PDN’s 30th anniversary issue will honor your choice of the most memorable and influential photographs of the last decade in every genre. Readers’ selections will be reproduced in the January issue of PDN and on our Web site that month.

PDN is asking for five nominations. There's no shortage of candidates; there has been a glut of major news events, wars and disasters during the 2000s, and a simultaneous explosion in the number of photographs shot and published - especially online.

Could you pick the best five? Vote here

 The shortlist for the second edition of the Prix Pictet has been announced, showcasing serious and thought-provoking photography about the state of our planet.

Conceived as a prize to highlight environmental photography, the Prix Pictet has quickly become one of the world's most presitigious and lucrative photographic prizes.

The Prix Pictet is the world’s first prize dedicated to photography and sustainability. It has a unique mandate – to use the power of photography to communicate crucial messages to a global audience; and it has a unique goal – art of the highest order, applied to the immense social and environmental threats of the new millennium.

The projects and photographs who have made it onto this year's shortlist - theme: Earth - were produced by photographers who have the time, vision and backing to express themselves. There are some extremely stark and arresting images.

The shortlisted artists are:

Darren Almond, UK; Christopher Anderson, Canada; Sammy Baloji, Congo; Edward Burtynsky, Canada; Andreas Gursky, Germany; Naoya Hatakeyama, Japan; Nadav Kander, UK; Ed Kashi, USA; Abbas Kowsari, Iran; Yao Lu, China; Edgar Martins, Portugal; Chris Steele-Perkins, UK.

The shortlisted works will be exhibited in London and Paris later this year before the overall winner is announced.

Photo: Nadav Kander via Ft.com

Steve McCurry is one of my favourite photographers. Famous for his images of Asia, his work is always a pleasure to come back to. His richly-textured collection South Southeast is one of just a handful of photo books to have carved out a space on the small bookcase in our living room. Perhaps more importantly, he captured the iconic photograph of Sharbat Gula (or "Afghan Girl") which made the cover of National Geographic and made both McCurry and Afghanistan worldwide stars.

Anyway, McCurry, very much a man of the film age, has started a digital-era blog. If I'm honest (and I'm no-one to judge) it's a comically bad effort. By that I mean it looks awful - straight off a basic Wordpress template and with several bits of the pre-fillled text and descriptions left in place. There aren't even any pictures. But there are words, wise words, and for that I'll be checking Steve's blog regularly for updates. Take the latest entry, for example, titled simply Becoming a Photographer:

When people ask me how they can become a photographer, I almost never mention cameras, lenses, or technique. I say, ‘If you want to be a photographer, first leave home.’ As Paul Theroux, a great writer and friend, further advises, “Go as far as you can. Become a stranger in a strange land. Acquire humility. Leaving home really means that the photographer (or writer) has to wander, observe, and to paraphrase Theroux, concentrate on people in their landscape. That is what I try to achieve in my pictures.

Anyone who can quote Paul Theroux when offering life advice is just fine by me. And there is hope in the comments, too: an intelligent query or two and a reply from the great McCurry himself. Perhaps the clunky, lo-fi look of the blog makes the photographer's point for him: it's not the medium, it's the message that's important.

There's a lot written about the future of journalism, of photojournalism, of video journalism. Too much, perhaps. Even as write this, yet another link with almost that exact title popped into my Twitter feed, via the ever-quote-happy Arianna Huffington. With all the theorising about how we will work in the post-print era (and who will pay us), we sometimes forget to appreciate that some people are already working in ways which, not long ago, would have seemed ludicrously futuristic.

The Bombay Flying Club - two Danes and a Canadian - seem to be doing just that. They've taken the latest in professional-grade digital SLR cameras, the Canon 5D Mk II, and used its HD video capability alongside more traditional photography to cover the story of villagers living on the Jharia coalfields in India's Jharkhand region. The coalfields have been on fire for almost 100 years because of poor mining techniques.

The story is compelling enough - human suffering in the face of elemental power and corporate neglect. But it's the telling that makes it special. Produced entirely in black and white, it mixes stark still images which stand tall on their own artistic merit with HD video that does exactly the same. That the stills and video were shot on the same camera is even more impressive.

As a journalist who loves stories and a photographer who instinctively wonders "how did they do that", BFC's Wasteland film left me struggling to stay focused: one minute I was slack-jawed at the conditions the villagers have to endure in their daily lives, the next I was scratching my head and wondering how the three journalists put their film together.

And how do the journalists make money? By using their slick-as-you-live website to pitch their work to news organisations, new and old. Wasteland has already been picked up by Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper.

Many users of so-called "pro-grade" cameras have tried to bury their heads in the sand over the coming of video to their DSLRs. Some Nikon-toting pros, who have seen video introduced only on the company's lower-spec D90 camera, have filled online messageboards with cries of "keep away from my D3". 

Brand loyalty aside, few can quibble with the impact of the Canon's images: still or moving. An impressive nod to the future of photojournalism - today.

Video: Wasteland from Bombay Flying Club on Vimeo

The furore over police attitudes to protesters and police during the G20 protests in London at the start of this month rages on, with clear sides beginning to emerge in the debate.

If the police had hoped the focus on their tactics would abate as the dust settled on the protests, the death of Ian Tomlinson and the almost daily emergence of videos showing the rough treatment of journalists and photographers has hasd the exact opposite effect.

Two journalists whose work documenting protest I highlighted here before the protests, photographer Marc Vallee and film-maker Jason N Parkinson, are at the forefront of the evidence-gathering.

Several of Parkinson's videos have been published by The Guardian online. While he put himself into the melee to document the protest, the strict policing meant he also came away with plenty of footage of police advancing on the assembled press, with occasionally violent results.

On his blog this weekend Parkinson wrote that he had suffered three days of concussion after being hit repeatedly over the head by baton-wielding police. He also claimed to have been jabbed in the kidney by a police medic.

The rest of the day panned out as most protest journalists imagined, hence many experienced photographers and video people using the now mandatory improvised safety equipment - helmets and arm and leg padding - something in itself that says a lot about policing these days. Others were not so ready for the brutal onslaught brought down into the streets by the infamous Metropolitan police force and the notorious black-clad, storm-trooper unit, the Territorial Support Group (TSG).

Writing on the Guardian's Comment is Free blog, Vallee points out that those journalists and photographers caught on the frontline were only doing what they felt was right and necessary:

At the same time it is important to note that many media workers, at some risk, went to work over these two days to document what was taking place. With the wholesale cutting of picture rates and jobs in the media due to the recession, the internet, mismanagement or in my view a mixture of all three, it was no surprise to me that the press were under huge pressure not only to come up with important and stunning pictures and footage but also to make sure this content got sold.

Theleft-leaning Guardian and its sister Sunday newspaper, the Observer, are natural homes for this kind of debate. But while those papers have led the reporting, the death of Ian Tomlinson catapulted the issue of police tactics onto a wider stage. Newspapers of all political stripes are now reporting and debating the issue.

Today's London Evening Standard quotes a former top Scotland Yard commander's withering view of modern polciing:

Officers are trained to be on guard against attack, to regard every situation, no matter how seemingly benign, as a threat situation. The lesson is that the public are your enemy. That mindset appeared to dominate the G20 protests.

And the conservative Daily Telegraph, no friend of protest movements, points to a key change in public attitudes in an editorial calling for a "new broom" at the Metropolitan Police:

Significantly, middle-class opinion now regards the police with intense suspicion. Most British citizens are law-abiding; but the middle classes break fewer laws than any social group and have traditionally reposed enormous trust in the country's police forces. Not any more.

Photographers and film-makers, by the very nature of their work, will more often than not find themselves caught in the middle of unfolding and unpredictable events in the years to come.

The ever-blurring lines between the "professional" and "amateur" photographer/journalist appears to be confusing the police, who are flailing and flapping much like newspaper owners seeking a revenue model in the internet age.

I admit it must be confusing, in the midst of an event, trying to distinguish between all those full-time pros and interested voyeurs.

Why doesn't someone draw up some guidelines, maybe invent a press card? Oh, hang on...

Photo by Blenford via Flickr

UPDATE: Great minds appear to think alike. Alastair Campbell has also found himself pondering this subject today, and makes a plea on his blog for balance in coverage of this issue. His point is fair and valid - the police are today's favoured targets. But I stick by my point - officers and commanders seem bewildered by the changes happening on the streets in front of them and how the nature of protest and media coverage is changing.

"I have begun to despise politicians and their ways. At my age, I don’t want to photograph any of them unless Barack Obama visits India."

As India goes to the polls at the start of its rather overwhelming general election, the words of TS Satyan, a revered photojournalist who has spent his life chronicling India and Indians, offer a glimpse of how the modern world seems to those who have watched it age with them.

I came across TS Satyan on a recent visit to Mumbai. India's newspapers were filled with tittle-tattle in the build-up to its election - which begins today, 16 April. The leading paper, The Times of India, placed a modest banner headline at the top of each broadsheet page of coverage, branding the 2009 election a "Dance of Democracy".

Amid low-level election scandal (centring on an anti-Muslim rant by Varun Gandhi, another member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty), there was a revealing interview with Satyan in the pages of Time Out Mumbai.

Answering questions as an exhibition of his life's work opened at the Institute of Contemporary Indian Art in Mumbai, Satyan - now 85 and a veteran of the Deccan Herald, Illustrated Weekly, Time and Life - described the pressures on photojournalists in India in depressingly familiar terms.

Those wanting to take to this profession must consider it carefully. You have to know more and work harder to earn less than in many other professions. You need the strength of a packhorse to carry around all the equipment. You must develop resourcefulness, ingenuity and adaptability to solve assignment logistics. Most important, you must stay healthy, always. You have to be your best self. The expectations of editors and readers are high.

News photography in modern times is not only fatiguing, but also dangerous and calls for alertness and dedication. In India there is not much money for those wanting to work for the print media. No wonder more and more young persons are branching out to other areas like advertising, industrial and fashion photography.

Exhibited in the quiet confines of the ICIA, Satyan's body of work was impressive. The common theme in the work hung in the gallery was of a quiet, knowing peek inside of India itself. He chronicled rituals, personalities and intimate moments often unseen by outsiders. His images were beautifully composed and lit with a delicate and natural touch.

The literature at the ICIA included an introduction to Satyan, highlighting the influence on his work of his home, the educated, literate, princely state of Mysore - home, too, to one of India's greatest writers, RK Narayan.

And while Satyan in Time Out claimed he was most proud of those of his photographs with an artistic quality, the introduction stresses his roots in news photography. "Satyan insists that he is a photojournalist and not a photographer."

But the photographer himself appears to lament the fast pace of modern journalism, telling Time Out he feels there is now a lack of interest in the work of what he terms "the concerned photographer".

Indian editors are not bothered about him and his work. They are not visually thrilled. They don’t seem to realise that in its own way, a picture can activate the conscience of the reader. They don’t realise that without being preachy the photographer can sensitise, motivate and subtly show us the need to search our own hearts. It is unfortunate that rank commercialisation of the mass media has worsened the situation.

There appears to be no Wikipedia entry for TS Satyan (the best Wikipedia's search engine can offer is "Satan"), so I have posted below my photographed copy of his biographical details, along with the introduction to the recent Mumbai retrospective.

TS Satyan's photographs reproduced from Time Out Mumbai

A sobering and substantial piece of work by London-based photographer Abbie Trayler-Smith seems to have made an instant impression in the city this week.

An exhibition of her stark images of rejected asylum seekers still living in the UK has opened in the capital's Host Gallery, winning both publicity and acclaim for the photographer. Among the highest-profile showcases, the BBC featured a selection of her images in an online gallery.

A high-quality video to accompany the show, featuring the still photographs and testimonies from the subjects, has also been released on Vimeo and elsewhere.

Still Human Still Here; Refused asylum seekers in the UK. from Anna Stevens on Vimeo.

As Kate Day writes in her photography blog for the Telegraph:

The exhibition exposes the hidden lives of those who are trapped in an impossible no-man's-land, unable to return home but prevented from working to support themselves. They can only wait and hope their lengthy appeals are successful.

Abbie spent many months volunteering at a drop-in centre for asylum seekers before she started taking pictures. She explained that building a relationship with each individual she photographed was vital, not least because she did not want to "be a vulture" and exploit their vulnerability.

The trust she clearly developed with those she photographed has enabled her to shine a light on the drudgery of daily existence for these people. Cheap canned food heated directly on a gas stove in a squat in Leeds, the blackened feet of a figure lying on a shabby mattress, footprints in the snow in North London. Abbie's pictures take us right to the heart of these immigrants' lives and sensitively expose the hopelessness of their predicament.

The photographs are availalabe through Panos, which represents Trayler-Smith (a former Telegraph photographer of some repute), and are notable for their lighting and colours, with the overall look and feel of each frame complementing the often truly saddening tales they tell.

What also strikes me as interesting is the sheer depth and intensity of the project. As noted above, the photographer spent "many months" in research and, doubtless, many more actually shooting.

In today's world of quick deadlines and shrinking opportunities, it's heartening to see that those at the top of their game still find the backing to work on projects like this.

Dominick Tyler, a close friend of Trayler-Smith's who blogs at photojournalism.co.uk (good address!) has asked her to blog about her experiences working on the project and putting on the show. It should be an interesting read.

Photograph: Abbie Trayler-Smith/Panos

Notable among the winners were Goran Tomasevic's image of a US soldier in action against the Taleban in Afghanistan, named as Photograph of the Year.

Belgrade-born Tomasevic began working for Reuters during the Bosnian conflict in the 1990s the agency says.

Ukrainian Gleb Garanich took the Reuters prize for Photojournalist of the Year, awarded for his series of images from the Russia-Georgia conflict.

And veteran Africa hand Emmanuel Braun was an interesting winner - he was named Video Journalist of the Year but, according to his citation on the Reuters website, he is held in high regard for the strength of his still photography and text reporting as well. Impressive stuff, even if he did have the backing of a large and wealthy organisation.

 I've always been fascinated by Afghanistan. Alongside with the stories of journalistic derring-do that came out of the Vietnam War, the wild tales emerging from Afghanistan in the post-Soviet, pre-Taleban times probably got me hooked on the idea of journalism as a career.

Chief among the legendary Afghans in those times was Ahmed Shah Massoud, a mujahedeen commander seen by many as a key unifying force in a divided country. I remember noticing when he was killed by a bomb on 10 September 2001, wondering what would happen next.

Tonight at the Frontline Club Reza, the man who shot an iconic portrait of an iconic leader comes to talk about 30 years of photographing war and peace. A National Geographic and Getty photographer, Reza should offer a fascinating insight into conflict in turbulent times and turbulent places.

The event is fully booked, but you can watch the event live from the Club on the video below from 1900GMT. I hope to get the chance to speak to the man himself and report back for this blog.

Click To Play

Amid all the chatter about how using social media can help journalists and photographers broaden their audience and win new business, a cautionary tale emerges from the Flickr/Twitterverse.

Via @michald on Twitter, I notice that photographer Shaun Curry, who I believe works for AFP, has removed all his photos from Flickr and posted a holding image on the site (not the one pictured above) apologising to those who enjoyed viewing his pictures online.

His reason? Continued image theft. As he explains on his profile page:

Ive decided to move away from Flickr, due to image theft.
its a shame but i cant stand it anymore ;))

i will be getting a website together at some point in the future.
cheers all
x
shaun

if you still want to contact me about anything, feel free:

I've emailed Shaun to ask him for a fuller explanation, but on face value it seems a clear case of a working professional with a product to protect faling foul of the not-always-honest dwellers of the internet. It also seems to back up my general impression that professional photographers are less than enthused by Flickr, often seeing it as more of a risk than an opportunity.

This low-key assessment of Flickr's usefulness came from another photojournalist in January.

I'll report back in Shaun Curry comes back with any more information.

Top Image courtesy: Lovelypetal on Flickr

Quietly, over the past 12 months, the "frontline" in photojournalism has come back home to the West. Whereas the years since 9/11 saw the world go to war - with the journalists and photographers not far behind - now, in one way or another, the war is coming to us.

Take the World Press Photo prizes, dished out last week. Although a healthy proportion of the winning images and stories covered conflicts - like last year's Russia-Georgia war - or political and social unrest in the developing world, the winning image was from much closer to "home".

Anthony Suau's image of Detective Robert Kole inspecting a home in Cleveland, Ohio, after the eviction of its owners was one of just a few images of contemporary Western society ranked highly by the judges. That is to be expected. The key thing was that it won.

Notable photgraphers such as AP's Kevin Frayer - a veteran of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - or Noor's Yuri Kozyrev, whose work from Iraq has long been well-regarded - were recognised in this year's awards. Kozyrev even won the single shot portrait prize. But neither won the top prize.

Whatever the visual merits of Anthony Suau's image, perhaps the greater significance lay in the fact the WPP judges felt able to consider an image made in the USA. Not since Lara Jo Regan won the prize in 2000 for her photograph of Mexican immigrants in Texas has the jury chosen a winning image from the Western world.

More evidence of the shifting frontline came in Britain this week, where professional and amateur photographers alike are up in arms over the enactment of new anti-terror legislation which many suggest will make it illegal to shoot pictures of police - explained admirably by Nick Turpin in the video below.

Photographers Rights UK from Nick Turpin on Vimeo.

Several hundred photographers gathered outside New Scotland Yard to exercise their right to take pictures. Champions of civil liberties, like the Observer's Henry Porter, found less likely allies in the Daily Telegraph and the former head of the security services, Dame Stella Rimington.

Dame Stella, perhaps coincidentally, was quoted the day after the photographers' protest as saying the continuing erosion of civil liberties is pushing the UK towards a police state.

Even the Russians were curious, with news channel Russia Today interviewing staff at the British Journal of Photography on Britain's remarkable tough new law.

It remains to be seen what effect the new law will have. As I blogged last month, there is already plenty of evidence of heavy-handed policing of working photojournalists, especially those documenting political dissent in the UK.

We don't yet have a World Press Photo contender from the UK - apart from those working behind the lens. But as the prize judges and British legislators have each made clear in the past week, new frontlines are being drawn all the time.

Main picture: Photo protest, courtesy of Blinkofaneye on Flickr

It's often observed that London's police force, along with many others around the country, is no friend to the photographer.

Photographers - of all stripes, not just working photojournalists - have been complaining about police harrassment for years, but the noise has got louder in the past 12 months.

Well-respected publications such as the British Journal of Photography regularly report on jobbing photographers being harrassed, while the enthusiast's weekly magazine Amateur Photographer campaigned for photographers' rights throughout 2008.

But the explosion in social networking websites has fuelled awareness of the issue. Petitions have been circulated by email, groups and discussions started on Flickr, and now the issue is bubbling away on Twitter.

According to the BJP on Twitter, London's Metropolitan Police is failing to brief its officers on regulations to protect photographers which have been in place since 2006.

Tenacious photojournalist Marc Vallee, who regularly covers political protest and often sees the police in action, reported recently on a London-based photographer, Justin Tallis, being harrassed while shooting a protest outside the BBC's Broadcasting House.

Following links from his site you arrive at a disturbing mini-documentary by Jason N Parkinson, showing police tactics at the 2008 Climate Camp protest at Kingsnorth in Kent.

His two short films - the first at the top of this piece and the second part here - show a pretty heavy-handed police approach to photojournalists covering the event. It's a personal view, of course, and it doesn't include a police response.

Photographers in London, though, are looking for answers from the horse's mouth. A police officer, a National Union of Journalists rep and the news editor of the BJP are expected to attend a meeting of a group could London Calling Photographers on 4 February to discuss the issue.

LCP member Carlo Nicora seems to be man organising that event - he can be contacted via Twitter @carlonicora.

I'll be away when that meeting takes place, but this is one theme that I'm sure this blog will revisit in more depth over the coming months.