How to get ahead in photography part 1: Have friends in VERY high places…
Written by duckrabbitFor those who understand the particular political scene in the UK… Check out Ed Miliband’s speech made in parliament today here.
“There is good news for the prime minister – apparently he does a nice line in airbrushing. You can picture the cabinet photo – ‘We are all in this together – just a little bit more to the right Nick’.”
Never thought that PMQ’s could actually be this funny!
Some of the David Cameron as heroic ice mountain climbing/family with baby/Guiness drinking/worldly I was in that poor place images. Seriously, if you can make George Osbourne look human then you deserve to be paid!
Author — duckrabbit
duckrabbit is a production company formed by radio producer/journalist Benjamin Chesterton and photographer David White. We specialize in digital storytelling.
Discussion (14 Comments)
I think you’ll find that Andy Parsons has more than earned the position to which he has just been appointed…nowt to do with nepotism or friends in high places, just good old graft and skill. I just hope he’s allowed to -really- shoot…but I doubt it.
I’m with David … boy done good … and why shouldn’t the British Prime Minister have an official photographer? It’s a position of historical importance.
Surely he’s not been ‘turned’ into a civil servant, he’s chosen to be one?
“Why shouldn’t the British Prime Minister have an official photographer?”
Good question. Or how about “why should the British Prime Minister have an ‘official’ photographer in these times of austerity?” when…
1. … we are in the red £170 bln a year = 13% of GDP.
2. … have a debt to GDP ratio of getting close to 90%.
3. … pay £43 bln in interest payments a year.
(this is the important one!)
4. … the same government just announced 500,000 public service workers who look after the elderly, sick, criminals, disabled, clean our streets, fight and die in our name, teach our kids, etc, etc have just been brutally laid off?
I bet some of those doctors, nurses, policemen, teachers, care workers work really hard too with “good old graft and skill”. Why should we as taxpayers pay for some shots of Cameron/Osbourne looking human and heroic?
I would suggest what Cameron has done has not really helped poor Andy Parsons who is stuck in the middle of this. If he has an agent, suggest he says “not as Cameron’s/Andy Coulsen’s PR photographer dressed up as the ‘official’ photographer – “pay him sure, but not like this”.
david do you mean shoot photographs freely (as opposed to PR shots), or shoot with a gun?
To be fair, satire aside, his actual images are nice. The politics of this decision to hire him is different from if his position is merited on photographic or hard working grounds as you point out.
As far as I see it, Cameron has put him in this position now. Could he be rewarded for his work without being turned into a civil servant? Is he a servant of Cameron or the state? Is he a government photographer of public affairs or Cameron’s personal image make for his own political benefit?
That I think in a time of fiscal austerity, a legitimate question?
Are you really suggesting that out of the Cabinet Office’s 10 Billion pound buget it’s wrong to spend a tiny fraction of that on photography?
YES – I would prefer to save the job of one nurse, one carer, one teacher…. Ten billion sounds a lot but they have to cut 20% or £2 billion.
EVEN if you need to create that job, do it properly. Put it out to tender and get the best you can as you are using public funds. But no, it pays to be Cameron’s mate. It pays to have friends in VERY high places in control of public funds and it undermines Andy Parsons position.
Don’t just choose the personal photographer of Cameron hired during the election. That smacks of favouritism when the state needs to be fair. “You helped me get in government and now I am going to get the government to pay you in return”. Not with my money Prime Minister.
This should have been advertised and I say to you David White, you should have had the right to apply for it too.
Do we want photographers to get paid? Yes. Reward hard work, skill and relevance? Yes. Look at the shots…
They are Tory PR shots so the Tories should pay for them themselves. Same old Tories after all these years out of power…
Nurses, carers and teachers salaries don’t come out of the Cabinet Office’s budget do they?
We all pay tax into one big pot. That has got smaller. Good hard working people who have served the people doing the public a service, over half a million of them at least, are losing their jobs for political reasons.
I don’t think hiring a PR photographer for party political purposes, with tax payers money, without putting that out to tender because they were there friends of the PM is a good way to behave.
There are many issues to this which are interesting, but I think it’s good to see the P.M, appointing a professional photographer. That reinforces the value of a true professional, which it is becoming increasingly harder and harder to do when everyone is a photographer…
as to whether the tax payer should pay for it, let the Daily Fail mull that one over. Persoanllay I’m all for it, but then I would be.
Ciara…when I said shoot, I meant freely with a camera, with no gatekeeper, no editor, no spin.
Oooh look….there goes a Gloucester Old Spot gliding past the window..
As you’re making the claim that Parsons got the job on the basis of a friendship with Cameron it would be nice if you provided us with some details.
It seems a bit unlikely to me that a genuine mate of Cameron would be interested in a job that came with a salary not much above the national average. The life of a Bullingdonian doesn’t exactly come cheap – the stately home, the shooting’n’fishing, the rent boys, the cocaine, the first-growth Bordeaux – so being on the payroll at £35,000/year puts you firmly in the (civil) servant rather than privileged friend category. Parsons would appear to be no more than a butler with a camera.
That is actually a good point. There is a difference between a genuine long term public school tie sort of mate to a friendly relationship struck up with a dose of skill hard graft shooting for Cameron during the election.
I do not think that diminishes the point I am making one single bit but it does clarify the specific nature of what I am saying when I use the word “friend”.
I imply a favour to someone you know, employment on state wages without due process, reward for work done previously without a fair tendering process that looks to the actual service to be provided, implies a process where political power has been used discretionarily to sort out someone you know to do the job of a political party on taxpayers cash to hire a “butler with a camera” (what a great phrase!).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2010/nov/04/david-cameron-personal-photographer