The Birmingham Post is encouraging its readers to get creative with a new photography project.

From today the Trinity Mirror daily will be giving over a page of its Monday edition to pictures taken by readers of Birmingham and the surrounding area.

To share their images readers must become members of the Post’s group on photo-sharing website Flickr which already boasts over 250 shots.

Editor Marc Reeves wrote: “There’s a wealth of talent in and around our city when it comes to photography, and we want to celebrate that.

“We think turning over a page of the Post every week to showcase this creative talent is a great way to celebrate it.

“Some weeks, we’ll go for a theme, maybe based around an event or a part of the region, but we want members on Flickr to get involved in selection too, picking photos from other photographers or suggesting new themes.”

Comments

Jp (15/06/2009 09:32:34)
Great way to fill up a page on restricted resources. “Let’s slash the workforce, keep the managers, and make the papers a scrapbook for submitted letters, photos and match reports!”

JB (15/06/2009 12:26:23)
Here we go, Marc Reeves says “There’s a wealth of talent in and around our city when it comes to photography”. All he needs to do is look around his own staff photographers to see the wealth of talent, but perhaps its because they cost the company money and readers pictures are free he wants to devoted a whole page to their pictures.
Someone should tell the readers they are being duped and should charge for their pictures.
Its just another way to reduce staff and save money.

CW (15/06/2009 18:24:56)
I totally agree with JB. This is yet another attempt by an editor to get free content from suckers who simply do realise the worth in their own creative output. Does the editor work for free in exchange for a credit? I don’t think so!

Clive (15/06/2009 21:16:34)
I read these comments and feel quite sad. For too long, journalists have behaved as though they are the only ones with a right to appear in a newspaper. If the Post chooses to pick pictures to print, and people are happy for their pictures to be used, then surely there’s not a problem. Newspapers need to be part of a community online to survive, and you can’t be part of a community if you believe that you are better than everyone else.

JB (16/06/2009 08:25:47)
Clive, nobody has questioned anyone’s right to contribute to a newspaper. The whole point is that we are trained to do a job, its how we earn a living. I am sure that the readers who send in pictures would be incensed if I turned up at their place of work and offered to do a shift of their work for free.
When regional newspapers are dead and buried I hope “The Readers” will be satisfied because you can bet your last pixel they will be the ones moaning that they no longer have a voice.

Mrs Castro (16/06/2009 12:41:03)
Sorry I agree with Clive.
What better way of involving a community in their local newspaper than by giving them a small spotlight to highlight their talent, their news. Its local communities who buy their local papers and keep them going. Is it too much to ask that they be permitted to contribute. We need to promote local talent not stiffle it.

Clive (16/06/2009 13:14:17)
JB, is the Post asking people to go out to jobs it would otherwise send a photographer to?

JB (16/06/2009 15:27:11)
Clive, you are missing the point. Its space filled for free and its space that real snappers could fill.

JJB (17/06/2009 11:05:47)
I absolutely agree with JB, As a photographer we are loosing out to bad pictures on mobile phones and the like just because it fits a story. Papers need stories and so long as there are pictures to illustrate it thats what they are happy with. No value is given to great photographs anymore and as for showcasing talent…I am yet to see it on such pages as other newpapers have followed same suit. Clive, do you realise how little photographers get paid for going out on a ‘job’ its peanuts but we do it to get a run on a ladder to get where we need to be in journalism. Theres no wonder there are great photographers around with no jobs because we are overqualified in a specialist area with degrees and MAs that we cant get work in the smallest of jobs and all because papers and the like are giving space and yes, getting rid of phoographers! to snaps from the public or hobbyists who have ‘other normal’ jobs or none at all… giving no new photographer any hope of gaining experience and credit for there work to get them on their career ladder having dedicated their life to the art. Its about getting the best people for the job, as it should be in any area or work, but as we know cutting costs in the wrong places and ticking statistical boxes with who we employ is one of this countries downfalls.

JB (17/06/2009 15:49:05)
Well said JJB, its seems that its enough now to aspire to delusions of being adequate!

Grayo (24/06/2009 15:37:54)
What a load of crap is being spoken on this topic. JB and JJB are totally right in what they are saying, I know i’m one of the unemployed photographers that used to fill your daily newspapers with quality pictures before they started using sent-in pictures. As a result circulation in the papers that I worked for have fallen so bad they have closed the office and now work from a shared office in another town.