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In this episode of GFN Insights, Jon Derricott from Knowledge Action Change (KAC) joins Joanna Junak to discuss the development of the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction (GSTHR) image library.
Hosted on Flickr, this unique initiative aims to document the rapidly evolving world of tobacco and nicotine products. From modern vape shops to traditional tobacconists and local products like gutka or negrimbo, the library serves as a vital, royalty-free resource for activists, journalists, and presenters worldwide.
Transcription:
00:04 - 00:15
[Host]
Welcome to another episode of GFN Insights on GFN.TV. Today we're interviewing Jon Derricotte from Knowledge Action Change about his initiative to build the image library of tobacco harm reduction products.
00:17 - 00:27
[Joanna Junak]
Okay, Jon, you've been working to build a GSTHR image library on Flickr. Could you briefly tell me, explain what it is?
00:28 - 00:57
[Jon Derricott]
What it is, it's a Flickr library of images of tobacco harm reduction products, but alongside tobacco in general or pictures of things like tobacconists, basically aiming to illustrate the world of tobacco and nicotine and to be useful for anybody who wants to use it royalty free.
00:59 - 01:02
[Joanna Junak]
And what motivated you to develop it?
01:02 - 03:10
[Jon Derricott]
The original motivation was that it was part of our contract and it had been an overlooked part of our contract and I was asked if I might be interested in taking it up last year And I agreed to do it and actually then started to get quite excited about it because it's an opportunity to create a library of images of a world. I mean, the whole world is changing all the time, but around tobacco and so for nicotine products, then that world. I mean, in the last 10 years, there's changed hugely. The products have changed in my life. small town, the tobacconist is closed down and in the town centre there are now four vape shops which gives you an idea of how much things are changing. So I'm taking pictures of all sorts of products that are available because those change on a regular basis but also vape shops, the signage they have in their window, tobacconists if I see them, if I'm travelling especially in other countries where tobacconists are more prevalent sometimes than vape shops so just recording things basically that somebody then might if they want to illustrate a story if you've got activists who are creating a newsletter or I mean I'm not always aware of who's using what how but I know that Filter magazine have used our images several times just to illustrate stories because they're on a budget, as many activists are, and eliminating part of the need to spend money out of that budget for high quality images. And it's a range of images. They're not all super high quality. Some I just have my phone with me. I take them with my phone. I happen to have some high end camera equipment, so sometimes I use that and it's fun.
03:11 - 03:18
[Joanna Junak]
Great. And so have you faced any challenges in finding suitable material for the library?
03:19 - 04:26
[Jon Derricott]
No. except in certain instances and that is where and I think you might maybe ask about to ask me this question anyway so I may be answering a question you're about to ask but in certain areas of the world and parts of Africa in India there are They may be well-known locally, but they're not well-known globally, tobacco products. So if anybody's out there and just happen to have your phone and you're in an Indian market and somebody is selling gutka or whatever, or if you're in Africa and somebody in Malawi, it would be called negrimbo, the sorts of things people don't generally see. And the call for those images is likely to be low. But who knows? Who knows who's writing a story about this or that and needs to illustrate or somebody is doing a presentation and needs an illustration of this product or that product. So that's the motivation behind it.
04:26 - 04:33
[Joanna Junak]
Yes, that's true. I wanted to ask if we can encourage people to send
04:34 - 05:03
[Jon Derricott]
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, anybody who wants to send images in, then we'll credit them. They won't get any payment for the images, but we'll credit them. They'll be used royalty-free, so nobody will make any money. And, yeah, please do send them. And I'm guessing that you're able to put my email address under what I'm saying now, and people can just send them to me, and I'll put them up online.
05:03 - 05:09
[Joanna Junak]
Yes, we will add all details which people can find on our website.
05:09 - 05:09
[Jon Derricott]
Okay, thank you.
05:09 - 05:10
[Joanna Junak]
Thank you, Jon.
05:10 - 05:10
[Jon Derricott]
Thank you.