Pixiq.com goes down: the response from Sterling Publishing

The decision by Sterling Publishing, a subsidiary of Barnes and Noble, to close its popular photography blogging platform Pixiq on Friday 10 May, has been met with shock, surprise, and consternation by both its contributors and readers. It is understood that unless they had already tendered their resignations, all contributors were issued with termination agreements earlier this month. However, no details of the closure process were made explicit; no explanations were offered and no timeframe was presented.

I made contact with Pixiq's managing editor on Friday morning, to ascertain the circumstances of the site's closure, but it was Caitlin Friedman, Sterling Publishing's Director of Marketing and Publicity, who initially responded:

Yes, we closed the site down, which is why we ended the agreements with all bloggers but a sincere THANK YOU for everything you contributed to the site.

You can imagine my dismay at this response. A 'sincere thank you' for our contributions doesn't explain why the decision was taken to shut down the site and neither does it explain or excuse the management's failure to offer prior notice of the closure.

Thus followed a rather frustrating exchange of emails where Ms Friedman proceeded to obviate the questions I put to her. Finally, I received an email from Gillian Berman, Sterling Publishing's Director of Legal Affairs, stating:

Sterling Publishing has performed in accordance with the terms of the blogger agreement that we entered into with you, and Sterling Publishing has and will perform as contractually required under the attached termination agreement.

Translating the legalese, this amounts to 'When we agreed to terminate your contract, we said that we could pull the content at any time between then and when you would have served out your notice. That's what we did. We'll give it back to you in accordance with the agreement.' According to the contracts, Sterling Publishing has acted, so far, entirely legally. What it hasn't done is act with courtesy or respect towards its contributors or readers.

Undoubtledly businesses do not have to justify their decisions except to their shareholders; however, the decision to pull the plug on the website without so much as an advance notification email to its contributors and an explanatory post to its readers strikes me as unthinking and maybe tactless at best; at worst it is cruel to the contributors, discourteous to the readers, and an indictment of the worst practices of big businesses in general.

Barnes and Noble's financial status has been of concern to the markets for sometime, despite the share-price hike last week following speculation of the sale of its Nook ebook system to Microsoft; the decision to close Pixiq does nothing to assuage fears that it is not best placed to handle the movement towards digital content and neither am I convinced that is a great example of how it handles its employees and personnel, either.

Pixiq.com site goes down, leaving authors and readers in the lurch

Sterling Publishing apparently shut down the popular photography blogging site Pixiq today, only a few days after serving notice to all their bloggers, stating that the staff would no longer be required. Barnes and Nobles have a few things to celebrate this week, including a 20% hike in stock value when the rumours of Microsoft sniffing around their Nook e-book reader started seeping out on the internet.

That didn't stop Sterling Publishing (who operates the Pixiq brand) from shutting down the entire Pixiq.com site, posting a message on the site's homepage stating that the site no longer is active.

The message reads "Thank you for visiting www.pixiq.com. Sorry, this website is no longer active. For information about Pixiq books, please visit www.sterlingpublishing.com", and it appears that Pixiq just flicked off the switch, weeks before their contracts with the bloggers expired.

The site didn't communicate its intention of shutting up shop ahead of time, neither to its readers nor to the dozen active writers on the site.

"This is ridiculous", says one of the Pixiq bloggers. "It means I can't get my content back, even though the copyright was still mine, even though I had specific talks about that

Luckily, Photocritic staff Daniela Bowker and Haje Jan Kamps had a backup of their content, and were able to publish all the content on Photocritic.org with a minimum amount of downtime.

None of the editorial or management staff from Pixiq could be reached for a comment as this article was published.

After the storm: where we stand with Adobe's Creative Cloud

Now that the dust has settled and hopefully the tempers have calmed after Adobe's announcement to move from stand-alone licensing to online subscription for its Creative Suite products, which it has rebranded Creative Cloud, I think it's time for some assessment. What are the positives and negatives of this move; for whom does it work and for whom doesn't it; and what might it mean for the industry?

The figures

Price-wise, a year's subscription to the entire Creative Cloud package will cost you £46.88 ($49.99) a month. If you only want to purchase one application, let's say Photoshop, you can subscribe to that for £17.58 ($19.99) a month. The boxed version of Photoshop was around £600 ($1,000), depending on where you bought it. You would have been looking at around £2,500 ($2,600) for the complete gamut of Creative Suite. With Creative Cloud you also get 20GB of storage thrown in and access to the Behance network that Adobe recently bought and integrated into its business.

Over the course of a year, you'll be spending £562.56 for Creative Cloud or £210.96 for the Photoshop-only package. It's going to take you three years to shell out what you would have for the stand-alone package. Within those three years you might well have upgraded your stand-alone package, at whatever price Adobe set, but the upgrades to the Cloud subscription will have been automatically deployed. Thus for a few years, it is a more cost-effective solution but there will reach a point when your subscriptions exceed the cost at which you could have previously purchased the product.

For existing Adobe customers, the situation is a little different, because your first year as subscribers is slightly cheaper, but does that really make up for then having to shell out month-on-month for a product that you've effectively already bought?

Negatives and positves

The primary concern with the subscription model is that it locks you into the system in perpetuity. In the past, once you'd bought the licence to Photoshop CS3, you had it for as long as it continued to work. With the subscription model you only have access to Photoshop for as long as you continue to pay for it. And what's to stop Adobe from doubling or tripling their subscription fees next year?

If the cost of subscription were to become prohibitive, would you still be able to access your native format files? Right now, there are other programmes capable of opening PSD files, for example Pixelmator, but could Adobe move to a more restrictive format in the future? It could, but all of this is speculation right now.

If you were at all concerned that you would not be able to use Photoshop, or any of the other Creative Cloud applications, without an ongoing connection to the internet, Adobe have assuaged that fear. You will of course have to be connected to install and license the software, and you'll be asked to connect every 30 days to validate the licences, but you'll be able to use your applications for unto 180 days offline. If you're trekking through the jungles of Borneo, you'll still be able to edit your photos on the move, even if the trees don't provide wi-fi.

Winners and losers

Many people have suggested that Adobe's primary move towards the Cloud is to avoid the scourge of pirates. Whilst it might be conceivable that it will help to prevent people from pirating their products—although I'm not convinced; if you can make something, you can break it—what they will prevent, at least until someone finds a workaround, is people using their products, and not necessarily encourage their purchase.

People pirate software for all sorts of reasons. Those who are ideologically opposed to paying for software aren't going to be mysteriously converted by a subscription format. For those who can't afford it, some will now be able to afford Adobe subscriptions, some still won't. As for those who pirated it just because they could, some of those might choose to pay, others might chose to look elsewhere, or to stick with their obsolete but free versions. Adobe will likely win some and lose some in terms of subscribers, but those that it wins will almost certainly be in it for the long haul.

Stayers and leavers

Should you then stick with Adobe for the long haul? If you're a professional who relies on Adobe's products in order to fulfil your obligations and complete your projects that provide an income for you that is in excess of the subscription fee, almost certainly. You're not losing, per se, by paying the fee and it keeps you on a par with your peers and competitors. It's also a legitimate business expense that you can write off against your taxes, which is handy.

Should your figures be more marginal, you perhaps need to consider your options. Then it will depend on how attached you are to Adobe and how comfortable you would feel switching to another provider. If you can find another application or set of applications that provides you with similar outcomes but on better terms, a switch could be in your favour.

For hobbyists, don't feel that Adobe is the only option, especially when it comes to Photoshop. Photoshop Elements is an extremely competent alternative, and significantly cheaper. It is, after all, Adobe's solution for people who don't require Photoshop's full fire-power. GIMP is free. Pixelmator is very highly thought of. Photoshop's capabilities are extensive and impressive, but if you're not making full use of them then you might not need to pay for them.

If you're wondering what I'll be doing, I shall almost certainly be taking out a Photoshop-only subscription to augment my use of Lightroom, which is my go-to editing suite, and has been confirmed as remaining stand-alone for the the foreseeable future. However, I am keeping a close eye on Pixelmator. I think it has potential as a Photoshop alternative.

To the future?

When Google announced that it was shuttering Reader, it felt as if the RSS universe were imploding. How could they possibly? What would we do? But the universe didn't implode: a feast of alternatives has sprung up, some of them far prettier and likely even more functional than Reader. Adobe's move is a divisive one, but it isn't anywhere near implosive. For anyone with the talent and the tenacity, the time is ripe for striking out with an Adobe alternative.

Masterclasses from Sony

As part of the World Photography Awards, Sony is laying on a series of photography masterclasses at London's Somerset House on Friday 26, Saturday 27, and Sunday 28 April. Michael Wayne Plant will be demystifying photography, there will be session aimed at students looking to make photography their careers led by Magdi Fernandes, and the team from What Digital Camera are looking at the past, present, and future of full-frame photography. Sessions cost £5, but that's redeemable against the cost of entry into the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition.

Full details about timings and booking are on the WPO website.

Celebrating a scandal

Scandal '63 has opened in Room 32 at the National Portrait Gallery, marking the 50th anniversary of the Profumo Affair.

If you don't know the story of the Profumo Affair, it's something straight out of a spy thriller, save that it really happened. John Profumo was the Secretary of State for War and married to actress Valerie Hobson. However, he was also having a bit of a carry-on with Christine Keeler, a nightclub hostess and model who was also enjoying the attentions of senior Russian naval attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov. Being 1963, and the height of the Cold War, this was far from ideal for national security.

The NPG's exhibition tells the story of the scandal, and how the national media helped to unravel it, using portraits, press images, magazines, and ephemera. And it wouldn't be complete without at least one nude portrait of Keeler.

Scandal '63 at the National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, LONDON, WC2H 0HE

Stands Alone open now!

Stands Alone is a new exhibition of images by Simone Novotny on display at the Geffrye Museum. It charts the transformation of Arsenal's old Highbury stadium into new housing–Highbury Stadium Square–and features several of the residents as they try to build a community in this new development. The exhibition is open now and runs until Monday 26 August 2013. Entry costs £5 (£3 for concessions and under-16s are free).

Stands Alone at the Geffrye Museum, 136 Kingsland Road, LONDON, E2 8EA.

Making or taking photographs?

You often hear people say that 'real photographers' make photos; people who just take photos, well, take them. Me? I take photos. My photographs are moments sliced out of time and captured as pixels. That's thievery.

It's my food and I'll photograph it if I want to!

I know, it's a title that makes me sound like a spoiled brat. You might have visions of me stomping my feet and tossing my iPhone to the ground in the throes of a tantrum because I can't have my way to take a picture of my sweet potato and chickpea tagine with jewelled saffroned rice. That's not quite how it might seem, I promise.

Last week, the New York Times reported on the growing number of eating establishments that are prohibiting their clientele from photographing their food. No iPhones at Ko in New York and no flashes at Seiobo in Sydney or Shoto in Toronto. It's all becoming too distracting and disturbing, for diners and staff alike, especially when people start rearranging furniture and standing on chairs. Their houses; their rules. And with behaviour like that, I'm not surprised that restaurateurs have called time on wannabe Bon Apetit photographers or people who are too involved in Instagram to actually enjoy their slow roasted pork belly properly.

So I'm here to plead for a little moderation.

I'm the first person to stand up for no flash; apart from it being a terrible disturbance to other people who are eating or working, it does horrible things to images of food that can make them look distinctly unappealing as opposed to wickedly tempting. If you want to do justice to the raspberry and mascarpone creme brulee with brandy tuile, that you're meant to be enjoying and a pastry chef has burned his fingers making, you'll switch off your flash. We don't want slimy looking custard, thankyouverymuch.

As for people who think that they can stand on a restaurant chair in order to get the perfect overhead of their grilled seabass with steamed vegetables, they can go to bed with no supper. You wouldn't do that at a dinner party hosted by a friend, so why do you think it's acceptable when you're in public? Besides, by the time that you've finished faffing, your meal will be cold, you'll not enjoy it as much, and it will have been a waste of time, effort, money, and a dead fish.

Furthermore, if you're meant to be enjoying delicious food, wonderful wine, and charming company, why are you pansying about on Instagram or wittering on Twitter?

But not allowing a discreet smartphone snap or a compact camera capture? That feels a little draconian to me. Without doubt, I'm biased. I take a lot of photos of food. I love cooking and eating, and obviously I love photography: I photograph food that I make and I photograph food that eat when I'm out. I do it because I'm proud of what I've created, because I think that what I've been served looks beautiful and I want to capture that, and because I like to make memories of my restaurant experiences.

I don't want to disturb other diners and I don't want to ruin my own enjoyment of my meal, especially if I'm paying a lot of money for the privilege. What I want is a swift image to revel in. No flash, no furniture rearrangement, no Instagram. Just a discreetly snapped picture that I can look back on years to come to help me recall how perfect that grilled halloumi salad on a terrace a few hours outside of Auckland was.

When I take photos of food in a restaurant it's a compliment. Please accept it as such.

William Eggleston: Outstanding Contribution to Photography

Untitled. 1971-1974 from Los Alamos - minnows sign

Regarded as one of the pioneers leading to the acceptance of colour photography as an artistic medium, William Eggleston is this year being recognised for his outstanding contribution to photography at the Sony World Photography Awards.

Born in 1939 in Memphis, Eggleston picked up his first camera, a Canon rangefinder, in 1957. His experiments with colour started in 1965 and his great breakthrough, and that of colour photography, came in 1976 when the Museum of Modern Art, New York, exhibited his first solo collection of colour photographs. Colour photography had moved from the realm of advertising to the world of art.

Astrid Merget, Creative Director of the World Photography Organisation says of Eggleston: 'William Eggleston is a without a doubt, one of the great pioneers of our time. His influence on colour photography and subsequently on many of today's most revered working photographers, is one to be admired, respected and awarded.'

The Wilson Centre for Photography has loaned a selection of Eggleston's prints for display at Somerset House as part of the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition from 26 April to 12 May 2013. The majority of these prints are from his Los Alamos and Dust Bells series and the 10.D.70.V1 portfolio and were taken between 1965 and 1980.

Mr Eggleston's award will be presented to him on Thursday 25 April at the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards Gala Ceremony.

Images are copyright Eggleston Artistic Trust and courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

A beautifully patterned winner for our March photo competition

March's competition theme was patterns. We wanted to see pictures comprising Fibonacci spirals, ancient mosaics, or even jars on a shelf. You gave us some great images including flower petals, ice crystals, tapestry, and masonry. The winner that we* went for, however, was this row of clouds perching above the crest of a mountain range in northern Italy.

Well done to Maria Antonietta for Queuing! She's won herself a 12 inch Fracture.

We'd also like to congratulate flickphoto10 for the second-placed image In Line:

Thank you to everyone who entered. If you want to be in with a chance of winning a 12 inch Fracture this month, the details of April's competition will be going up soon!

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* The usual suspects have been indisposed for their selection duties this month. I recruited a stunt-double, though.

Sweet on April

A smore has to be just about the sweetest thing I can think of

I was going to make this month's photo competition theme 'cake', but then I decided that my own preference for cake over sweets or chocolate shouldn't restrict your photographs. So instead the theme is sweet. It can include cake, chocolate, desserts, or sweeties. Just make sure it's sugar- (or honey-) based!

The photographer of the winning image will win her- or himself and 12 inch Fracture, and get to revel in the glory of the announcement, too!

You can participate by submitting your image, just the one, to the Small Aperture Flickr pool and then linking it in this month's thread. (That last bit is important.) The competition opens today, Friday 5 April, and runs until Friday 26 April 2013.

The Rules have been reproduced for your reference, so now it is just a case of good luck!

The Rules

• If you decide to enter, you agree to The Rules.
• You can’t be related to either me, Haje, or Gareth to enter.
• One entry per person – so choose your best!
• Entries need to be submitted to the right place, which is the relevant monthly thread within the Small Aperture Flickr group.
• There’s a closing date for entries, so make sure you’ve submitted before then.
• You have to own the copyright to your entry and be at liberty to submit it to a competition. Using other people’s photos is most uncool.
• It probably goes without saying, but entries do need to be photographs. It’d be a bit of strange photo competition otherwise.
• Don’t do anything icky – you know, be obscene or defame someone or sell your granny to get the photo.
• We (that being me, Haje, and Gareth) get to choose the winner and we’ll do our best to do so within a week of the competition closing.
• You get to keep all the rights to your images. We just want to be able to show off the winners (and maybe some honourable mentions) here on Pixiq.
• Entry is at your own risk. I can’t see us eating you or anything, but we can’t be responsible for anything that happens to you because you submit a photo to our competition.
• We are allowed to change The Rules, or even suspend or end the competition, if we want or need to. Obviously we’ll try not to, but just so that you know.

If you've any questions, please just ask!

What do you call a group of photographers?

Have some rhubarb. It turns out that I don't have photos of photographers.

Boys come in blushes. Dolphins come in schools. Hawks come in casts. Magpies come in tidings. Prisoners come in pitys. And zebras come in zeals. The Oxford Dictionaries have an official list, which Sophie Goldsworthy, author of the Rough Guide to Digital Photography, pointed me the way of on Friday. Most of the list was compiled in the 15th century by one Dame Juliana Barnes, so it's hardly surprising that it includes a 'glozing of taverners' but that photographers are passed over. Court jesters weren't generally found playing around with Polaroids. Now, however, I think that the time has come to bring a little currency to this venerable collection of collectives.

What is the collective noun for a group of photographers?

Photojournalists scrambling for a headline image; music photographers leaping about the pit before a stage; wedding photographers valiantly marshalling slightly tipsy bridal parties the globe over; even if we don't always hunt in packs, I am firmly of the opinion that the worldwide community of photographers is deserving of a collective identity.

Early suggestions have included a click, an exposure, a flash, a kitbag, a shutter, and a spectrum. But what do you think? We have to at least pretend that we have some consensus about this. Suggestions or indications of support can be left in the comments section. (Should you be concerned about being mistaken for a paparazzo or an Instagrammer, feel free to diverge into sub-genres.) With any luck, we might've settled on something by the time that I return from my travels at the beginning of April.

Ilex Instant: a new publishing platform for photography books

We hear it just about every day: the publishing world has changed. Sales of dead-tree publications are down; access to free content and self-publishing services is on the up. For both publishers and wanna-bee authors, this is both a good and a bad thing: it's a rickety market for publishers, but with wonderful opportunities for revolutionary thinking; authors no longer have to channel themselves through the strictly controlled layers of publishing houses, but how do they get their work noticed?

Ilex, one of the leading photo publishers in the world, believes it has the answer to this conundrum, combining the freedom of e-book publishing with the solidity of traditional publishing in the form of Associate Publisher Adam Juniper's brainchild: Ilex Instant.

You take your e-book idea to Ilex and they give it the traditional editorial treatment with an editor and a designer. When it's ready, it's released into the big scary world of sales, but with the advantages of looking great, reading well, and having the weight of a well-respected publisher behind it. Ilex's name is known the world over, but its books are sold under many other different brands too, including Pixiq's (for example The Complete Guide to Digital Photography and Creative Portrait Photography). They're also known as innovators, being the folks behind The Photographer's i Magazine (which, of course, can be bought from the site in PDF so it's no longer tied to tablets).

As the sales roll in, the profits are split between you and Ilex. You never know, it might be a stepping stone to seeing your name on the cover of a printed book, too.

Adam told me: 'Now we'll be a "hybrid publisher", not just producing the books we think photographers need but letting photographers lead the way, and paying them to do it.'

It's still early days for Ilex Instant; the first exclusive material is a little way off yet. However, you can access much of Ilex's catalogue of books on a chapter-by-chapter basis that, usually, costs little more than a cup of coffee. But as a special treat for Pixiq readers, Ilex is offering you a free e-book. Browse the site, choose your book, and then enter the code PIXIQMAR2013 at the checkout. If you register in the social section of Ilex's site before the end of March, you can be in the running to win an iPad Mini, too.

Ilex Instant, definitely worth a look.

Sony World Photography Awards: Open Category winners

Starry Tree by Elmar Akhmetov, Kazakhstan, Winner, Low Light, Open Competition

The swanky gala awards ceremony for the Sony World Photography Awards 2013 draws closer, and the winners of the ten Open categories, the 3D category, and the Youth cetegory winners have just been announced.

Taking the spoils of a Sony A77 each for their prowess in the Open categories are:

• Architecture - Martina Biccheri, Italy
• Arts and Culture - Gilbert Yu, Hong Kong
• Enhanced - Hoang Hiep Nguyen, Vietnam
• Low Light - Elmar Akhmetov, Kazakhstan
• Nature & Wildlife - Krasimir Matarov, Bulgaria
• Panoramic - Yeow Kwang Yeo, Singapore
• People - Hisatomi Tadahiko, Japan
• Smile – Ming Hui Guan, China
• Split Second -  Matías Gálvez, Chile
• Travel - Manny Fajutag, Philippines

These ten amateur photographers are now up for being awarded the title Sony World Photography Awards Open Photographer of the Year on 25 April 2013 at the aforementioned swanky gala ceremony, and will be presented with $5,000 in addition to their new camera.

As for the 3D award, that's going to Matjaž Tančič, a Slovenian fashion photographer based in Beijing and Ljubljana. 

The overall winner of the Youth category will also be announced on 25 April, but the finalists for that honour are:

• Culture - Alecsandra Dragoi, Romania
• Environment - Xu Wei Shou, Taiwan
• Portraits- Berta Vicente, Spain

The professional photographers have been shortlisted; the winner of the Iris d'Or will be unveiled on 25 April in London.

(All images copyright their respective photographers and courtesy of the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards.)

International Women's Day 2013

In honour of International Women's Day, I've pulled together five stories told by five female photojournalists that I think elucidate why we need a day to celebrate our mothers, sisters, and wives. There's a great deal that I could say about women's rights, but the photos say it better. Please take a look.

Agnes Dherbeys: The Street With No Name Cambodia
Because women shouldn't feel that there's no alternative than to sell sex to make ends meet.

Anastasia Taylor-Lind: The National Womb
Because women are more than baby-making machines.

Andrea Bruce: The Widows of Varanasi
Because women are more than just wives to their husbands.

Lynsey Addario: The Criminalization Mothers
Because women are people, too.

Stephanie Sinclair: Self-Immolation: A Cry for Help
Because no woman should live in fear.

These are not the only stories told about women, by women. There are millions of women and billions of stories. These images are barely a drop in an ocean.

Delving into the 'Skill vs Kit' myth

Taken with a point-and-shoot

A few days ago I found myself in the midst of an interesting Twitter conversation with a young photographer who has been debating upgrading to a dSLR from her point-and-shoot. However, she has read so many articles telling her not to bother that she wasn't sure if it were the right thing to do. Oh? People are actively saying don't buy an interchangeable lens camera? Really? This is what she told me:

I like photography and find my point-and-shoot limiting but everyone says to me better pictures is you and never the camera.

Oops! Something has definitely got lost in translation there, because I am undoubtedly one of the body of 'everyone' who extols photographic skill over camera prowess every time, but that's not at the expense of achievement. What I don't mean is that a young photographer should feel frustrated because she can't do what she wants to do with her camera and is scared of buying something new. You see, the key phrase in my correspondent's correspondence was 'find my point-and-shoot limiting'.

When we talk about photographic skill trumping your kit's capabilities, what we mean, on a most basic level, is that having the most expensive, all-singing, all-dancing   camera with bells, whistles, and a hotline to the President of the United States won't automatically make you a better photographer. You have to know how to use it. A couple of winters ago, my cousin wanted to upgrade from her Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot to a Canon 5D Mk II. She asked me what I thought. I told her to save her money and buy something a bit lower down the pecking order; invest in some good lenses and some books instead. Bless my cousin, money burns a hole in her pocket and she couldn't quite understand this. Her response: 'But it'll take better pictures!' Not quite, of course, as she will be the driving force behind her camera, and the one responsible for taking better pictures.

Ultimately, a bad photographer with an expensive camera will still produce bad photographs.

A good photographer with a camera that doesn't allow them the control they desperately want will still take good photos, but they might feel a bit frustrated in the process. Give these frustrated photographers cameras where they can call the shots, and a whole new world opens up to them. It isn't so much about having a 'better' camera, it's about having a camera that allows you to do more.

In my early days with an SLR, I came into a bundle of money and decided that it was time to buy a new lens to augment the few I already had. Not really knowing what to buy, I asked someone with a lot more experience than me what he thought would be a good choice. His advice: 'Leave the money in the bank. When you can't do what you want to do with what you already have, then you'll know what to spend it on.' He was absolutely right. It's not about having kit for the sake of having kit; it's about having kit and knowing what to do with it.

So to any photographer who's frustrated by a point-and-shoot: do seriously consider investing in something that gives you more control and more flexibility. What you don't need to do is spend all of your spare pennies, and probably quite a few that aren't spare, on a camera that's in excess of your needs. Buy the one that fits the bill and spend the rest on a good prime lens. When you can't get in close enough to photograph wildlife, or realise that you love taking photos of teeny-tiny things, or that your kits lens is giving you landscapes that are a bit too mushy, then it's time to think about a long lens, or a macro lens, or a wide-angle lens. (And remember that it is always worth investing in good glass. Cameras might come and go, but lenses will last you for years.) Eventually you might find that you need a camera with better low-light capability or more extensive continuous shooting functions–it might even fall apart or meet a sticky end–it's about knowing what meets your needs and then working to push yourself past that point.

Good photography is always about a good photographer, one who knows what to do with their kit.

Telling stories

All photos are about telling stories. From a beautiful lily in bloom to a shell exploding as it careens through a pock-marked wall in a war-torn suburb, they're about conveying a narrative. Much like words, that are also used to express an opinion or tell a tale, sometimes they are about truth and sometimes they are about fantasy. It doesn't matter which type of story a photographer chooses to tell with her or his images, the important factor is that the audience knows which type of story they're looking at: a real one, or a constructed one.

This element of truthfulness has been a matter of hot debate in photojournalistic circles over the past two weeks. It started when Paul Hansen was awarded the World Press Photo of the Year prize for his image of two young boys being carried to their funeral in Gaza. It's a raw and emotive photograph, overwhelmingly blue and dusty in tone. You can feel the cold numbness of heartache seeping through the screen when you look at it. And that, for many people, was the problem with the winning image. This chilled, depressed feeling had been processed into the image specifically for its entry into the competition in order to evoke an emotion in its audience. The tone of the image, the feeling that you get when you compare the competition version with the press version is quite different. Rather than acting as a record of events, it had been transformed into a work of art.

This is problematic for the inegrity of the competition. If it's a press photo competition, should the images not be as they were submitted to publications? Shouldn't they be about assessing the photos used to report the news over the past year and settle on which one tells the story best? If we are content to see images that have been manipulated in post-production in order to produce a response win the industry's major prize, are we also content to see these sorts of images tell the story of the news?

News reporting isn't about art and isn't about winning competitions. First and foremost, it is about telling the stories of those unable to tell them themselves, of keeping the world informed, of bringing light to situations that might otherwise remain festering pits of darkness. It isn't pretty and it is often thankless, but it is vital.

Then comes the Paolo Pellegrin situation, which also arose from his entry into the World Press Photo competition. This is a degree messier than the Hansen situation. His entry into the documentary category was of an ex-Marine sniper in The Crescent, a dodgy (putting it mildly) area of Rochester, New York. Except that the caption on the image was outed by Michael Shaw of BagNewsNotes as not being entirely accurate. Shane Keller, the subject of the image, claims that although he was in the military he was never a sniper; furthermore, the photograph was not taken in the Crescent, but in his basement in an area of Rochester that most definitely isn't the Crescent. Rather than being a proper documentary image that is part of telling the story of the area, it's a bit more posed, maybe even staged, than that. What's more, it looks as if the caption for the image had been lifted from an article in the New York Times published in December 2003.

So we have a situation where a documentary photograph that has been entered into contests and in some cases recognised, isn't necessarily what it claims to be. If this alone isn't disturbing, I'm particularly perturbed by Pellegrin's response to the situation. (And no, I'm not even going to venture into the debate about whether or not BagNewsNotes should have contacted Pellegrin for his comments prior to publication. That's a whole different issue.)

As far as Pellegrin is concerned, this isn't an issue. He might have misunderstood Keller's description of his role in the military and he wasn't sure if the area where the image was taken was indeed The Crescent. But because it tells the story that he aimed to tell, about the deprivation, the gun crime, the drug abuse, and the complicated relationship that exists between them all in Rochester, it doesn't matter. As for the captions, that was a simple mistake.

I'm sorry Signor Pellegrin, but none of those explanations is good enough. You see, if you're a photojournalist or a documentary photographer, I have to be able to trust you. I have to be certain that the stories you are telling through your pictures are accurate. So this means that you need to be certain of whom you're photographing. You need to be certain of where you are taking photographs. And you need to be certain that the captions you attach to them are accurate and indeed your own.

This kind of storytelling isn't about setting up shots to tell the story that you want them to tell; this kind of storytelling is about telling the truth. If I can't trust you here, can I trust you anywhere else?

Photojournalists are the eyes of the world and we rely on their integrity as we rely on their bravery. We have to be certain that the stories that they are telling are the truthful ones, not the fantastical, beautiful, artistic ones. The truth is often ugly: so be it.

A marvellous March photo competition

For the month of March we're looking for images that make use of patterns. Get creative looking for Fibonacci spirals in vegetables, ancient mosaic tesserae, or jars lined up on a shelf. If your image comprises a pattern, we want to see it!

Thanks to the wonderful team at Fracture, the winning entrant will be able to claim a 12 inch Fracture for free.

To submit an entry, head over to the Small Aperture Flickr pool, and link your image in the March 2013 competition thread. (Remember, we've changed the rules slightly and the image must be in the thread as well as in the pool.) It's still one entry per person. The competition opens today (Friday 1 March) and closes on Friday 29 March 2013.

I've reproduced The Rules for your reference, so all that remains is to wish you good luck!

The Rules

• If you decide to enter, you agree to The Rules.
• You can’t be related to either me, Haje, or Gareth to enter.
• One entry per person – so choose your best!
• Entries need to be submitted to the right place, which is the relevant monthly thread within the Small Aperture Flickr group.
• There’s a closing date for entries, so make sure you’ve submitted before then.
• You have to own the copyright to your entry and be at liberty to submit it to a competition. Using other people’s photos is most uncool.
• It probably goes without saying, but entries do need to be photographs. It’d be a bit of strange photo competition otherwise.
• Don’t do anything icky – you know, be obscene or defame someone or sell your granny to get the photo.
• We (that being me, Haje, and Gareth) get to choose the winner and we’ll do our best to do so within a week of the competition closing.
• You get to keep all the rights to your images. We just want to be able to show off the winners (and maybe some honourable mentions) here on Pixiq.
• Entry is at your own risk. I can’t see us eating you or anything, but we can’t be responsible for anything that happens to you because you submit a photo to our competition.
• We are allowed to change The Rules, or even suspend or end the competition, if we want or need to. Obviously we’ll try not to, but just so that you know.

If you've any questions, please just ask!

February's laid back photo competition winner

The theme for February's photo competition was 'relax'. A lot of the entries, unsurprisingly, featured people with their feet up! And it happened to be two of those that we selected as our winner and our runner-up.

First to our winner, by Igor K:

He has won a 12" Fracture for his beautiful image that sums up taking the weight off your feet and letting the day flow away.

Our runner-up is Rob-Shanghai. I love this anonymously captured moment.

Well done! And thank you to everyone who entered. March's competition will open later today. We hope to see you and your entries over in the thread on Flickr.

Three 3D finalists - the Sony World Photography Awards

'The Three Guys' by Michele Abramo Puricelli (aka Michael Abraham), Italy, Finalist, 3D competition, 2013 Sony World Photography

Last year's Sony World Photography Awards saw the inclusion of a 3D category, reflecting the revival of the interest in and the continued innovation of the genre. This year the category was opened up for entries again, and this morning its three finalists were announced.

First there's Michele Abramo Puricelli (aka Michael Abraham), from Italy, who has been working with 3D imagery since 2009. His image, The Three Guys, was taken of three desert guides in Morocco, before embarking on a trip across the Sahara.

Matjaž Tančič is from Slovenia but now splits his time between Beijing and Ljubljana. It was the Hui-style living rooms in old village houses in Yixian, China that inspired his final-reaching image, Timekeeper.

Warehouse Wonderland is American Nick Saglimbeni's entry. It was shot as a fashion feature for WMB 3D: World’s Most Beautiful #2. WMB 3D: World's Most Beautiful was the first magazine to be designed and photographed entirely in 3D.

The winner of the category will be announced on 19 March, treated to a trip to the awards ceremony in London, and presented with a bundle of Sony 3D photography equipment.

If you want to see the images for yourself, the three finalists will be exhibited at the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition, held at Somerset House, London, between 26 April and 12 May.