The news is good. the Government of Ruritania has just announced that knighthoods will be awarded in their annual New Year's Honours list to photographers. Their Royal Heinyesses have placed the seal of approval*on the legislation that was moved in the Volksrat.
While we in the press will have to wait another 10 months to learn who will be beknighted, this gives an opportunity for ambitious young things...and crafty old things...to curry favour with the palace. Whether it would be better to use the milder forms with yoghurt and mint or go for the tandoori spice is not known - time will tell.
Ruritania has many scenic views that invite landscape photography, so those workers who hike up mountains or over glaciers will have a natural advantage. If they carry cameras with them so much the better. For the gritty urban street photographer sorts, Strakenz, the capital has a wide variety of gritty urban streets. Some of the grit has been there since the last Roman invasion.
Of course, people are always a popular subject for photography throughout the world and Ruritania is no exception. The girls of the countryside pose willingly in their native dress and once one learns to set up the tripod up-wind of them many charming portraits can be taken. Of course the sturdy peasantry are also fine subjects and many of them have teeth, so smiles are possible.
One note of caution - governmental defence regulations prohibit photography, drawing, or playing peek-a-boo within 500
stroms of any military subject in the kingdom. This is not too much of a problem as the Strakenz regiment lives at home with his mother and only parades on the last Tuesday of Lent.
The announcement of the Ruritanian photographic knighthoods follows on from the awarding of similar honours to every other crowned head in Europe that is still on its crowned shoulders - plus a special one-off award to the Queensland Minister for Roads. It will give the lie to the assertion that artists cannot be praised in their lifetimes - if Ruritania cannot do it, who can?
* it's a very good seal and can balance a ball on its nose and play a tune on horns.
