Not many of us have our
pictures viewed by over a million people a day – unless your photo happens to
be selected for publication in a newspaper. Paul Sanders was Picture Editor for The Times till 2011. Every day he would
have to review upwards of 20,000 pictures, for 14 to 16 hours a day, to identify
the best photos for that day’s edition. In his presentation to Photocraft he
let us into some of the secrets of newspaper photography.
For instance, if you want an
image selected for the front page, the trick is to hide your best picture in
the middle of the pile that's being reviewed by the editorial meeting, skip over it,
poker-faced, and let the Editor claw it back as ‘their own idea’! Photoshopping
or pixelating out any part of a news image is a sackable offence – readers have
to be able to trust the honesty and integrity of the newspaper. Getting unique
images and stealing a march on competitors depends on building contacts with
ordinary people - including sometimes scheming to get sole access to their
family photo album!
Paul recounted how one of his
photographers had handled a severely truncated photo shoot with President G W
Bush. 48 frames were shot in just five minutes, thanks to the photographer
knowing what he wanted and how to get it: ‘powerful people respect decisive
people’, he said, so it was important to be ‘respectful, but forceful’.
Many of Paul’s stories and
images were hauntingly tragic. He showed a 2008 image of a young female AIDS
victim from Zimbabwe, Sarudzai Gumbo, who was suffering from a number of
different AIDS-related illnesses. Her face was disfigured by open sores and she
was very frail, in a country that, thanks to Mugabe, had next to no remaining
health care. Apparently, after Times photographer, Richard Mills, working
undercover, took her picture, readers of The
Times donated enough money to move her to a properly equipped hospital, but
sadly she died shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of the
story: Richard Mills
took his own life later that year, depressed that his pictures were not
changing the world – and probably suffering from post-traumatic stress
disorder. Paul confessed that he was still haunted by this and would never have
sent him back to Zimbabwe, had he known his state of mind.
 |
| The Royal Wedding cover ©The Times |
The
last royal wedding, in 2011, was a source of much happier stories. Paul
described the challenge, on that occasion, of identifying the right photo for The Times front page. The image was to wrap around the front and
back pages. The most obvious picture would have William and Kate kissing
on the balcony of the palace, in a deliberate echo of the iconic
Charles and Diana wedding photo, but this image would have been hard to wrap
around. Paul told how he'd had a huge row with his Editor as to which photo
should be used, but had stood his ground, and ultimately had got his way. Instead of
the kiss, The Times featured an image
of the happy couple driving from Buckingham Palace to Clarence House in a
vintage Aston Martin. Paul’s judgement was proved absolutely right when this
souvenir edition of The Times not
only uniquely stood out from competitors, but completely sold out and boosted sales for some time. Ironically,
though, Paul revealed that the photographer of this shot only ever earned £175
from the picture!
If
you ever take a really good photo of breaking news, Paul advised that you
should send it in to a news desk straightaway: ‘news doesn’t wait for you… if
you get something good, move it!’ Ultimately, Paul lost faith in newspaper
picture editing, left The Times and
has started to rediscover himself in landscape photography. However, that’s another
story, for another day. You can read about it here.
No comments:
Post a Comment