Guardian Photography

A review of Leigh Harrison's portfolio

Kamila Kruk on capturing achievement on film assignment

At the beginning of the year we introduced you to the new 52 weeks project our communities team are running on Flickr to document the year in pictures – here's an update on the and showcase of some of the best photos from week five

Since we started the 52 weeks project to document the year in pictures – a collaborative effort with Flickr users – we've seen the group taking part grow to more than 700 members and so far more than 1,000 photos have been submitted.

From fireworks and storms in week one, to back-to-work blues and foggy sunsets in weeks two and three, we have now reached week five and the first week of February has been dominated by the snowy scenes.

The aim of the group is to not only chronologically track 2012 in pictures – but to explore the ways we are taking and sharing photos in 2012. The news Kodak was filing for bankruptcy sparked this thread with users showcasing their favourite snaps taken on a Kodak and reminiscing on their favourite Kodak products.

The group has also been sharing links to other places where these photography themes are being explored – including Timeout London's instagram albums, and soundcloud's storywheel.

Finally 52 weeks users are sharing their favourite iPhoneography apps they use to add to the feel of the moment on their android snaps – this thread has a great list of apps for android including RetroCamera and Paper Camera and this thread looks at the top apps for the iPhone including Camera+ and Tiltshiftgenerator.

As the group continues members are exploring and experimenting with taking photos on all sorts of devices - but especially new photograph apps and how phones are...

London's V&A compiles collection of royal portraits from 1939-1968 to help mark year of Queen's diamond jubilee

In 1963, the Queen Mother wrote to Cecil Beaton to thank him for a book he had sent of photographs of the royal family. "I find it nostalgic looking through the pages," she wrote. "The years telescope, and I suddenly remembered what it felt like when I wore those pre-war garden-party clothes – all those years ago."

The V&A in London has assembled a collection of portraits by Beaton taken from 1939 to 1968 as its contribution to the Queen's diamond jubilee.

Though the fairytale atmosphere of his early portraits of the Queen Mother give way to a more sombre style in the late 60s, Beaton still focuses on gowns, crowns and grandeur. A theatre set designer as well as a photographer, in 1945 Beaton shot the young Princess Elizabeth against a painted backdrop of a frozen lake to emphasise her springlike qualities.

Some informality creeps into shots of the Queen with her young children, including a shot of Prince Charles as a toddler kissing the infant Princess Anne, while two others show bomb damage to Buckingham Palace – it was hit nine times in the second world war.

The curator, Susanna Brown, who picked the 100 images out of almost 18,000 in the V&A collection, said the "primary purpose" of Beaton's pictures was to promote the royal family around the world: "They were PR, not family portraits." Underlining this, the exhibition includes notes to the press with details of clothing and embargoes.

One of Beaton's 145 diaries is also on display, describing his anxieties about taking the official photographs for the Queen's coronation, though the lavish images show that he rose to the challenge. Before...

The Sacramento Bee newspaper has fired a man for editing a nature image. Don't all journalists alter reality?

All of us media consumers should applaud the management of the Sacramento Bee, which this weekend courageously fired photographer Bryan Patrick for high crimes against journalism. Patrick, or as he shall forever be known, the Great Satan, actually deserved far worse.

It's difficult to believe that as recently as Friday, the fiend was merely suspended without pay, only a day later to be dismissed permanently. Let us only hope that losing his livelihood is merely another prelude. A prison sentence would serve nicely, followed by stoning. This would be carried out by his peers, the Pure, if they can stomach the sight of him long enough to pelt him back into his lower world.

Did not Patrick, after all, digitally combine two photos of two egrets and a frog? Yes, it's true. His camera caught two images in a local estuary of a snowy egret and a great egret trying to chow down. In one, the great egret has something in its beak – a steamed Ipswich clam or a lovely smoked oyster or a Gummi bear, it's hard to make out. Meanwhile, the snowy egret is making a grab for the same morsel. It's a danse macabre, and they're dancing beak to beak. In a second image, shot an instant earlier or later, the snowy egret is seen gazing indifferently at the water, most likely contemplating journalism ethics. But here's the thing: in that photograph, the food item is revealed not to be a Gummi bear at all but a little frog, its froggy legs extended in mid-wriggle.

What Patrick did was combine the images so that the frog could be visibly a frog...