[Imc-g8-2005] G8 picture desk thoughts

[mini mouse]

Hi,

In a previous e-mail I suggested I might be able to help out on a 
picture desk, which seems to be have interpreted by some people as me 
saying I'd run it!

I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but there may be people 
better qualified and more experienced - or more to the point may 
already have this under control.

So I'm certainly not voting myself in charge here (!) but I'm happy 
to put a few things up for consideration to see where it goes.

Firstly, I think the job can be split into two zones (maybe more, chip in!)

1) Assistance to indy photographers under stressful conditions

2) Creating a pool of photographs for use by sympathetic media.

1: Photographers will almost exclusively be shooting digitally, and 
anyone capturing compromising pictures (define as you will) will be 
worried about confiscation. They will also have limited capacity on 
datacards, and they will want to be able to publish quickly.

Some will have their own laptops, many will prefer for whatever reason not to.

In the latter case we could offer a service in copying and burning 
their data to CD, or even uploading compressed files to an FTP server 
off site. Depending on server space we could offer them individual 
passworded directories so they can access and edit when they have 
time.

The important issue here is to enable photographers to get their data 
safely away from where it can be confiscated.

2: Many indy photographers might subscribe to a pool arrangement 
where their pictures could be used by sympathetic publications on a 
copyleft basis. Their worry would be that if they got a unique and 
saleable "scoop" they'd be ripped off by Fleet Street using it for 
free and without credit. So some thought required there.

That aside, we could connect their laptops (where they have them) and 
free-use workstations (need CD drives & software, natch) one way to a 
server containing a central pool of photographs. Anything they placed 
there would be available for us to "publish".

We could create a website (who has access and how do we control it?) 
where those pictures are displayed sequentially (directories for each 
hour/period of realtime) and, because we require the photographers to 
add metadata (training?) have it searchable by pre-defined keywords.

We have no way what the volume might be, so should there be a picture 
editor with the mandate to decide what goes up? Or can we guarantee 
we have enough space for that not to be an issue?

Where this picture desk is I don't know. Photographers are most 
likely to need zone 1 near Gleneagles itself where there are few safe 
facilities to sort things out themselves. Maybe this satellite truck 
can be of some assistance?

The second role would be best sited at the permanent base, wherever that is.

Anyway that's it for now. Please chip in if you have any thoughts or 
experience in all this.

Mike