We were interested to read a somewhat backhanded plug from the NUJ London Freelance Branch (LFB) this week. In a roundup of professional-only email lists, the best standards of journalistic ethics were upheld when they went to the EPUK website, and cut and pasted the first bit of text they saw. So EPUK is “in it’s own words…an email group for professional photographers who want to talk business. We don’t do techie stuff. We don’t do incrowd-gossip…” – and here’s where it wavers from the script somewhat – “…or ‘upmarket’”

“Don’t do ‘upmarket’” ? That’s not what the blurb on our website says (see for yourself on the left). It goes on to list the other things we like talking about: the nuts and bolts of business, copyright, whiskers on kittens and snow covered mittens – but not once have we ever said that we don’t do ‘upmarket’.

Indeed, nothing could be further from the truth. A quick nosey through the last nine months of EPUK reveals around 650 posts – or two or three every day – about the Independent, Telegraph, Times, Guardian and Observer. So how did that phrase “we don’t do upmarket” get slipped in ?

It looks like the answer might lie earlier in the piece, which announces the launch of Quality Street: the NUJ-member-only list for freelances working for the the titles further up the newspaper food-chain. Or, as they put it: the “London-based upmarket titles”.

Spot something there ?

“We need a Unique Selling Point. Are there any lists for photographers working for the former-broadsheets ?”
“Yes, EPUK does that.”
“Okay – let’s make it an NUJ-members only list”
“Er, NUJPhoto does that.”
“Okay, let’s just pretend that EPUK doesn’t do the broadsheets. Problem solved !”