Cheers everyone,
@rscheffler - I wish I could have gotten the water sprays, but as they started to use them they moved everyone away (and I was on the other side). I do have one of them crawling under the shutters at the front of the building...But they were covered in smoke.
I'm not totally sure with regards to staff photographers - seems they just use journalists.
I was pretty much shooting at 1.4 for the hour I had the lens, then I got to this & thought it was just a small fire, so I thought I'd get some cool shots until they started moving everyone until I was the last left and I managed to stay lol.
I wish I could have gotten closer though, I wasn't sure how to play it though. I think a 135mm would have been very handy, I think I was lucky though to have bought the 50mm, before that I was using a 28mm.
The firecrew photographer was great I think, he was invisible as I never saw him, only the guy that writes down whats happening.
I settled for credit Roger, didn't think I should push my luck 😛.
They used another image today on their front page, sadly a firefighter died in this.
Thanks for the added info. That's why I said it's difficult to criticize without having been there. Well, at least your photos weren't all tilted like Scott Dawson's
🙂. This might be a situation where had you been there with 'pro-looking' gear, you probably would have been able to hang around a bit longer, if you acted the part. But I'm not advocating you go out and buy big DSLRs just for this, since the chances of a repeat are very slim.
Regarding payment, you're in a situation where others are also giving away the work (the other bystanders) and the images from Manchester Fire likely were also freebies to PA. I'm not saying you should have given them away, but that had you asked for payment, MEN probably would have declined seeing how they received many other photos.
Where I live, the local paper has a specific email for reader photo submissions for exactly these kinds of circumstances. One recent example was when a new, expensive parkway, as well as many people's basements flooded after a torrential rain. What they don't tell you is that when you email your photo to them, it doesn't just sit in some generic inbox. Rather, it's sucked right into the entire news chain's shared photo database for any of the publications to access.
This is the decision each of us has to make about being a crowd-source contributor, and unfortunately there are always many people who will give the images without even thinking of receiving payment, despite the fact these organizations generate a lot of revenue. As it turned out, this became a major news story because a firefighter died as a result of the fire. Maybe you have the last photo of him before entering the building? These are the things that are unpredictable about news photography and why retaining rights, controlling usage and receiving payment is desirable over the long term. Because what starts off as something ordinary, can become extraordinary, either minutes, hours, months or years later and you might be the only one with 'the' image, which suddenly has much greater value than before. Here's a great example by photographer
Dirk Halstead about Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton.
I just had another look through the gallery and yes, the fire department's photographer is very good. It's quite interesting to see that PA picked up the fire department's photos and underlines a somewhat disturbing trend in the news industry (disturbing at least for those with traditional views of the industry), that is, the increasing reliance of newspapers, etc., on media releases as primary sources of information, including such hand out photos. The concern is about transparency, where an organization such as the fire department, or the police, might only release images that are in their best interest to release, and not necessarily in the best interest of the public's right to know. This is why an independent media is important. With the erosion of the traditional news media, more and more organizations (public and private) are using their own media relations departments to feed the public carefully curated information via the media, desperate for fresh news.
I find it very interesting, that in this age of easy information, the number of unique original sources of information seems to be decreasing rather than increasing. What is increasing are the number of entities that recycle, repackage and redistribute someone else's original content, with slight changes.
Sorry, a bit OT and I thank Nick for starting this thread.