Rampant cowardice strikes again

Well, has anyone missed me while I’ve been absent?

Has anyone even noticed I’ve been absent?

Hmm… that’s pretty much what I thought.

Anyway I’m back now, for all you folk that hadn’t even noticed I’d gone. (For the time being at least, though don’t be surprised by future mysterious and sporadic disappearances.)

Not that I’ve really been away; not in a physical sense that is. Just no posts here for… oooh… all of eight days. More to the point though… no photographs!
Yep. The cap hasn’t come off the lens for a good ten days would you believe.

Not that I’ve been idle. Oh no. Busy little bee in fact. Much exercised by a number of issues all highly relevant to the promising attractions of the forthcoming summer. Which looks all set to be a rather “interesting” time.
And, believe it or not, all highly relevant to the practise of photography.

Its curious, interesting even, just how many things can be relevant to the practise of photography that don’t actually involve the literal physical act of snapping pics.

And most of those things seem to have been at the forefront of my mind over the past week or so.

Things like…

Y’see, there’s this little sort of “collective” of photojourno types who tend to specialise a bit in social documentary type stuff (in my particular case that happens to be all the protesty-type stuff… well, mainly). And whilst this little collective has been doing its thing for quite a while, its all tended to be on a fairly informal basis.
Much chat though over the past few months, prompted to a large extent by certain incidents at last year’s Climate Camp, brought us to the point (well, brought me to the point at least) of recognising that things needed to be formalised a bit more.

Then there’s another thing that has sort of fed into this.

In fact, my brain’s now beginning to hurt from having to think about all the things involved in a transition to more of a “rights managed” model of photography than my hitherto “free and easy” approach. A necessary and inevitable change prompted by all sorts of considerations, not least of which is the increasingly desperate need to try and scratch a living in whatever ways are open to me.
Not that I’m quite ready to plead poverty just yet, but I can definitely hear the alarm bells ringing. (And we’re still only at the very start of the global financial meltdown! Ho hum.)

And on top of all that there’s been lots of planning and scheming about ways to protect oneself from some of the more… er… “interesting” features that this coming summer promises. All in the cause of seeking to document events that can legitimately be regarded as “in the public interest”.

Protection from, for example, getting nicked for simply taking photographs (see previous post).

And protection from, for example, becoming a victim of the ever more common cop brutality or (another thing that can be laid fairly and squarely at the cops’ door) getting done over by some hooligan that’s been attracted to upcoming protests and other events by the malicious scaremongering of the cops (see this article).

So y’see, instincts of enlightened self-interest, survival, or rampant cowardice (whichever term you prefer) have kept me very busy indeed.

But fear not… I can’t see it being too long before I start brushing the dust off the trusty old camera again.