Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/09/05

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Subject: As we begin to band to-gether as photographers
From: ted grant <75501.3002@compuserve.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 13:32:16 -0400

To ALL:

There is great concern happening amongst photojournalists worldwide due to
the unfortunate tragedy and here is just another example of how concerned
we are:

I pass this along to keep you informed as to that concern. For those of you
who may not think there is a problem let me quickly say that right here in
staid, quiet old Victoria BC, Canada, that the other day I was faced with
at an introduction with " Oh you're one of them!"  And this guys voice was
ice cold serious!

And a couple of the photojournalists who are creators of this text I know
personally and they also have a Leica M6 tucked in there bags along with
their regular gear!
++++++++++++++++


Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 07:38:28 -0400
From: Anthony Suau <ANTHONYSUAU@compuserve.com>
Subject: Photojournalists in Support of Photojournalists


To all photojournalist-

David Brauchli and I have put this together to see if we can get a larger
group of us to unite on this topic before presenting it to the press. We
are looking for photojournalists to sign on in order to fight the on slot
of attacks on our profession as a whole. Please help us all out and put
your name and affiliation with it and send it back to Dave or I ASAP.

Many thanks everyone! I hope you are all well and shooting great pictures!

Cheers-Anthony Suau

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------


Photojournalists around the world are being slandered and assaulted after
the death of Princess Diana.

As professionals we find this abuse unjustifiable and appalling.

This is a profession that often places the photographer at great personal
risk. Photojournalists are often people who feel a powerful social
responsibility to document the atrocities of humanity in order to provide
evidence to the world. In turn they believe and hope that these documents
will make our world a better place. Unfortunately, however, hundreds of
photojournalists have been killed attempting to provide this service to
society. There are thousands of photographs which stimulate our
consciousness, move us to tears or anger; proving our efforts have not been
in vain and this is indeed, an honorable profession.

We hope that those who read this will recall photographs which have given
us a greater understanding of our world and who we are. Behind every one of
those amazing images stood an intelligent and honorable man or woman. They
have provided us with a light to see. As a human beings and as a
photojournalists we are deeply indebted to them and to this profession as a
whole.

Today the media, particularly television, is in the process of publicly
executing this honorable and important profession. The accident that took
place in the Alma tunnel last Saturday night is a tragedy for everyone. We
feel the current all-out assault on photojournalism is completely
unjustified. This attack is having highly negative consequences on a
serious profession and is, in turn, damaging the fragile fabric of our
society.

We implore the media (television particularly) to report the facts and stop
publicly convicting an entire profession. In our eyes this is clearly
unprofessional journalism of the tabloid nature and we strongly condemn it.


David Brauchli          Associated Press
Anthony Suau            TIME Magazine
Alain Pierre Hovasse    Associated Press
Richard Ellis             Sygma News Photo

___________________________________________________________
Richard Ellis Photography -- Covering Washington
http://www.pressroom.com/~rellis/
richard.ellis@pressroom.com