Faces old, faces new

Newspaper photographers photograph people.

More than anything else, we photograph people. Sometimes they are desperate to be photographed ( celebrities, politicians, anybody with something to sell, pr managed individuals who need to arrive through your letterbox, cloaked within the authenticity of journalism as opposed to advertising.)

Then we photograph ordinary folk, who have a story to tell, genuine major or minor stories, all important to the individuals concerned, and the photographs act as anything from basic id shots to powerful story telling images which burn themselves into the readers' collective imagination of the event. Often these people see the necessity for our presence, which can be invasive. Sometimes they don't.

And within this group fall the managed photo opportunities, staged by the police, the armed forces, or any authority who wish to promote their own agenda, who know that the press are desperate for any kind of coverage of a particular news event.

Then there are the people who would rather not be photographed, the offenders arriving at or leaving court, the public figures who have behaved in a way to offend public decency or standards (celebrities, politicians etc. etc.)

Faces. Fodder. Out there for public consumption.

Because Dudley/Stourbridge/Halesowen are considered marginal seats in the forthcoming General Election, expect to be swamped by handshaking, babykissing (oh no, they don't do that anymore, do they?) votegrabbing, smoothtalking politicos from somewhere else, well into Spring 2010. There's a treat.

In the past couple of months I have met Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling twice in Dudley and Stourbridge ( the last Shadow Home Secretary I photographed in Dudley was Tony Blair - whatever happened to him?)

And recently, Tory leader David Cameron was strutting his stuff in Halesowen, on one of his Cameron Direct roadshows. Very smooth, very slick, and won't his performance be fascinating on the forthcoming televised political debates...Thank you America. I might just find something else to do that night.

I spent half the session trying to frame his head within the halo of the background logo, just in case..

And then there are the new faces. Selling something, certainly. But selling something you might benefit from, something untainted, positive, something you could hang your hopes on.

Miranda Dickinson is a young Stourbridge author with her first novel in print. And it might just be massive. And she won't corrupt you. And she won't claim public money in order to further her career. And you might just be entertained.

Another face, at the moment relatively unknown...

Watch this space,
Phil

http://www.thesilverimage.co.uk/