, for example in matching outfits or poses across the years. It is also the market leader in jolly animal pictures. Today's offering of a panda getting into a pickle in a tree is confined to a single page - but it is page 3, so that's hardly underexposure.
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The lookThis page is for jottings about use of pictures, spreads and general design. The emphasis here is on the appearance rather than the content, although they often cannot be separated. Archives
June 2015
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