Calling all the shots: three decades on the frontline of photography
The Observer picture editor reflects on the evolution of photojournalism as he bows out after nearly 30 years
Even though it's been nearly three decades since I joined the Observer, if I close my eyes I can still see my colleagues from yesteryear ...
Jane Bown looking at a contact sheet by the lightbox, using her monocle eyeglass. Motorcycle couriers flirting with picture researchers. Reporters massaging the egos of alpha-male photographers, vying to become the next Don McCullin, the great photojournalist whose career began here. Men in shabby suits from now-defunct picture agencies, cigarette in hand as they hawked photo-essays from battered suitcases. The picture librarian ferrying files of black and white prints to the man who was at the centre of everything, the revered picture editor, Tony McGrath.
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