Harman Technology, in conjunction with the British Journal of Photography, invite you to register for a Free Prize Draw. Running for two months, the winning entry will be drawn at random, at the end of June and July. The winner will receive £200 of HARMAN CRYSTALJET RC Inkjet paper.

Additionally the first 500 entrants will receive a free A4 pack of HARMAN CRYSTALJET RC Inkjet paper comprising 5 sheets Gloss and 5 sheets Luster.

HARMAN CRYSTALJET RC is the latest photo-quality inkjet paper from HARMAN technology. Designed to produce superior levels of imaging performance and priced to provide excellent value for money, it has a paper weight of 260 gsm and is a quick drying paper that enables the printing of high quality images.

Click here to enter the competition.

Sadly Bill Jay died earlier this year, but his website lives on. His essays and articles are freely available on it (although you need to observe copyright if you want to publish them), including gems such as Do Not Disturb: Photography, censorship and the Iraq war, and Diane Arbus: A personal snapshot, the latter describing a very strange encounter indeed.

'Diane Arbus noticed my bedraggled look and asked if I would like a jelly. The idea of a cold fruit dessert on such a day was appealing. While she mixed up the contents in a dish, she constantly needled me with remarks like: "Photographers are so boring I can't imagine why you would want to see them", or, "All magazines tell lies and yours is no exception". The jelly prepared, she placed it in front of me on the table and straddled the bench so that her skirt rode up her thighs, revealing a clear view of her panties. She either did not know, or care, and looked at me belligerently. I took a mouthful of the jelly, and thought I would vomit. It was the most foul-tasting stuff I had ever encountered, like a mixture of dishwashing liquid and gravy. Arbus' eyes were on me. By this time I had had enough, both literally and figuratively. I spat out the mouthful and said: "That's the most disgusting stuff and if I have any more I will spew all over your table". I was angry.

'Then Arbus astonished me. She suddenly burst out laughing. And at the end of her outburst, said: "OK. Now we can talk about photography".'

'Le Photographe' is the oldest French photography magazine. It was funded in 1910. However, it won't get to celebrate its first century next year, as its publisher, Mondadori, has decided pull its financial backing and close down the title. The June issue of the magazine was the last one to see the newsstands.

Mondadori is Italy's biggest publisher. It has more than 40 titles across Italy and France. However, it has now decided to concentrate its resources behind magazines with 'larger audiences and potential' (i.e. magazines such as Grazia...)

And, of course, the decision to get rid of a 99-year old photography magazine was made after the June issue went to press, preventing the staff from alerting their readers. However, the journalists are not giving up. They have set up a blog (in French) here and have asked for the support of readers and photographers. They are now studying various options to allow the title to continue and reach its 100th year of existence.

There is still time to enter our competition to win the new digital SLR by Pentax, the K-7. To enter the competition, click here.

Edmond Terakopian, a freelance press photographer and BJP contributor, has had the opportunity to test the newly-released Olympus E-P1 MicroFourThird camera, and he is mostly enthusiastic about it.

‘Every once in a while a product comes along, out of the blue, that you’ve been wishing for. For me, the Olympus E-P1 is this product,’ he writes. Terakopian says it is sturdy, comfortable, ergonomic and well made. He also likes its retro looks.

However he does tell us later on that however good this camera is, it’s not perfect. The main problem, he says, is that it doesn’t have a built-in optical viewfinder, criticism that is being shared by a lot of reviewers so far.

As for the 17mm lens, Terakopian writes: “This little lens is superb though; it’s sharp, contrasty and performs well with flare. I just wish it was f/2 (or faster) and not f/2.8. With the smaller sensor, getting out of focus backgrounds is trickier as the smaller sensor increase depth of field; as a result, it would be preferable to have faster apertured lenses.”

So, who’s this camera aimed at? Terakopian asks at the end of his quick review. “It’s not a compact and not an SLR; think of it as a modern day rangefinder style camera. For me, its ideal for features / reportage and street photography. I would definitely recommend it as a second camera to an SLR user.”

Read Terakopian's review here.

Love-Kim Verlie ©Michael G Dougan

This is one of the first images taken using the Fujifilm GF670 medium format film camera, or the Voigtlander Bessa III as it is known in Europe. It was taken by Scottish photographer Michael G Dougan for Japan Exposures. I'll let you read his review here, but in a few words, Dougan says that he is 'extremely pleased with the camera’s image quality' and that with 'several rolls of Neopan 120 in my pocket, it’s a perfect setup for me.'

Read the full review and see more sample images on Japan Exposures. You can also read our full report on the camera's release in the UK.

Computer Active, our sister publication here at Incisive Media, has reviewed the iPhone 3GS. The new phone now sports an improved camera. Computer Active's editor Paul Allen had this to say about the new features:

More people now use phones to take photos and the 3GS has an improved 3-megapixel camera. It has auto-focus built in so that you can tap a specific part of the screen to bring that area into focus.
The iPhone also adjusts colour and light settings to suit. The quality is fair for sharing photos digitally, but prints larger than 6x4in were average at best.
Users can also take short video clips and trim them. Once complete, photos and videos can be sent using MMS or email, while videos can also be uploaded to a Youtube account.

This news is one-week old, but still of interest. The Telegraph wrote on 17 June that a school in Devon had banned parents from taking photos of and filing their own kids during sports day, 'claiming it was due to changes in child protection and images legislation.' Interesting, we didn't know there had been a change in legislation affecting photography (except maybe when it comes to taking pictures of police officers involved in anti-terrorism activities, as we've been reporting on since February).

Despite pleas from the majority of parents, who are afraid will lead to a ban for all school events, a spokesman for the school simply said: "It's a decision which individual head teachers come to, usually with consultation with governors."

Sad!

Kodak has confirmed it is discontinuing Kodachrome, after 74 years of the much-loved colour film. It says that it's newer films are 'preferred'.

'Sales of Kodachrome film have declined dramatically in recent years as photographers turned to other, newer Kodak films or to the digital imaging technologies that Kodak pioneered,' says the statement. 'Today, Kodachrome film represents just a fraction of one percent of Kodak’s total sales of still-picture films.'

Read more on BJP's website, www.bjp-online.com.

An official complaint has been lodged against police treatment of two women who tried to photograph an officer at last year's Kent Climate Change camp, according to a report in The Guardian.

Val Swain, 43, and Emily Apple, 33, were bundled to the ground and cuffed, after attempting to photograph an officer who refused to give his badge number. The women, who are both members of Fit Watch, a protest group that opposes police surveillance at demonstrations, were remanded to a women's prison for four days. Their arrests were captured on police surveillance footage obtained by The Guardian and posted on its website. The footage has also been submitted to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Read more on BJP's website www.bjp-online.com.

Magnum photographers Chris Steele-Perkins, Thomas Dworzak and Abbas discuss Afghanistan tonight, in an event chaired by Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor at The Observer.

All three photographers have produced extensive work in the country, which has long been subject to occupation and exploitation by larger, wealthier states. British forces remain in Helmand province: the Obama administration's future plans for the region have yet to take shape.

Afghanistan: A Panel Discussion starts at 6.30pm in the Cochrane Theatre, London WC1B 4AP. Tickets are £8, £5 concessions.

The National Photography Symposium's panel debate on photographing in public proved a hit with delegates, with Jess Hurd, David Hoffman and Andrew Wiard speaking to a packed room in Manchester's beautiful Chetham Library.

The three speakers considered various ways in which photographers' right to photograph in public is currently restricted in the UK. Wiard, referencing Princess Caroline of Monaco's ground-breaking case at the European Court of Human Rights, discussed individuals' "reasonable expectation of privacy" and how this is applied to public places. Hurd recounted her experience of police use of the 2000 Terrorism Act and 2008 Counter-Terrorism Act, including how it has incorrectly stopped her legitimate press work. Hurd was searched at the 2008 Climate Change Camp despite showing her press card, for example, and recently won an written apology from the force as a result. Hoffman, meanwhile, described the increasing surveillance of photographers by the Forward Intelligence Team, a part of the UK police force which uses photography and film to record demonstrations. Members of the audience, meanwhile, added their experiences of photographic restriction in privately-owned public spaces such as shopping malls.

'I urge photographers to read up on their rights and, if they are unlawfully stopped, to publicise it as widely as possible,' said Hurd. 'This could be via the media, their union or their colleges if they're students. It doesn't matter how we do it, the important thing is that we keep the issue under discussion.'

Financial Times photography critic Francis Hodgson got Redeye's National Photography Symposium off to a flying start this morning with a fascinating opening address on photography's place in British culture. Pointing out that London, unlike other major capitals such as Paris and New York, lacks a national photography museum and that there isn't a single full time photography critic on a UK newspaper, he urged those working in photography to do more to raise its profile.

'Photography is a great deal more important than our shared culture is able to identify,' he stated. 'It is absolutely the medium of the 21st Century and the "problem" of digital has been absorbed quite easily. Yet we, as professionals in the UK, have not been able to articulate how it matters across the board. We lost Photo London and photography continues to be marginalised in our museums and universities. Photography is absolutely not marginal, it is the most important medium.

'The UK lags behind France, Germany and the US in the shared appreciation of photography, and we are actually falling further back. I was at a picture conference at a very well-respected monthly magazine in London recently where the level of discussion was literally "This is great" and "This is shit", and what was "great" was what had been signed by Rankin, because nobody could be bothered to look beyond the signature. We haven't made sure that attention is paid to our discipline in the way that it is to poetry, novels or TV. But we need to do so because otherwise the business will go elsewhere.'

Still time to get to the last day of the Digital Photography and Imaging Show in Islington, London, where renown photographer Brian Griffin will shortly start his must-see presentation.

But it's street photography rights that's really hitting a nerve right now, with amateur and professional photographers fighting back against restrictive, heavy-handed policing. At 3.15pm news editor Olivier Laurent will host a debate on street photography rights at the DPI show, with lawyer Rupert Grey and press photographer Jeff Moore.

And tomorrow deputy editor Diane Smyth is hosting a debate on the same topic at Redeye's National Photography Symposium in Manchester, with photographers Jess Hurd and Andrew Wiard. Also speaking at the conference are Magnum photographer Chris Steele-Perkins and Francis Hodgson, the Financial Times' photography correspondent.

These videos were shot with the new Olympus Pen E-P1.