Tag Archives: Eamonn Farrell

90364719-1c2bf7801ff9c4d7cec1745672bed6bf8_400x400Eamonn Farrell and Irish Water protests (above) before Christmas

Eamonn Farrell is a former photo-editor of the Sunday Tribune and founder and editor of Photocall Ireland, the largest editorial photographic agency in Ireland.

He has covered all the major social issues in Ireland since 1980, including the H-Block Riots, Peace Process, Divorce, Contraception and Abortion Campaigns.

Recently his agency has extensively followed the Irish Water protests.

Eamonn writes:

As journalists, we are all deeply aware of the challenges facing us and the media in general, as a result of the digital revolution. Like previous unintended consequences resulting from technological developments i.e. the containerization of Dublin Port, and the demise of dock workers, we have to find ways to turn these events to our advantage.

However there is another serious challenge facing us, which has received very little attention and which seriously threatens our independence as a profession.

This is attempts by the Gardai, representing the State, to use journalists and in particular those working in the photographic/video/film arena as an extension of their eyes and ears.

The attempt to force journalists by default, to become agents of the state at protests and demonstrations is not only a threat to our independence and objectivity, but also to our safety and our reputations.

The agency which I represent and work for Photocall ireland has a long tradition of objectively covering events of political, social and environmental importance.

Our professional duty during such coverage, is to represent the public by objectively visually recording what we see, without fear or favour. In doing so we have often suffered the displeasure of both protestors and gardai, but carried on in the knowledge that despite our own individual opinions, we recorded events as they unfolded before us.

As suppliers of media content, we would of course have no or very little say in what imagery was eventually used by the publications or broadcasters we served.

This week our office was visited by two gardai with a summons for two of our staff to appear in a court case which the gardai were taking against a protestor or protesters involved in an event outside the Department of Justice last year, which one of our photojournalists covered.

One summons was for the journalist and the other for the office manager who had downloaded the images onto a CD for the gardai.

So why had we cooperated with the gardai? Well actually we hadn’t. We were handing copies of the images over after refusing to do so unless a warrant was produced. Eventually a warrant was procured and the images were handed over under protest and duress.

This was the third time images were demanded from various events, the third time we refused and the first time a warrant was served and images given over.

I have reason to believe we may be the only media organisation which refused each time we were asked, but maybe I am wrong. Why did we refuse to “help the gardai”. Well because of the following:

1. That is not our professional role.

2. The gardai have the means and the ability to make their own recordings.

3. To become the perceived ‘Eyes and Ears’ of the gardai at protests and demonstrations and marches undermines our ability to carry out our work.
What next? A request for visuals from meetings and briefings behind closed doors!

5. Our journalists already suffer enough intimidation and threats from paramilitaries, gangsters, militants and some members of the public, while trying to carry out their work, without being put in added danger by the knowledge that whatever we record is available on demand by representatives of the state.

6. Because it is bad for democracy if the Fourth Estate ceases to be independent or seen to be independent of the other powerful arms of state. Its independence in other respects is already a topic of debate and that is as it should be. It is now important that this issue of the state through the gardai, demanding that journalists work in a supporting role to it, should also become a matter of debate among journalists, politicians and the public.

Hunger Strikes 1981

Hunger Strikes 1981

The above photograph [click to enlarge] of a confrontation between Hunger Strike marchers and the gardai at the British embassy in 1981 and the photograph (top) of journalists being threatened by baton waving gardai at the same event is a case in point.

My duty as a journalist covering the event was to record whatever I saw. Gardai beating up protesters or protesters beating up gardai, it did not matter.

As a journalist the freedom to remain objective and independent is critical to my work and any attempt to interfere with it, is an attack on democracy.

Eamonn Farrell

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SPLUTTER!

The Black Castle, Co Wicklow

Bellybutton baring US model Jace Lisa taking part in photographer Eamonn Farrell’s controversial Elements of Nature project which began in 2009 and usually involves artistically shot nude women and breathtaking Irish scenery.

FIGHT!

Previously: Eamonn And The Women

Between A Rock And A Soft Place

(Eamonn Farrell)

90317915Photographer Eamonn Farrell and the women featured in his now controversial exhibition Elements of Nature at Filmbase, Temple Bar, Dublin until October 26.

We did try to explain it was art.

But would YOU listen?

9031788390317881903179059031787590317879From top: Fredau Hoekstra, Melissa Hayward, Ivory Flame and Jenny Lee Masterson (in reflection) and in person.

Previously: Between A Rock And A Soft Place

 Eamon Farrell (Facebook)

(Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

Layout_1heamonn2eamonn1 The work of photographer Eamonn Farrell, part of a collection entitled Elements Of Nature that will be exhibited at Filmbase, Temple Bar, Dublin from tomorrow.

Eamonn (who also runs the Photocall Ireland agency) writes:

“My work, by contrasting the texture and form of the female body, shorn of clothing and the trappings of technological gizmos, with that of our natural world, is intended to remind us of our vulnerability, as well as our strenghts as a species. And reinforce the fact that we need and will not survive without planet Earth, but it will happily live on without us.”

Phoarr. Bewbs. Hard core. And so forth.

Name those locations (above) anyone?

Eamonn Farrell (Facebook)

Eamonn Farrell (Cooper House Gallery)