The Online Photographer

Open Mike: What Danielle Jackson's Artnet Review Tells Us About What the Whitney Biennial Tells Us About the Future of Photography—and the Reviewers and Curators and Academicians Who Will Shape the Artists Who Will Shape It*

"Can we all just get along? Can we get along?"

—Rodney King

I've always thought that "political correctness" (PC) was for the most part a shibboleth, a cudgel fashioned by the political right for its own ends. The first four paragraphs of the Wikipedia article about it have it about right; the pull-quote might be, "in public discourse and the media, [PC] is generally used as a pejorative, implying that these policies are excessive or unwarranted," a sentence girded by no fewer than seven footnotes. An article I read in Harper's when I was visiting my liberal mother and Harvard-professor stepfather in 2016 makes the point that examples of political correctness on the left are catalogued and prized by conservatives and conservative media because it's an issue that plays so reliably to their base.

However, one problem with that contention, a thorn in its side you might say, is that there's no question political correctness exists. Excessive and unwarranted political correctness, I mean, not just people trying to be fair and considerate to others.

If you want a fascinating example, peruse Danielle Jackson's article "What the Whitney Biennial Tells Us About the Future of Photography—and the Artists Who Will Shape It" on Artnet. It struck me as a review written from the perspective of political correctness about a show that appears to be mainly about political correctness.

Both the artists and the curators of this year's Biennial come from a carefully calibrated mix of "historically marginalized group[s]," and much of the art is accepted by the reviewer to comment on "identity politics," "codes in multiple layers," "the Museum's project of historicization," and so forth. The actual photographs in the show seem to be secondary to the positions they take on various political implications. Disappointment is registered that the work is not more overtly angry, among other things, and that the artists aren't "announcing identity so loudly." The reason, the review proposes, is that they're the new majority and are no longer outsiders. (Can anyone really be an outsider and be included in the Whitney Biennial? That's what I'd like to know.) "Though the photographs are made by artists who are queer, gender nonconforming, Asian, Latinx, or black, almost none of them discuss these cultures directly in their work," writes Jackson, with disapproval. "Looking back, I’ve also wondered if, in some ways, this is actually a post-identity show that has managed to be framed around identity politics simply based on who was included." Whew. That makes me need to go lie down.

I didn't even recognize some of the language in the review as traditional artspeak, which, oddly, is annoying and refreshing at the same time. The work is definitely "framed in relation to recent trends and jargon." Although I've seen it before I had to look up "Latinx," for example. It's a gender-neutral coinage for a person of Latin American origin that obviates the need for the gendered "Latino" and "Latina." (Has someone alerted the Filipinx?)

Does the art world, I wonder, really want to stake itself out as the home venue, ground zero, for the ever more fastidious expression of political correctness issues and themes? Because those are bound to be neverending, never mind also being a very limited and not very natural subject for art. Art is about personal expression, among other things, and it seems counterproductive on its face to dictate in advance what art must express. At any rate, what this review seems to tell us is that if you aren't up on your Yale-inculcated political identity and sexual identity semiotics then there are some art shows that you're not going to "get." In the case of the Whitney Biennial, that's apparently the subject, on every level.

Of course, I'm an older white male, so whatever I think about identity politics is irrelevant by definition anyway**.

Protest like it's 1989
The review made me think about another series of articles I read this past year, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Mapplethorpe debacle at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington in June of 1989—which arguably ended up torpedoing that grand old institution (my alma mater) and sinking it with all the agonizing slowness of an aircraft carrier going down.

If you're not familiar with the Mapplethorpe flap, basically the Corcoran had scheduled a show by the homoerotic classicist photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who at the time had just died of AIDS. Because the show was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), various figures from the neoconservative movement, led by the reactionary archconservative Southern congressman Jesse Helms, seized on the exhibit as proof that the government was funding immorality and that, by extension, the NEA should therefore be abolished (along with, by further extension, every other nonessential government program).

The Flagg Building, appropriately beflagged. It was not known
by that name in 1989. Photo by Daderot [CC0].

The Corcoran bowed to the pressure and cancelled the show. The stated reason was that the institution wanted to remain above politics; instead, the Corcoran's cave-in resulted in a much bigger and even more intense storm of criticism from the other direction. A public protest organized by freelance curator Andrea Pollan and gallerist William Wooby featured Mapplethorpe's self-portrait projected on the side of the beaux arts Corcoran Gallery building (now known as the Flagg building***).

At the time, I was a recent graduate of the Corcoran School of Art (as it was called when I was there), and I once worked for Bill Wooby—I was his exhibition printer for the jazz photographs by Charles Peterson that Bill exhibited in his restaurant gallery and arranged to have shown at the Monterey Jazz Festival. I remember these events and many of the names involved. Pretty much everyone from every side was mad at the Corcoran for a while. "The gallery stood at the center of a firestorm of protest and controversy," writes Ruth Steinhardt in GWToday. "Fellow artists canceled D.C. shows in solidarity, gallery members withdrew their support and hundreds of protestors gathered in front of the Flagg Building, across from Ronald Reagan’s White House, to register their disapproval." The Director of the Corcoran who had cancelled the Mapplethorpe show, Christina Orr-Cahall, eventually resigned.

The whole imbroglio is as good a marker as any for the beginning of the end for the old Corcoran Gallery and School of Art, which, while it was still independent, was the largest independent art museum in Washington. But the Corcoran had became uncool. It slipped and slid downhill from then on and was dissolved, riddled with debt, in 2014. Its treasures now belong to the National Gallery of Art and the rest of its collections are flung to the wind, and the School, although it continues to exist under its own name, has been absorbed into George Washington University. As an alumninx, I've become a wanderer.

The Corcoran as it exists now is having a show about that show that never was. Called "6.13.89: The Cancelling of the Mapplethorpe Exhibition," it's an archival exhibit that documents the unfortunate events of the Summer of '89. It will be on view until October 6th in the atrium of the Flagg Building. The outgoing Director of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design (as it is now called), Sanjit Sethi, is quoted in the GWToday article saying "The Corcoran suffered a significant fracture to its philosophical foundation." "As a museum dedicated to 'American genius,'" continues the article, "the Corcoran had in some ways betrayed itself by adopting a definition of genius that excluded marginalized communities."

This isn't going to stop us
You would think that one party, at least, would have been pleased by the cancellation of the show: Jesse Helms, the Senate crusader against government-funded obscenity. Not so. Kriston Capps, in the Washington Post, writes, "One of the very first outraged phone calls that [Director Christina] Orr-Cahall received was from Helms’s office. The senator was displeased that he would not have the opportunity to stump on a show that he considered to be liberal obscenity.

"'This isn't going to stop us. Your cancellation isn’t going to stop us,' Orr-Cahall says now, recalling what a Helms aide told her. 'Looking back, the Helms call, it was clearly the start of the culture wars.'"

There's political correctness in a nutshell from both sides, if you ask me. You'd think we could all just get along.

Mike

"6.13.89" is on view until Oct. 6th. Exhibition hours are Tuesday to Friday, 10 to 6, and weekends from 1 to 6, at the Flagg Building, 500 17th St. NW, Washington, D.C.

*This is TOP's longest-ever post title.

**Maybe I should start a movement for "individualist-identifiers"—those who are aggrieved that they're not being considered as individuals who might have non-identity-group-conforming thoughts, opinions, or values. We stage protests against people who insist on lumping us in with all the other idiots and boneheads who happen to look like us. I'm joking, that would never work.

***After its architect, Ernest Flagg, not Colonel Flagg from M.A.S.H. Frank Lloyd Wright considered it the most beautiful building in Washington...which was in part a poke against the neoclassical Greco-Roman public architecture for which Washington DC is far better known, but never mind.

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Gordon Lewis: "Re: '"Though the photographs are made by artists who are queer, gender nonconforming, Asian, Latinx, or black, almost none of them discuss these cultures directly in their work," writes Jackson, with disapproval.' This is nothing new about this line of thought. I explored much the same idea in a Shutterfinger blog post years ago, under the title 'Am I Still a Black Photographer?' The question is/was, does being black and a photographer make me a 'black photographer,' or does it mean that my photographs center on visual expressions of the black experience? Personally, as long as white photographers can enjoy the luxury of not having to be labeled as such, I would prefer to enjoy the same luxury of not having arbitrary labels and expectations attached to me or my work."

Mike replies: Well said. You sound like another individualist-identifier.  :-) 

Robert Roaldi: "The Rebel Sell by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter has a lot to say about 'nonconformity' and 'outsiders.' The culture we live in absorbs all of this and packages it back to us as products to buy. It's easy to look at suburban streets and come to the superficial conclusion that all those people are leading 'Leave it to Beaver' lives, but it isn't actually true, is it? Many of them are wife swappers, they take various drugs, they watch a lot of porn, etc. We draw these imaginary lines between progressive and not, but even the most right-wing person in our culture probably thinks it's OK to marry for love, or that we should be able to work at whatever job we like, or that women should vote. Those ideas were rebellious not that long ago. PC culture can get silly, but lots of ideas at the fringe are silly. They get modified a lot before they migrate throughout society. It makes for interesting argumentation but it's not worth freaking out over, in my opinion."

Sanjeev Arora: "I went to the Whitney Biennial with visiting relatives from India, who are a.) not young b.) not well-versed in modern art (i.e., wouldn't be able to tell even a Picasso from a Mondrian) c.) definitely unaware of US identity politics. They enjoyed the show, so I guess the art has some innate appeal. So please do not fret too much."

John Krumm: "Well, I just listened to a podcast interview of the English professor who wrote the book Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism and it was pretty good.

"He talks about how critics have always viewed language as in part a political struggle for power. So corporations obscure bosses and what they do in new language, for instance. For the young, there is a struggle for power too. Asserting new gender neutral pronouns and other words can seem very off-putting to some people, but if you are involved with politically active young people, or have a kid around the right age, you get used to it. That's how it works. After a while, if they succeed, it's the new normal.

"Here's some information on the term Filipinx."

Mike replies: Damn, and I thought I thought of that.

Amin Abdollahzadeh: "Re: 'Does the art world, I wonder, really want to stake itself out as the home venue, ground zero, for the ever more fastidious expression of political correctness issues and themes?' Good Lord Michael! The adage about the ship having sailed does’t begin to cover it. It sailed, circumnavigated the world, its crew was ravaged by scurvy and succumbed to cannibalism, and finally limped back to port, a very long time ago."

Richard Parkin: "I thought the gender neutral term for Latinos/Latinas in English was 'Latins'  ;-).  "

Robert Roaldi: "In the intro to one of recent podcasts, Joe Rogan said (I am paraphrasing) 'Ladies and gentlemen and other people, including people who don't identify as people....' I thought that was pretty funny. Is it still OK to poke fun at things?"

Selfies Can Be Lethal. Use a Photographer.

A comprehensive search of news sources by the U.S. National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health has determined that there were at least 259 people killed between 2011 and 2017 in accidents that were directly related to taking selfies.

Almost three out of four victims were male, and the majority were involved in risky behavior at the time of their deaths. The highest number of incidents happened in India, followed by Russia, the United States, and Pakistan. 

India, May 2016: A 15-year-old boy from Pathankot died after he accidentally shot himself with his father's revolver while taking a selfie with the gun pointed at his head.

The study notes that "selfie" was named Word of the Year by the Oxford Dictionary in 2013, and estimated the number of selfies taken by people between the ages of 18 and 24 to be about one million per day. That has only increased.

The study excluded people who died while talking or texting on cellphones; only deaths directly involved in taking selfies were included, and only incidents cross-referenced in "prepared" news sources were included.

Russia, January 2015: Two young men died in the Ural Mountains after they pulled the pin from a live hand grenade to take a selfie. The phone with the picture remained as evidence of the circumstance of their deaths.

The study says, "It is believed that selfie deaths are underreported...for example, certain road accidents while posing for selfies are reported as death due to Road Traffic Accident. Thus, the true magnitude of problem is underestimated. It is therefore important to assess the true burden, causes, and reasons for selfie deaths so that appropriate interventions can be made."

Serbia, April 2015: A 22-year-old man was trying to recreate a scene from his favorite movie Barking at the Stars by running in front of a train, beating it and being hailed a hero. As he ran in front of the train, he tried to take a selfie to document the scene. He was killed instantly when the express train hit him at full speed in the village of Laćarak near the northern Serbian town of Sremska Mitrovica.

The leading causes of death while taking selfies are drowning, accidents involving forms of transport, and falls. Electrocutions are also a major cause.

Italy, June 2014: A 16-year-old girl died in Taranto after plunging 60 feet onto rocks while she was trying to take a photograph of herself on the seafront.

"Attempting to take a selfie" is never reported as the cause of death.

The study's conclusion is that "No Selfie Zones" should be declared in places known to be dangerous to decrease the incidence of selfie-related deaths.

Personally, it seems to me that public awareness would be a better strategy, because "No Selfie Zone" signs would be easy to ignore, and there are too many places where people can get into trouble engaging in risky, distracted activity. Also, some of the danger is related to reckless behavior rather than hazardous surroundings. We photographers know how difficult it is to concentrate on making a picture while paying close attention to our subjects, and we can help convey that to inexperienced snapshooters.

The bottom line is that it's actually not easy to take a selfie and do something dangerous at the same time. You have to concentrate on what you're doing. Which makes it easier to be less aware of what's happening around you and other sources of peril.

Best solution? The traditional one: in iffy situations, use a photographer. That is, get someone else to take the picture. People shouldn't do it themselves. They should concentrate on where they are and what they're doing, and let a photographer concentrate on taking the picture.

Mike
(Inset examples from Wikipedia. No "last
selfies" were used to illustrate this post in
consideration of the privacy of families.)

[UPDATE Saturday: I won't allow any more scornful, derisive, dismissive, or "Darwin Award" type comments. Keep in mind that compassion is an essential element of our spiritual fitness. Imagine if it happened to your child, your brother, your childhood best friend. —Ed.]

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Arg: "I disagree with the sentiment of some, that it is not the selfie but the 'dangerous thing' that is lethal. I disagree because many people don't want to do the 'dangerous thing' unless there is a selfie taken to record it happening. Plus, of course, doing the 'dangerous thing' one-handed, while putting all your attention into the other hand, is not just twice as dangerous, but more like 200X more dangerous. I therefore conclude that it is indeed the selfies that are lethal."

Mike replies: I agree. I think the salient insight we photographers have to offer is what you point out in your third sentence. I know that when I am intent on the viewfinder, at least two-thirds of my attention is concentrated on that.

My first smartphone had a driving app that just gave visuals, no audible directions. I tried to drive while checking the route on the screen...once. I never did it again. The screen drew so much of my attention that I immediately began driving just like I was drunk. Concentrating on taking a phone picture of a dynamic, changing subject while also concentrating on your safety in a perilous situation is about like making yourself instantly drunk, in terms of impairing your ability to concentrate on the danger.

D. Hufford: "Well, I think it has all been pretty much said here. The first rule is don't do stupid, dangerous things no matter who is taking the photo. But I especially want to comment on the pointing a of an unloaded firearm at ones head. Don't. Never. Ever. No matter if you checked the gun to see if it is loaded or not. No matter how familiar you are with the firearm. One of the basic rules of firearms safety is to never point one at anything you do not intend to shoot. That means 'unloaded' or not.

"To simplify that, never point a firearm at something that you are not willing to destroy if it goes off.

"Back in my military days, we had lots of city boys and others not familiar with firearms or firearms safety who thought it was funny to point unloaded firearms at their own heads or at someone else during training. Fortunately, the instructors, upon seeing this, would take the young innocents aside and, without so much as a trigger warning, kindly explain to them why they should never ever do that and if they did do so ever again in their #$@*&% miserable little lives they would wish it had been loaded when they pointed it at themselves. And those instructors were kind compared to my old man.

"Don't play with firearms, loaded or 'unloaded.' Lots of people have been killed with unloaded firearms. Never point one at anything that you are not willing to destroy."

Mike replies: At the suggestion of Craig, who commented yesterday, I read a few paragraphs about the death of guitarist Terry Kath of the '70s group "Chicago." More people might want to read it; it's vivid.

marcin wuu: "Actually, if I saw a sign proclaiming a 'No Selfie Zone,' I'd be more than certain to take a selfie instantly, even though I'm normally not prone to those. And I'd do my best to keep the sign in frame. And I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one."

Mike replies: Made me laugh. Makes me want to post a "No Selfies Allowed" sign outside my window...with the writing helpfully at head height. I'll bet people would stop all Summer long.

I've mentioned before that there's a freeway road sign in Wisconsin that says "Bong Recreation Area." At the bottom of the next exit there's a gas station, and the woman working there told me she gets people coming in all day long asking things like "Did I just see what I thought I saw?" Half of them want to know how to get back to the sign so they can take their pictures standing under it. (The recreation area is named for Richard Ira Bong, the top U.S. fighter ace in WWII.)

When I see signs in museums that say "No Photography," I usually have to take pictures of them....

Ethics Question

Interesting issue: is there a moral dimension to an old photographic print of a poor man selling at a New York City auction for six figures?

Dorothea Lange, White Angel Bread Line, San Francisco, 1933.

I say there isn't. What there is is irony. Irony is intuitively understood by most literate, educated people, which all of us are, but let's talk about it anyway.

Wikipedia notes its formal use as a communicative technique: "Irony, in its broadest sense, is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or event in which what appears, on the surface, to be the case, differs radically from what is actually the case. Irony can be categorized into different types, including: verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony." The original use in Greek tragedy was when "the full significance of a character's words or actions are clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character," as when Oedipus says "I pray that [the killer's] life be consumed in evil in wretchedness" in Oedipus Rex by Sophocles—when the audience, but not Oedipus himself, knows that he unknowingly curses himself. The most familiar form of irony is sarcasm, whereby you say the opposite of what you mean. Policeman: I'm sorry Mr. Jones, but you're going to jail tonight, and your car is being impounded." Mr. Jones: "Oh, wonderful."

"White Angel Bread Line" expected to fetch between $100,000 and $150,000 at an auction is an example of situational irony. "This type of irony occurs when something happens that is completely different from what was expected," says yourdictionary.com. "Usually, these instances incorporate some type of contradiction and a certain level of shock."

"White Angel Bread Line" is important because it was the first time Dorothea Lange, a formerly prosperous portrait photographer who aspired to take pictures that told stories about peoples' real lives, felt she had achieved what she was after in showing the full human and emotional dimension of a subject. It's "a disturbing but beautiful image," writes artsedge.com, "that would come to represent the face of the Great Depression: The weariness indicated by the man’s posture, the emptiness of his cup, his individuality obscured by the low brim of his hat, and his isolation from others on the breadline, all adding up to a poignant yet respectful portrait of hopelessness and despair." It is an early example of what later came to be called "Concerned Photography," whereby photographs, it was hoped, could arouse compassion in viewers and change public attitudes. (We're on the far side of that curve now, the public's sympathy for pitiable pictures having been blunted by overexposure and our realization of our own impotence to help.) For it to end up being traded about as a bauble to show the status and power of the rich...well.

But given that the price of the print is highly ironic, is there anything immoral about it? I can only see one way: if we take it to symbolize something greater than itself, in this case the much larger issue of wealth inequality. Thoughtful people can indeed apprehend a moral dimension to excessive wealth inequality. And perhaps the universal qualities of the man facing the camera ("his individuality obscured by the low brim of his hat") could stand for people now who are beset by poverty. But there's nothing causal going on here and nothing unjust: it's symbolic only...if that. The subjects of the picture aren't being harmed, and neither the photographer, nor the sellers, nor the buyer are directly harming anyone. And besides, the photographer, her brother Martin (who was escorting her at the time for her safety) and all the people in the picture (adults in 1933) are dead now.

Even the "White Angel," Lois Jordan, whose soup kitchen served over one million meals in San Francisco during the Great Depression, is long since departed to her reward.

Mike
(Thanks to Tom Walsh)
Inset: Dorothea in 1965 by Imogen Cunningham's son Rondal Partridge

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Mark Jennings: "Immoral? Maybe we’ll never get to the bottom of that question, but by asking it and trying to answer, we’ll learn something along the way.

"A famous landscape painter—maybe Constable—once painted a neighbor’s farm. Reportedly the farmer was baffled when later the painting sold for more than the farm itself did."

Unethical

It doesn't matter, but I'd just like to say that TOP's official position is that skullduggery like the following is unethical. This is verbiage from a regional news-oriented kind of site, with the organization's name removed:

Photo Sharing Terms
By submitting photos to [org.], you are granting [org.] and its affiliates and/or clients permission to use, share, and edit your photo without limitation. Photo submission automatically surrenders any copyright to [org.]. No royalties shall be collected by the photographer for any revenue generated by [org.] or its affiliates or clients, directly or indirectly related to photo use. No payment shall be made to the photographer in exchange for the photo or its use. [org.] is not required to credit the photographer when using the photo (though [org.] often will!).

Yeah, I know that a lot of uses are harmless, and a lot of photographs are valueless, and a lot of photographers are willing, and "org." and its cronies are simply trying to make it easy for themselves to use submissions without jeopardy. I don't care. Any website, company, contest, charity or anything else that asks you to "automatically surrender your copyright" is being unethical.

"Let's be careful out there."

Vox clamantis in deserto, heavy sigh, etc. But that is The Online Photographer's stand on the matter, and that is that.

Just say "no." And let's be careful out there.

Mike

P.S. No, I don't have permission to link to that clip or to show that screen grab. Then again, I'm not claiming I now own the copyright.

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP/Yale Spring Photo Book Offer
(Ends June 30th or when supplies run out)

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Glenn Allenspach: "Bravo! (And you have my permission to use this comment)."

Dave: "It makes me crazy when the local newspaper publishes photos my friends submit and they're thrilled they got published. Without payment. Numerous times."

Joey: "Openly violating copyright of others who did not surrender it in a piece where you rage against this org's copyright policies hurts your standing in my eyes, whether or not you see it as rightful finger pointing."

Mike replies: Maybe, but don't forget this. I do the best I can.

Kenneth Wajda: "Around here in Colorado, different towns' tourist agencies run contests for photos for tourism use, and do the rights-grab, too. And the quality is never as good as if they just hired photographers, but they're willing to take less when the price is right. Every news channels asks the public to 'share' their photos. Share is a nice word for 'give away.'

"Shame there's no shame in asking for free. Most people wouldn't ask for a dollar off at a yard sale or wouldn't be caught dead taking a handout. But when it comes to the arts, they 'beg' all day long. Until there's a stigma against it, and the artists aren't willing to give it away, it'll never change."

BREAKING! Colossal SNAFU! Epochal Breakdown! Scandal!

[Mike is on semi-vacation this week so TOP is on half-speed till Wednesday the 24th.]

"Michael Phelps, the crown jewel of Under Armour's Olympic athletes, is wearing Nike sweatpants, swoosh and all, on the cover of the latest Sports Illustrated magazine."

Omigod.

This could have huge repercussions. Millions of Sports Illustrated readers now know about Nike.

I have never been able to take this feature of capitalism seriously. Yes, I know it means big bucks to the companies. Yeah, I know there are contracts and agreements and all kinds of negotiated conditions that pertain. It's all Very Serious to somebody. But it's all about what kind of pants a guy wears. Ultimately, about as trivial as trivial gets. As much as I know I'm supposed to care about such things as a good little consumer, I can't bring myself to.

Trivial styling details in pictures were a problem for me as a professional photographer. One of my nicest portraits was of a girl wearing a tank top that showed a bit of her bra strap (that was in the '80s, well before such details were easy to fix). It didn't occur to me that I should be bothered by it. I actually thought it was kind of charming, in a casually louche way. To me it looked...Summery. Well, the mother was "appalled" that I would even show them the proof. They picked a different—inferior, in my opinion—frame. And never came back to me for another portrait.

You know what they say: Oh well.

Another time*, I worked and worked on a magnificent family portrait that encompassed five matted prints. It was one of the best things I had done and I was very pleased with it, and couldn't wait to show it to the client. Alas, the gentleman immediately noticed that the tongue of his belt, the bit that sticks past the buckle, was lying over, rather than under, the belt loop of his pants, which is not sartorially correct. Again, no Photoshop to make easy corrections. This fashion disaster occasioned weeks of arguments over payment, which he finally rendered, reluctantly, when I showed up at his house to repossess the unpaid-for artwork. He probably asked me forty times why I didn't tell him about the offending belt loop during the shoot, whilst we still had time to make amends and save the whole star-crossed project. Why, why, why? I assured him again and again that I hadn't noticed.

The truth is, though, that I wouldn't have said anything if I had noticed, because it looked fine to me, and I had no clue where the ends of belts are supposed to go, and I don't care anyway.

There were dozens of such incidents over my near-decade as a working pro. The problem, I finally realized, is not just that I am insufficiently perfectionistic; it's that I'm naturally accepting of quirky little details that are visible in photographs. Not only do I not mind them, I actively like them. I like looking for odd little details in pictures, and I like that they're there. Working and working on making an advertising shot perfect goes against my interests and instincts. I get gratification neither from the work of perfecting, nor from the perfected result. Hence, I'm not very good at that sort of thing.

Some people feel differently. In the past year or two, I've showed at least three pictures I can remember that caused a few readers to complain about imperfections. 

I eventually realized I was never cut out to be a pro, and this is only one of the ways. The nice thing about being an amateur in photography, of course, is (as I always say) that no one owns your photography. You can't stop people from having their opinions about what you do, but all the same, nobody can tell you what to do.

I like that.

Meanwhile, the Great Pants Scandal: Michael Phelps made an understandable mistake; Nike sponsors the Olympics and even though Under Armour sponsors him, he's required to wear Nike at various Olympics-sponsored events. It's logical enough that he could mistakenly believe that a medal-themed cover shot featuring three Olympic standouts was an Olympics-related happening. Could have been worse; at least he didn't claim that a fake Brazilian policeman forced him at gunpoint to wear Nike pants.

Meanwhile, here's a tiny, tiny consolation prize for Under Armour: before reading about this whole shocking imbroglio, I had never heard of Under Armour. And now it gets a free link from me! And I just ordered a pair of its shorts!

...And I think I will from now on. After all, it is reeling from its terrible Sports Illustrated cover setback, and I root for underdogs.

No, that probably does not ease the sting. One hopes Under Armour will eventually recover, though, and not perish from the world on account of all this.

Mike
(Thanks to David)

*I've told this story before, because, I admit, it still bugs me a little.

P.S. I would love to believe that if I were in Michael Phelps' position, I would be my own man, turn down payola, and wear whatever kind of pants I damn well pleased. However, the only reason I could say such a thing is that I am not Michael Phelps and nobody cares what I wear (Lee jeans, mostly). The truth is, if Under Armour paid me $5 million dollars a year to wear my underpants on my head at all times, I'd do it. I could probably even be had more cheaply than that, and I do not want to explore how much more cheaply. So much for lofty principles.

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Jack: "Beer and Photography: If you think sports attire companies care about what athletes are wearing, imagine how beer companies care about what brand you are drinking.

"Back in time, when you lived in your old neighborhood outside Milwaukee, there was a contingent of business people trying to gain support for a new baseball stadium. They were in NYC visiting the then-new Yankee stadium. Included in the group was the CEO of Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing, who left the group early. Since the rest of the group was hoping the brewery would contribute heavily to the new Milwaukee stadium, they tried to correct one of their group from ordering a Heineken beer. That person, head of the local business group, replied something like 'the Miller CEO is gone—not a problem.' Well it became a problem when a photo of the group showed up in the paper with the offending bottle clearly visible. Miller Park got built, but that particular beer drinker works in Columbus, Ohio now."

hzb: "Generally I've found perfectly perfect objects sterile, and 'imperfections' much more interesting: a wire intruding in the wrong place, repaired cracked ceramic, insect spot on a leaf, misapplied lipstick...I've certainly found not everyone shares my opinion, and too often focus on the innocuous 'flaw' rather than the overall subject in context.

"Some years ago, through investigating Japanese knives online, I discovered Zen aesthetics (wabi-sabi, shibumi, and kintsugi being some of the ideas), as well as many Japanese photographers. It's had an important impact on Western design in many fields and definitely speaks to me."

hugh crawford: "In 1980 or so I was working in a studio where we did a lot of editorial photography for New York magazine. We did a photo where several models were wearing brightly colored cashmere sweaters. We needed crew-neck sweaters but the only sweaters the stylist could find were V-neck sweaters from Bloomingdale's. Standard practice is to get clothes that are large for the models and pin the cloths in the back so they fit, so there was no problem with just having the models wear the sweaters backwards. Of course everything in the photo is identified by brand and retailer including perfume (!), so Bloomingdales was given a credit for the sweaters. When the issue hit the stands a ruckus ensued that included the president of Bloomingdale's calling the editor of the magazine to complain that hundreds of customers were coming to the store to buy sweaters that they didn't sell."

Rapacious Getty

I have to admit I've been rendered speechless by a lot of things lately. I won't mention specifics in most cases—you can probably guess a few.

Not the most appalling, but possibly the most egregious, is something that's happened in our very own little parish. You can read the article yourself at Hyperallergic and I recommend you do so, but you can get the gist from the first paragraph:

"In December, documentary photographer Carol Highsmith received a letter from Getty Images accusing her of copyright infringement for featuring one of her own photographs on her own website. It demanded payment of $120. This was how Highsmith came to learn that stock photo agencies Getty and Alamy had been sending similar threat letters and charging fees to users of her images, which she had donated to the Library of Congress [for] use by the general public at no charge."

If that's not just a jaw-dropped, wide-eyed WTF, I don't know what is.

Not only that, it's not the first time it's happened. "In 2013, Daniel Morel was awarded $1.2 million in a suit against Getty, after the agency pulled his photos from Twitter and distributed them without permission to several major publications."

Behavior like that brings to mind—well, my mind—Matt Taibbi's famous description of Goldman Sachs: "...a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

By the way, in paragraph two above is our vocabulary word for the day: egregious (roughly, ih-GREE-juss), adj., extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant. Excessively shocking or outrageous. "Over-the-top awful" in argot ordinaire.

But really, there are no words.

Mike
(Thanks to Donal Wells)

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Don: "Just to add some balance. The images are available from the Library of Congress website and are listed as being in the public domain for 'copyright free access.' Copyright free images do get placed at Getty by individual photographers or by archival collections that distribute them. Value is added by keywording and making them readily available. Sometimes work is done to the images to improve them, or for example copyright free images from NASA may be composited into other work. Getty provide a lot of info from their legal team to their contributors about what is considered acceptable in this way. On the customer side, many have subscription deals and find all their needs at one place, simplifying their image searches (and thus adding value). It may seem wrong, but it's not necessarily illegal. The fault could indeed lie with the Library of Congress in the way they have made the images available (i.e., not in line with Highsmith's expectations).

"As to greed? The bill sent to Highsmith is almost certainly the result of an automated bot at work. In this case a mistake was made. Hardly a billion dollar one though is it? Getty Images does this to protect the work of photographers from the hoards who think everything on the Web is free and right click anything without a thought, claiming ignorance when caught and outraged that they are expected to pay for the use they have made.

"When Getty successfully claw back payment in this way the photographer whose image has been stolen gets a cut.

"I don't know Carol Highsmith's background, but it seems she is now in a position to pursue her photography without needing payment. I would imagine most of the photographers who supply their work to Getty Images, some 250,000, like to get paid and want unlicensed uses found and billed.

"There are two sides to every story, and it's interesting to contrast this trial-by-Internet with the recent mention of payment for use to Harlan Ellison. And before anyone says Highsmith needs paying: no she doesn't, she chose to give them all away."

Geoffrey Heard replies to Don: "Sitting in my far distant spot in paradise, the South Pacific New Guinea islands, I am always amused that the moment some corporate greed is brought to light in the USA, someone pops up to defend it.

"Don says inter alia: 'I would imagine most of the photographers who supply their work to Getty Images, some 250,000, like to get paid and want unlicensed uses found and billed.' The point, Don, is that Highsmith did not supply her work to Getty Images—she gave it to the Library of Congress to be freely available to whoever wants to use it. But Getty has some sort of arrangement with the LoC so that it lists them.

"Then Don says Getty needs to get some money for the listing and what not. Really? And the listing costs $120? And are Highsmith's pictures available only through the Getty listing?

"I have used a number of pix from the LoC from time to time, just downloading them from the LoC site (I just tried to verify continuing availability today but the LoC sites are all down for maintenance over the weekend). But Highsmith would not have downloaded the pic she used from the LoC because she had it on her computer. So she just picked it up and posted it. And, of course, Don offers the excuse that no doubt the billing was generated by some automatic bot. Sure, of course it was, it is always the computer's fault when someone like the egregious Getty is caught out.

"But in this case it was billing Highsmith for $120 for her own photograph which did not come from Getty's collection or via Getty.

"Was this a standard price the Getty charges for every picture in similar circumstances? Bet it is. It is a price that is supposed to include its expenses, its profit, and a few stray cents for the photographer.

"And there is the egregiousness of the egregious Getty. It was about to keep the whole $120 because Highsmith is not a subscriber.

"Further, the bot was wrong because Getty made it that way. If automated billing is the happen, then it is incumbent upon Getty to bill only for photographs obtained from its site and maybe only for photographs supplied for sale by its subscribers.

"Its bot should not be billing for other photographs.

"It would be pretty simple, I imagine. Getty could add a bit of hidden text or whatever to every subscriber image, I imagine, through an automated process that would cost virtually half of nothing to implement, and it could then set up its billing bot to find that information and bill on that.

"But would Getty do that? Well, it wouldn't want to; it might reduce its income by a couple of bucks so it would need to be forced to.

"No bot billing without exclusive property ID!

"I like the suggestion of fining corporations a percentage of turnover (not profit, that's too easy to manipulate, just ask the taxman) rather than a flat sum. I have read that in Finland, they do something like that with parking (and other traffic?) fines. The fine is a percentage of the value of the car! Does the Grosser Mercedes driver leave his car in No Parking areas in Finland? Nope. Does he in Australia where there is a standard parking fine of $50 or $100? You bet. The standard fine is barely pocket change for him and he is happy to pay it for the convenience. If fines are to be effective across the board, they need to be in proportion to wealth."

The Angry Man

Angry man behaving badly (Mark Gordon)

If you've been photographing for any length of time out in the wild, you've probably come across some version of the angry man. A bored rent-a-cop, a drunk, a pissed-off wrongdoer anxious that you'll uncover with your camera whatever he's trying to hide, or just some jackass entertaining themselves by messing with you.

Alex Stone, as you might have read elsewhere, kinda ran into the Big Daddy of the angry men out in California. Alex and his team were photographing an Audi on a strip of almost-empty blue highway out in the middle of nowhere (actually Ramona, near San Diego) when a big drunk in a big truck pulled up and started screaming at him to "get off my driveway." (They weren't anywhere near a driveway.) What follows was harrowing, given that it easily could have escalated into something much worse. Very fortunately, firearms didn't become involved—it was exactly one of those situations that the presence of firearms can turn into something tragic.

You can read the story and see the video on DIY Photography. Note, however, that the video is laced with profanity and is not workplace-safe. It's not very pleasant to watch, either.

The local sheriff subsequently arrested Mark Gordon, 52, on three charges, the most serious of which is felony assault with a deadly weapon (non-firearm), which carries a penalty of up to four years in prison and counts toward the "three strike" rule. (In many places in the U.S., a third felony conviction carries harsher penalties.)

Right between the eyes
The reason this story is so popular is that one person is so obviously in the wrong, and that person got nabbed and bids fair to be punished. Which is very satisfying. People love to see, and read about, just punishment. Consider "Judge Judy," a popular TV program in the United States—the most popular of the TV courtroom reality shows pioneered by "The People's Court." It certainly isn't because she is a good judge—she is an awful judge, creating for the public about the worst possible model of what a judge is supposed to be. But she's a matchless scold—she really gets after people and gives them a piece of her mind. Maybe more than one piece. That's what people love. So among photographers, Mark Gordon stands for every jerk who ever hassled any of us, and we all fervently hope they throw the book at him and that it hits him hard between the eyes. Well deserved. We wouldn't mind if Judge Judy gave him a good dressing-down in public, either, for good measure, and screeched at him to "shush" if he talked back.

Incidentally, if you descend into the comments at the link at DIY Photography, you'll see a textbook example of why I have expended my irreplaceable days and hours on Earth for the past decade-plus moderating more than 200,000 comments here on TOP. The comments on that post veer fatally off topic from only the second one, and the commenters get into a ongoing back-and-forth squabble that has very little to do with the opinions the article author specifically asked for. It demonstrates the problem with comment sections and shows how not to moderate comments. For the record, Brandon Cowart's subversive two-word comment, second from the top, would never have seen the light of day here.

I hope somebody follows through and reports on what becomes of Mr. Gordon. And I'm glad no one was hurt.

Mike
(Thanks to Rob Spring)

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Marcus Peddle: "The truck driver is a scary person and should be punished for using his truck as a weapon but I wonder if Alex got fined for blocking the road with the car he was photographing. I know it's nothing compared to what Mr. Scary did but it's the first thought that popped into my head when I started watching the video."

Eamon Hickey: "Although in this case it doesn't seem to be specifically the photographer's camera that sets off this Angry Man, it's still a useful reminder to all of us that a camera is sometimes seen as a threat, or at least as something to be suppressed. I think it behooves all of us to make some mental preparations for this kind of thing—to think, beforehand , about what you'll do in various likely scenarios if you're confronted when you're taking pictures. I have my own set of responses loosely worked out, depending on the situation. (I do not respond to unjustifiably aggressive rent-a-cops the same way I would to a real police officer or a drunk, enraged, or mentally ill person, or a protective parent etc.)."

Dan: "Many years ago when I was but a wee clod-kicker in high school, I had amazing conversation with a pretty blonde girl in english class about the 'news.' She stated proudly that she didn't pay any attention to current events...bragged actually. I was flabbergasted. She reasoned that since she had no plans to do anything about what she read, why bother. I had no retort beyond stunned indignation. All these years later she now appears as a wise woman in my memory. If only I could resist having my emotions hijacked by stories like this one. Why be angry? I'm not going to do anything about it."

It Can't Be Coincidence...

...That the National Geographic magazine just out on newstands this month (July 2016) features on its first pages an editorial by Editor in Chief Susan Goldberg. Under the rubric "Images and Ethics," the editorial in the magazine is called "How We Check What You See."

It's online under an alternate title, "How We Spot Altered Pictures." Same text, though. Although very brief, it purports to "explain how we strive to keep covertly manipulated images out of our publications."

Photo by Gordon Gahan

The infamous "they moved the pyramids" cover from February 1982, which greatly harmed the magazine's vaunted reputation (and obviously still haunts them). Note that this would have been completely permissible for many uses, for instance a travel agency poster or an advertisement.

Of the pyramid cover mistake, Goldberg admits, "we deserved the firestorm that ensued."

But that's all in the past. "We learned our lesson. At National Geographic, it's never OK to alter a photo. We've made it part of our mission to ensure our photos are real."

No mention of he-who-cannot-be-named, of course, but the timing of the editorial is most likely no coincidence.

Mike
(Thanks to the reader who first told me about this, whose name I can't find)

P.S. Appearing even in advance of the editorial in the same issue is a two-page advertisement for the Huawei P9 smartphone, "Co-engineered with Leica," featuring a picture taken in "Monochrome/Pro Mode." The tagline is "Reinvent smartphone photography." It set me to wondering if that's the first time I've encountered the all-purpose sales word "pro" (roughly, a synonym for "good" in our field) associated with a cellphone.

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john gillooly: "This sentence can't be a coincidence: 'At National Geographic, where visual storytelling is part of our DNA, making sure you see real images is just as important as making sure you read true words.' Didn't Steve McCurry refer to himself now as a 'visual storyteller' as a defense against photo manipulation, implying that while this manipulation is not allowed in photojournalism, it is allowed in visual storytelling?"

Should You Manipulate Your Images?

Of course they have repercussions in the broader culture, but a big reason for discussing things like "Photoshopping" (manipulation), journalistic integrity, and borrowing and copying or "deriving" works on a photo enthusiast website is to help each of us make decisions for our own practice. Whatcha gonna do your own self?

I think it's good to get clear. Think it through, work it through, and come to your own decisions.

What you decide is up to you, and it could be anything. Maybe this whole discussion has made you disgusted with dishonest photography and steeled your resolve to be as honest as you can possibly be in your own photographs; maybe you are scornful of the whole brouhaha and have decided not only that you like manipulating images but that you're going to take a class and learn how to do more of it, and better. You might decide to reject imitation and cliché and "classicism," or you might have gotten excited about the idea of recreating a certain kind of paintings.

You have to realize that different people are looking for different things in photographs. Some people go to enormous lengths to put things into photographs that I just don't care a fig about. And vice versa.

It's really up to you to draw your own lines in the debate, but I think it's helpful to consider the issues up front and make conscious decisions.

I spent my youth in art class (almost literally—one year I had four periods a day in the art room) where my favorite teacher had us incessantly copying things. I got famous as an "artist" in my small school because I was skilled at that. The great "j'accuse" of that history was provided ten or so years ago by the nine-year-old daughter of a classmate, gifted at drawing and painting, whose motto, bless her, was "never go from flat." That is, according to her, you go from three dimensions to two, not from two to two. Don't copy, in other words. I can always tell paintings that come from photographs.

Just applying logic, I reached the same conclusion when I was about 14 or 15. But I was so much worse at drawing from life than I was at "going from flat" that I would have essentially had to start over. That's when I decided that photography was much better than I was at reducing three dimensions to two. A year later I had my first photography exhibit, in the school dining room.

Years later, when I was a wet-behind-the-ears photo magazine editor, one of the regular contributors wrote an article about combining 4x5" negatives. He noted that often, his landscapes had great foregrounds but dull skies, or great skies but nothing interesting in the foreground, so he took these formerly "rejected" negatives and did a sort of primitive Jerry Uelsmann number on them, combining foregrounds and skies from different places and different times.

That horrified me then and still does. The reason I'm interested in photography at all is that it can tell me something about the world; if you know how photography works, there can be a sensical, dependable connection between some of the elements of a picture and what was in front of the lens when the picture was taken. The photograph isn't "truth," of course, but if you're smart you can usually retrieve from pictures something true about the scene; something at least provisionally true. With the big advantage that you can study things in depth and at leisure that either didn't hold still for long or don't exist any more.

Sometimes the true things you find might align with what you need or want to know; sometimes it's other things.

At the very last minute, we had an advertiser drop out, and I had a column to fill and only a couple hours to come up with something. The newly empty column happened to fall within that "combining negatives" article, so I wrote a short "counterpoint"—a rebuttal, as it were—expressing my misgivings about the practice, and signed it with a pseudonym.

That was wrong. It was a rookie mistake on my part. I shouldn't have done it. The author of the article was miffed at me, and rightly so. An editor's duty is to support the articles he or she publishes, and by extension support his or her authors, and not subvert either. I learned my lesson and never did that to one of my authors again.

Of course there's really nothing wrong, per se, with combining two negatives to make a "fantasy" landscape that doesn't exist in the real world. It's just that I don't want to look at horrible lying sh*t like that, and if I'm shown faked photographs without being warned they've been faked, then I feel betrayed and angry.

The one steady current of my writing about photography all these years, in every dimension, is that my sympathy rests firmly with the viewer, practitioner, or consumer. Bob Shell, who for many years was the influential editor of Shutterbug magazine (in its heyday known by everybody because it was sort of the national classified ads section, before eBay existed), once wrote me an extraordinary admonishing letter detailing the responsibilities of a magazine editor as he saw them. Primarily, he said, the duty of a magazine was to help the manufacturers sell their products. That got me on my high horse, and I wrote back a spirited rebuttal. When last I heard of him, Bob was serving a life sentence for murder and had disappeared from the photo scene, and I never agreed with him in virtually any way I can think of, but I thank him for one thing—making me clear that my mission was to look out for the magazine's readers, not the advertisers. (My duty to the advertisers was to put their ads in front of as many sets of eyes as possible, but that's where it stopped.) My sympathy was not with the advertiser who was trying to sell a $600 thingamajiggy to the reader, but with the reader who was thinking of parting with his hard-earned $600 and needed to know if the thingamajiggy was worth it.

Similarly, my sympathy is with the viewer of images, and that's what I suggest you consider when you're trying to get clear about your own practices. Personally, my conceit about photographic images is that I can see more in them than the photographer can put there. That's why I don't care for highly perfected, tightly controlled studio and fashion photography...because all that's there is what the art director and photographer and their corps of helpers can put in them, which means, for me, they're often...empty. There's nothing there I can discover for myself. It just bores me, is all. Potentially, in every photograph, there's more meaning and more information that you could possibly think to invent; so have some respect for the viewer and don't vandalize the image's connection to the reality you might not even see.

That's just my own viewpoint, of course.

On a more superficial level, just consider how you feel if you get shown something that appears to be one thing and then find out it's not that but something else. I think that would save each of us from the risk of sticky trouble. If you're combining negatives, make sure the viewer knows that. If you're staging pictures of Indian railway stations, don't pretend they are candid photojournalism.

Generally, my advice would be, whatever you're going to do, do it boldly. Julie Blackmon's type of constructed tableaux aren't my thing, exactly, but she does what she does boldly and unapologetically and I like that. If you're going to Photoshop, then do a lot of it and call it photoart—don't pretend it's a photograph. If you want to stage your photographs, then stage them, but make sure the viewers know it. Look at it from the viewer's perspective and see it how they'd see it and try to figure out how they'd feel about it. It's only when you pretend, or claim, or let others assume, that you're doing one thing, while you are in fact doing something else, that problems come into the picture. Ask yourself, if the viewer knew how I did this, would they they think I've cheated? That's what has the potential to transform you into a sniveling weasel. Not the practice or method, whatever it is.

So get clear about what you like to do and then do it. But be stand-up about it. There's nothing wrong with any practice as long as a) it's what you really want to do and b) being honest and up front about it wouldn't cause you (or anyone else in your situation) any embarrassment.

Mike

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Hank: "The whole 'McCurry Thing' reminds me of this passage from one of Werner Herzog's books:

I was on a panel discussion with other filmmakers who were talking about “reality” and how to capture it on film, how cinéma-vérité was the only way forward, that manipulation and staging in non-fiction cinema was a no-no. A young woman next to me kept raving about her own particular style, how she wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible, like a fly on the wall. It was just the kind of thin, trivial ideology I look upon with deep suspicion ...I say here to adherents of cinéma-vérité : I am no bookkeeper; my mandate is poetry. I want to be involved. I want to shape and sculpt, to stage things, to intrude and invent. I want to be a film director. I was the only person at the festival arguing against these morons. The subject was being so hashed to death that I couldn’t take it any longer. I grabbed a microphone and said, “I’m no fly on the wall. I am the hornet that stings.” There was an immediate uproar, so not having anything more to say, I shouted out, “Happy New Year, losers.” And that was that.

Mike replies: This reminds me that I meant to write a paragraph in this piece about how ideas can be formed in opposition. Sometimes confronting ideas that you don't agree with can be as important to growth as finding those you agree with.

Latest on Steve McCurry, and Julie Blackmon Steals and Quotes

The latest on the McCurry Kerfuffle (there, I've just named it as John M. Flores named it) is "Eyes of the Afghan Girl" by Kshitij Nagar (with "vital inputs" from Rakesh Nagar), at Writing Through Light.

According to the article, in this 1984 picture from a page from National Geographic, the suitcases were empty, and the woman is the sister-in-law of a Indian photographer friend of Steve's who was called out to model.

No matter how loose your standards, that just ain't photojournalism by any stretch. That's staging, and it's more like the way a studio advertising photographer would work, or a cinematographer.

And as for whether Steve claims to be a photojournalist or not, take it from him—there's this TEDx Talk from only last year.

Stealing and quoting
We got a great comment this morning on the first Julie Blackmon post from chris b. (note that I always write commenters' names just as they do). He wrote about seeing a gallery exhibit in Vancouver years ago that consisted of paintings that were enlarged but otherwise exact copies of Ruth Berhard photographs—all from the same book, even. Yet "the artist" claimed the paintings were inspired by dreams!!

"...The gallery guy came over and began to gush about how marvelous these were, and how the best part was that the artist painted them all from dreams, and when I said, hold on, you mean [the artist dreams] about Bernhard's photographs? The confusion deepened, and he brought me over to read the 'artist's statement,' which was detailed and quite remarkable, emphasizing the almost miraculous dream inspirations and supplying context and meanings for the various poses, and nowhere mentioning Bernhard or photos of any kind."

Now that's stealing! (And chutzpah, another nice word from Yiddish.)

The Internet* is not good for chasing down real quotes. A couple of times in the comments to the Julie Blackmon post people brought up the aphorism "good artists borrow, great artists steal," which is a fake quotation that can be found in innumerable variations attributed to a variety of sources. Most are debased Bowdlerizations out of context of a quote by T.S. Eliot, the American-born British poet who was one of the great literary artists of the 20th century and arguably the last poet who was a household name.

The real quotation is, in fact, helpful when considering Julie Blackmon's influences. It occurs in Eliot's 1920 book of essays Sacred Wood, in his essay on the English dramatist Philip Massinger (1583–1640). Here's the full essay, and here's the relevant passage:

"...the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest. Chapman borrowed from Seneca; Shakespeare and Webster from Montaigne. The two great followers of Shakespeare, Webster and Tourneur, in their mature work do not borrow from him; he is too close to them to be of use to them in this way. Massinger, as Mr. Cruickshank shows, borrows from Shakespeare a good deal."

Although the fake quotation is almost always used to justify theft, Eliot's essay if anything is a defense of transformative re-use, which is not only allowed under copyright law but is sanctioned by long practice and artistic convention (even if the borderline cases have often been uncomfortable). The specific elements in Julie Blackmon's pictures that are "lifted" from the Balthus paintings are, in fact, stolen elements, but she is not appropriating his ideas. Rather, she's deliberately "quoting" him, as a jazz musician is said to "quote" a different song by inserting a few bars of it into a different composition or jam, and as a modern electronic musician (I know it's quaint to call them that, but I don't want to call out a single genre) uses samples. The intent is not to "lean on" the antecedent as a crutch, using it to supply any deficiency in her own inventiveness, but to delight those who are familiar with the original...she's playing off it, as it were. Adding another dimension to her work. The readers who called it "riffing" got it right, I think.

For me she stands Eliot's "surest of tests." Does she weld her theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn? I'd say so. Does she borrow from authors remote in time (check), or alien in language (check—painting to photoart), or diverse in interest (well, both Balthus and Blackmon are interested in children—but in divergent ways one would hope. I don't detect prurience in Blackmon but everyone sure does in Balthus). Mostly, does she "make it into something better, or...different"? Surely she does—her pictures aren't copies. It's up to you to decide about "better," but they're unquestionably very "different."

'Scorned as Timber'
Before we leave this general area I want to quote another wonderful comment, about the idea of "influence" in, perhaps, its corrupt or base form. John Denniston shared a post from his own blog:

"January 22nd, 2009—Last year as I was walking through a clear cut on Vancouver Island I stopped to take a picture of two solitary trees left standing. Somehow I thought against my better judgment they made a picture but they certainly didn’t fit into any current project I was working on. When the film was developed I was sure it was just another wasted sheet of film and never printed the image. The picture didn’t work for me. Today as I walked through a show of landscape paintings at the Vancouver Art Gallery I came across Emily Carr’s 'Scorned as Timber' and right away realized the reason for thinking my two trees looked like a picture, [was] because Emily Carr had made a similar scene into a picture, and I unconsciously remembered it and duplicated it. All photographers do this, go out looking for pictures, and, finding pictures that have been taken before, duplicate them. There’s little original seeing in the world of photography (painting too I suspect but know too little to comment) and few photographers admit it."

That's an outstanding brief explanation, wonderfully well illustrated, of something that I did so much when I first got into photography that it almost drove me to distraction. I noticed again and again that I was talking pictures that looked like they were taken by any one of a variety of famous photographers whose work I had internalized. Like I was "channeling" them, as the expression is.

Like John I'm convinced that we all do this to some extent—beginners especially. We "learn what photographs look like" and then we go out and take those photographs. (Although, unlike John, I don't believe it means there's "little original seeing in the world of photography.") The impetus is simple—we recognize pictures as pictures from having seen them as pictures.

Garry Winogrand also talks eloquently about this in a talk that's now on YouTube. ("We know too much about what photographs are supposed to look like...." I'd have my assistant look up the link—we've featured it here on TOP—but he's disorganized, and it would take him forever. [UPDATE: Stephen Gilbert found it.]) How many of us start out "wanting to be" someone? Wanting to be Ansel Adams or Henri Cartier-Bresson, or Rui Palha or Valerie Jardin? Many great photographers start out wanting to be someone else, inspired by that person, and then gradually become themselves.

I'm not sure what John Denniston writes about is exactly "influence," though...it might more properly be called "unconscious imitation" or "semi-conscious imitation." Note that he rejected his imitated "two trees" photograph. I often rejected my semi-conscious imitations too, even when I didn't quite know why. I just knew it wasn't quite...well, me. Do you know that feeling? When you've taken a picture you feel sure other people will like but it's not really "you"? Personally I took "a Callahan," "a Weston," "a Friedlander"...on and on. I had to work through that phase to get it out of my system.

...Enough for now, but I've certainly enjoyed the comments in the past few days. These issues always interest me (although if I don't stop writing long posts like this I won't have any readers left!).

Thanks to all.

Mike

*I've gone back to capitalizing "Internet," thanks to Kevin Purcell and Hugh Crawford.

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Michael G.: "It's refreshing that we can have so much commentary about the importance of artistic convictions and journalistic integrity in photography. It's like there's a rally to preserve something sacred, even though no one agrees what that sacred part is. The running commentary here is exciting to read. I hope you keep coming back to this topic. It's got legs to run in Peoria and Albuquerque, a movie hack might say.

"My own opinion is that we're all somewhat afraid of being accused of fraud. This is why Hitchcock made so many movies with Cary Grant about an innocent man on the run, trying to prove he's not guilty. He knew people love a story they can project themselves into easily, where they can watch themselves out-smart their nightmares. And when they got tired of that, he made stories about horrible criminals being brought to some sort of just ending.

"And this story has a bit of both."

hans berkhout:

"Here is another deja vu: Artist Joanna Moen: Stairwell, acrylic, 1992, purchased from the artist by Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Accession Number: 1992.168.003 in 1993."

Mike replies: The inspiration probably came to her in a dream.

[Ed. note: Google "Kertesz Mondrian Studio" if you don't recognize this.]

Doug Thacker: "I mentioned in an earlier comment that I was in Australia in the year 2000. Australia was actually my first stop in a planned, year-long, independent photo tour through south-southeast Asia, most of it in India. I was sitting in a bookstore in Sydney when they put out McCurry's newly-released book, South Southeast. The images in this book, many of them, were evocative and striking, particularly those taken in various parts of Rajasthan. I couldn't believe my luck, since I was headed through some of the very same territory, and would have the chance to try my own hand at it.

"Rajasthan turned out to be a revelation for a lot of reasons. Not the least of them was that it wasn't the same place pictured in McCurry's book. The photos in South Southeast are of figures isolated in a serene, clutter-free environment, seemingly oblivious to the photographer. The reality I encountered there was that a Westerner with an SLR stood out like a giant neon billboard. It was impossible to disappear in a crowd, and many people expected you were going to pay them as soon as they saw the camera. Rajasthan was pretty much off the Western tourist map at the time, which made expectation of payment seem particularly odd. And with all the people about, and their awareness of you and your camera, you could stand in one spot for eight minutes or eight days and not get the kind of shots I'd seen in McCurry's book. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that these photos of his would have had to be staged.

"It's been mentioned on this blog before that National Geographic photography was something of a joke in art circles. This is due in part, I think, to its somewhat straitlaced character—derided by some as 'corporatist' or 'colonialist.' There was no doubt, though, that it was highly competent, and often evocative; so, in my efforts to improve my own shooting, I looked into their process. Your readers who are or were National Geographic photographers might want to weigh in on this, but my understanding is that once flown in to their assignment, photographers were expected to shoot a minimum of four hundred eighty shots a day. Pull out your calculator and you'll find this comes to one shot a minute for eight hours straight. These shots couldn't be random, of course, but had to be actually working towards something. For longer assignments, the photographer would travel back to Washington halfway through, where he or she would confer with the editors to see if the photographer was on track with expectations. Then, it was back to finish the assignment.

"When you think about that kind of pressure, it becomes perhaps understandable that a photographer would, say, use speedlights and gels to simulate light from a campfire, or have his fixer arrange locals with props into a scene the photographer sees with his mind's eye. Which makes me think McCurry couldn't have been the only National Geographic photographer taking a few creative liberties.

"When I returned from my trip, I started a thread on a website popular at the time, where I contended that many of Steve McCurry's photos were staged. We had a vigorous discussion about it. I recently did a Google search, looking for this thread, but it would seem it's been deleted. Anyway, it was nice to have my contention finally confirmed by the Kshitij Nagar piece. What's really vexing about this affair is not so much the staging and the Photoshopping, but that so many people don't get it, don't get why it's a problem. The whole point of photojournalistic photography, as typified by Winogrand, Frank, and H.C.-B., is to capture a slice or frame from reality without your intercession. If you can't do that, or don't want to do it, just say so. Anything less is lying, pure and simple. The only good thing about lies is that they're eventually found out. Lies are funny that way."

Steve McCurry is Not a Jerk

When arguing about the ethics of "photoinvention"—going past the line of correction and into creation in constructing images—I strongly suspect that peoples' stance on the issue has to do primarily with justifying their own practice. That is, if you clone all kinds of stuff yourself, then you don't see anything wrong with Photoshopping. If you don't even when you're tempted to, then you can be critical of it.

But you see (apropos last Sunday), that's an example of my primary belief system or basic outlook being psychological; I tend to look for internal motivations in the actor/speaker first.  :-)

Funnamennals
Let's go over some basics.

When it's someone's job to give other people a report about what's going on, that person is enjoined, formally and by custom, to try to be honest, impartial, and objective. There are several parts to this. First, they're obligated to do the work of understanding what they're reporting on. There are a number of tried-and-true ways to go about that—go there; spend enough time; take a fresh look and see for yourself; talk to people who are caught up in it, whatever it is, or who are experts in it in whatever way; look into background information; attempt to see conflicting views from both sides; and so on. Most of these methods are well understood and are part of the process, resources permitting.

Next, that person is asked to suppress their own opinions, their partisanship, and their biases, so as not to give a skewed or one-sided report by omission or commission. To do this, they need to be aware of what those biases are. And, usually, they need another outlet to vent that bias and partisan opinion so it doesn't leak into their reporting, which is why editorials and opinion columns exist in traditional newspapers. In their respective opinion and editorial (Op-Ed) pages, the New York Times typically has a liberal and humanist slant, the Wall Street Journal a conservative and business-friendly one, and the Christian Science Monitor a religious and Christian one. But all three papers offer very good reporting outside of their Op-Ed content, because all three take their journalistic responsibilities seriously and try their best not to let their acknowledged biases intrude.

Does this mean that all reporting is perfectly true and objective?

Of course not. But we all realize that. People in the business (or who went to J-school) can cite chapter and verse: much thought and effort has gone into understanding all the ways that reporting can still be inaccurate. If you want a clean windowpane into the ways that current cultural assumptions influence reporting, for instance (just one of the ways in which reporting can be skewed), you have only to go back and read some articles from the 1950s, the 1920s, and the 1880s. The differences will jump out at you. We are of course not immune to the same thing—people will look back on 2016 and "see" our cultural assumptions—good and bad—clearly, in ways we cannot.

Similarly, photographs are (of course) not automatically "true." There are a myriad ways they can distort the report, so to speak. We understand most of those ways. And we understand them both in our roles as creators and as viewers. This is not a big secret.

But primary to good reporting, whether it is done with writing or with pictures, is the crucial matter of the intention to deceive vs. the intention to be honest. Reports have authors. Traditionally, those authors have editors riding herd on them, helping keep them on track and seeing to it that the necessary standards are upheld. When the medium is words, the authors are called reporters, and when it's pictures, they're called photojournalists and editorial photographers (i.e., photographers who illustrate fact-based articles). All the players follow the rules and do their best.

When this system works, which admittedly it does only a small percentage of the time, the results can be superlative. The greatest photo essays and the finest journalistic investigations can, and have, changed the world. But most good journalism doesn't change the world: it just informs us about it and gives us insight into it. Which is good, because you can't look into everything firsthand on your own. In fact, arguably the primary advantage conferred to our species by language and communication is that we can learn things we need to know from other people, such that we're not limited to knowing only what we ourselves can find out about firsthand.

When this is cynically manipulated, it's called "propaganda." Or, at a more basic level, "lies." (And if you're unclear about the distinction between "telling the truth" and "telling a lie," brush up. Go figure it out. It's not that tough.) And this brings up another crucial point: as viewers and readers, if our interest is in gaining insight about reality and furthering our understanding of the world and its affairs, we have a fundamental decision to make: how much to trust our various sources. And in that project—that ongoing, always provisional project—two things help a lot: one, that we understand the basic motives and interests of the authors of the reports we're getting (another important function of the traditional Op/Ed section), and two, that they tell us what they're doing, what set of rules they're adhering to.

Because, of course, not everyone is doing the same thing. Again formally and by custom, we've separated different pursuits into different categories. It's easier to trust an author when we know what they're up to and which category their work falls into. Some "fiction," you'll note, is designed as a way of getting closer to certain truths; inventing characters can sometimes allow an author to explore areas of human thought and behavior that can't be verified (various historians have resorted to novels not to distort history but to more clearly convey their understanding of it). Other fiction doesn't do this—it might be meant only to entertain, or to conjure the "sustained dream" of an alternative reality into which the reader can escape, as if in a reverie of his or her own. Even within specific genres, aims and intentions can be different: science fiction might be purely fantastical, a device for slipping the mundane bounds of the everyday, or it might be seriously speculative, allowing a well-informed author to propose things that might actually plausibly happen in the future.

Own the authorship
Given the recent dust-up, I thought it was an irony to happen across an article on the Web titled "See India Through Steve McCurry's Lens." Ironic because when you add and subtract elements, you're explicitly departing from the view through the lens.

As I see the whole affair from my distant viewpoint here in the hinterlands, the current problem with Mr. McCurry is simply that his background is in photojournalism and editorial photography, and he markets himself using those credentials, and his primary affiliations (National Geographic magazine and Magnum Photos) inhabit those universes, and his current work seems to all appearances to be a seamless continuation of all that earlier work—same look, same subjects, same approach. But, by the clear standards of his now-known-to-be-former profession(s), he got caught cheating. So now he has to engineer a clumsy coverup (really sort of a primer on why not to do a coverup and all the ways it can be done badly), and start mumbling about how, yeah, things really shouldn't be added or subtracted using Photoshop, and I promise to be good from now on, and whimper whimper.

But to heck with all that. If I were Steve McCurry, I'd embrace the new me. Revise the mission statement. I'd say to the world, Hey, you're right, I'm not a photojournalist. I used to be, and I was good at it, but lately I've become a storyteller, and I'm even better at that. My work is a lyrical, romanticized view of the exotic Third World of my imagination—my personal interpretation of how I like to look at the magical, mysterious qualities of distant lands and disappearing peoples. I used to be a reporter but then I discovered what I'm really interested in doing. My work is based on reality, and it starts out being photographic and sometimes stays that way, but I'm first and foremost a photo-illustrator and an artist.

Would anybody have any problem with that? Raise your hand. Anybody here? Anybody anywhere? I doubt it. I wouldn't, even though I'm partial to "straight" photography personally. Like I would have a problem with somebody growing as an artist and evolving thoughtfully and forthrightly into his more authentic self? Not a chance.

Why not just be who you already are? The guy shouldn't Photoshop less, he should Photoshop more. Heck, it's how he sees, even when he doesn't clone a thing. That article title should be, "See India Through Steve McCurry's Eyes." Own the authorship.

Embrace it. Go all in. It's clear that's what he wants to be and what he's best at. 

Just...be clear about it, is all. Don't be one thing while you let on that you're another. As a bonus, when you stand tall and walk straight, all manner of things are forgiven.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Bill Pierce: "In the early and mid 'eighties, when we were all young, a bunch of us were covering the war in Lebanon. Don McCullin was the best among us, but it was a pretty solid group with Dirck Halstead, Robin Moyer, Gene Richards, Bill Foley and a bunch of others who have gone on to do fairly well as old photographers who don’t get shot at any more. Our publications wanted to see war. National Geographic had Steve McCurry shooting the religious leaders. Steve probably had just as much a chance of being somewhere in Beirut that got bombed as we had. We were shooting what our publications thought was important. Steve was shooting what his publication thought was important. Our pictures could never be as moving and life changing as the what we were photographing. Steve’s pictures might have been more dramatic than what he was photographing.

"All of us are shaped by what we did when we were young. The news publications gave some of us amazing educations that went far beyond what we learned in school. I don’t think Steve got the same education. He was unique. Geo sent him into dangerous situations that their other photographers never entered. But, somehow and not surprisingly, what they published always seemed more distanced from the events than what appeared in the news publications. Steve is currently getting criticized for using his computer to clean up his images and make them a little 'prettier.' I think the criticism is valid. But I also think Steve is a good guy who was told early in the game to make his pictures pretty."

Verve: "McCurry is still a great photographer—one of the best. I think he described the problem accurately in his mea culpa. The problem is confusion: people thinking he is still a photojournalist when he isn't. I don't know whether or how much McCurry himself contributed to that confusion. Considering his renown and reputation as a photojournalist, it seems that he should have put a disclaimer somewhere to avoid this confusion."

Bob Rosinsky: "Re 'Just...be clear about it, is all. Don't be one thing while you let on that you're another. As a bonus, when you stand tall and walk straight, all manner of things are forgiven.' The crux of the matter: Interpretative/embellishment is one thing and reportage is another. McCurry failed to acknowledge artistic license. Deceit is unacceptable. It's akin to bait and switch. His Photoshop skills are lacking. And I am glad for that."

Mike adds: Note that Verve and Bob are saying the same things, but Verve sympathetically, Bob less so.

Steve McCurry Defends Himself, Sort Of

You probably remember the discussion about famed photojournalist editorial photographer visual storyteller Steve McCurry's overuse of Photoshop cloning, which provoked heated debate here and elsewhere. Steve McCurry today addressed his critics—well, sort of—in an exclusive article published this morning at TIME magazine's website. 

It's a strange, unsatisfying little article. McCurry vaguely claims it's all a category error: "I’ve always let my pictures do the talking, but now I understand that people want me to describe the category into which I would put myself, and so I would say that today I am a visual storyteller."

Alternated with his comments are comments by National Geographic’s director of photography, Sarah Leen. She first explains how great he is, then says sternly that his manipulations would never be tolerated by National Geographic. He then tells the story of how a National Geographic cover photo of his was doctored, and she says yeah but that was a long time ago and "it would never happen now."

Who's on whose side here?

The article concludes with McCurry saying that he can do anything he wants to do but that "going forward, I am committed to only using the program in a minimal way."

The original PetaPixel story has been shared over 25,000 times, according to Sharkey James's PetaPixel Photography Podcast episode 76, titled "Is Steve McCurry’s Legacy Imploding?" An update to the second of PetaPixel's articles notes that McCurry's entire blog was taken down after a number of manipulated images were discovered on it.

Meanwhile, McCurry himself appears to be hiding—more than one outlet reports that they can't get an answer to repeated emails and requests for comment.

In the podcast, James compares McCurry's fall from grace to Bill Cosby's, given the high stature and wide admiration his work once enjoyed and the dismay and disillusion these revelations have caused. Which seems a bit over the top, unless you concede that the scandal is having wider repercussions across the whole profession. Perhaps most damning, though, are these harsh words from a long article published by the NPPA (National Press Photographers Association), in an article called "ETHICS MATTERS: A commentary from NPPA’s Ethics Committee regarding the photographs of Steve McCurry," written by Steve Raymer, professor emeritus of the Media School at Indiana University and a former NPPA Magazine Photographer of the Year:

NPPA Ethics Committee chairman Sean D. Elliot says that no matter what McCurry calls himself today, “He bears the responsibility to uphold the ethical standards of his peers and the public, who see him as a photojournalist. [...] Any alteration of the journalistic truth of his images, any manipulation of the facts, regardless of how relevant he or others might feel they are to the deeper ‘truth,’ constitutes an ethical lapse.” Elliot also called McCurry’s attempt to blame an assistant “disingenuous” and questions the professional standards of a studio in which a lab assistant “feels they have the authority to radically alter the work of Steve McCurry.”

So was it our fault, for thinking he was a photojournalist and editorial photographer and was following the very clearly delineated and universally accepted rules of ethical practice of those professions? Guess so. In this morning's TIME article he says, "Reflecting on the situation…even though I felt that I could do what I wanted to my own pictures in an aesthetic and compositional sense, I now understand how confusing it must be for people who think I’m still a photojournalist."

Doesn't sound like much of a mea culpa.

The moral of this mess seems to be, if you want to claim you're only tellin' stories, best do it up front.

Mike
(Thanks to Pak WAN)

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Steve Jacob: "Tellin' tales? Sounds about right...."

John Camp (partial comment): "This Sean Elliot quote really annoyed me: 'He bears the responsibility to uphold the ethical standards of his peers and the public, who see him as a photojournalist.' Oh, really? It's now the viewers who determine what the photographer can do? Maybe it's just me, but I haven't really thought of McCurry as a straight-up photojournalist for a while now...years, anyway."

glenn brown: "I do corporate headshots for blue chip companies and now people are asking for no Photoshop instead of lots.

"I also collect photographs, mostly B/W and pre-1980, but I did have a colour McCurry photo in pride of place in the entrance hall of my home. After a week I moved it to bathroom in the rear of my house. Just did not want it to hang with other images by Towell, Bailey and Newman. I feel better now."

Mark: "Let it be known that, while I am a photographer, I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor do I ever plan to be, a photojournalist. Now, back to my Photoshopping. did i get the commas right?"

Mike the Ed. replies: You did. But not the capitals in your final sentence.  :-)

Rich Reusser: "...A more apt comparison than Cosby might be Lance Armstrong. Seems like Lance and Steve both blame the uneducated layman's expectations for their 'rule breaking' or simply doing what needed to be done as they'd have you believe."

Mike replies: The exact same thought occurred to me earlier. Cosby is better known, fell from far higher, meant more to more people, and did real harm.

Andrew Molitor: "It's just another nail in the coffin, another small step toward a world in which everyone assumes everything is 'Shopped.

"We've reached a world in which anyone who's paying attention knows that anything which looks like a photo could be 'Shopped. Anything that looks too good to be true should be viewed with suspicion.

"McCurry, with his venal 'Shopping of trivialities, is showing us that even if it doesn't look too good to be true, even if it looks perfectly possible, even mundane, it still could be 'Shopped, still should be viewed with suspicion.

"On the one hand, it was inevitable. That Pandora's box was opened a while ago, and it was only a matter of time before that particular creature escaped. On the other hand, way to go McCurry (heavy sarcasm)."

Ted: "Back around 15–20 years ago I considered trying to be a photojournalist/travel photographer. I had a lots of encouragement from friends and such and I had traveled extensively taking many photos. However I was always frustrated and discouraged by how my photos would somehow have so many more distracting elements and somehow just did not have the punch and pure style a guy like McCurry had, one of my absolute idols. I was a good photographer, very good, and still am. For a variety of reason I'm glad I did not pursue that direction (not that I would have succeeded but let's just say I found a way to make way more money and still very much enjoy my hobby), now seeing all this it all makes so much more sense now why so much of his work was so 'perfect.' It was a 'created/false perfection.' My impression of him and my awe of his work has shriveled considerably. Frankly I'm very depressed about it."

Faked-up Photos

Apropos yesterday, I'll just personally say that I'm not too interested in faked-up photographs. Photography works best for me when it respects the lens image.

My main objection to manipulating and "enhancing" photographs is that it makes photography into something less interesting than it is naturally. But, secondarily, I find surreptitious photo-illustration (what Steve McCurry or his anonymous now-fired assistant are in essence accused of practicing) to be just sort of, well, low. It strikes me as a shabby kind of dishonesty. If you're going to Photoshop sh*t, then do it, but do it boldly! If you're going to stage pictures, then really stage them! But to prettify pictures on the sly while pretending they're honest, that's what I don't like.

I personally often feel that overly idealized, overly prettified pictures are in bad taste. That's just my reaction to them. But I don't actually mind heavily edited or Photoshopped pictures. Maybe it's in bad taste when it's done on the sly, when it intends its shabby, mousey little deceptions. Like Jon Lovitz's famous pathological liar from long ago..."Yeah, yeah...there was no light pole there. That street was deserted, except for the thing I wanted to make a picture of. Sure it was! And that rickshaw had only two people in it...there was nobody in it who was laughing and looking at me. Yeah, that's the ticket!"

This is just my take on it, and in photography's house are many mansions. (John 14:2, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." I.e., there's room for everybody which means there's room for you.) If you want to Photoshop two people out of your rickshaw, don't feel constrained by me. Nobody owns photography, so I don't either.

If I were accused of Photoshoppery most foul, I'd use the Popeye Defense*. Put up ten of my most-manipulated photographs on my web page, showing all the edits and giving reasons for them, and say "this is how I work." No excuses. Anybody who doesn't like it can go, er...fly a kite. (Yeah, that's it.)

I say if you're gonna be a photo-illustrator and go nuts with Photoshop, go ahead—just don't slink around in the ethical shadows about it. Do it strong and bold, and up front.

Mike

* "I yam what I yam."

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The Ugliness of Beautification

First Teju Cole and now this—when it rains it pours for a guy.

You've probably heard by now that Steve McCurry is the latest to be caught up in a manipulation scandal. PetaPixel has reported that several examples of excessive Photoshopping of McCurry photos have come to light. A Facebook user named Gianmarco Maraviglia found this example:

Study that for a couple of minutes and you can see how deep the changes go. Not as bad, arguably, as the example of the soccer-playing boys on PetaPixel where a whole person was removed. A photograph is in part a witness, and that's part of what makes it unique: At that moment, that boy was there. He might not have been, but he was. The look of the world is inconvenient to our picture-contriving intent. But that's part of what makes it so mysterious and rich.

By the late 1970s, the fundamental difference between photography and all the other methods of creating visual art had been worked out more or less completely. Photography was a matter of "hand and eye," in the words of John Szarkowski, of recognition followed by the recording of the lens image more or less in an instant, and more or less as the lens saw it. Painting and other "plastic" (i.e., malleable) arts involved a back-and-forth over time: look, contemplate, evaluate, make changes; look, contemplate, evaluate, make more changes; and so on over and over, a process that could continue for days or weeks or even years.

Something like the example above is way beyond the pale for photojournalism, but we now accept that photojournalism sets itself apart with higher standards than most less rigorous photographic pursuits care to hold themselves to. But it's a good example both of the slippery slope—once you start cleaning up the messy little details, where do you stop?—as well as the reason why I initially advocated, in the late '90s and early 2000s, that the new medium be called digital imaging rather than photography because the two were essentially different media. (I still think they are, but that battle is lost of course. Although we do refer to "images" now, not "pictures" as we used to, and that change paralleled the rise of digital imaging.) The "matter of hand and eye" has taken three steps towards painting. The example above is unquestionably now a photo illustration, not a photograph.

I'm almost certain that someone will chime in with the usual knee-jerk response that pictures could be manipulated in the darkroom as well, and of course they could. But wholesale changes—the photojournalistic baseline sanction against adding or subtracting objects and elements—was much more difficult to do in the darkroom, and much less likely to leave no trace. And I mean by orders of magnitude, not merely by degrees. It wasn't just that National Geographic photographers turned over their film to the labs and the editors saw the original transparencies.

The first illustration on the PetaPixel page is essential a "Photoshop disaster," albeit a modest one, and when PetaPixel reached out to Steve McCurry for a statement they got back several paragraphs that seemed very close to boilerplate in tone, which concluded with the kind of thing a politician might say when caught red-handed: mistakes were made, the person responsible will no longer be working for us, etc. Mr. McCurry hasn't responded about the above image yet.

So my question here is, is this just the new norm? Should we just give up on the idea of the photograph as a report of what was in front of the lens when the picture was made?

I clean up my pictures too. Sometimes—rarely, but sometimes—I do more. For instance, take a look at this recent illustration to a TOP post:

Here's the OOC JPEG:

You probably can't see the main change in that, so here's a hint:

Just a little joke (that quite a few people did get, by the way). So would I have done that if I were a working photojournalist? No way. Wouldn't have considered it.

But does it make the picture into a photo illustration and not a photograph?

It might, and here's why. Even though it's a small change, it's also distinctly an editorial or authorial comment added by me, and makes a point in relation to meaning...to wit, I'm likening John Coffer—tintype evangelist—to an Old Testament prophet by giving him a "halo." It's a very small change in the picture—just move a light fixture a bit—but you might even argue that my change is more substantive than the changes in the McCurry example above. He (or his minions) just cleaned up the background, made the picture more pictorial and painterly. I, on the other hand, added an implied meaning. So it's not the amount of change in an image that's probative.

And then there's the even thornier matter of processing decisions and how they change the "feel" of an image. For that matter, does the fact that I turned the photograph into black-and-white make it a photo illustration and not a photograph? It's not the way the X-T1 "sees." If it had been made with a Leica M-Monochrom, you couldn't argue that the change to B&W was deliberate. But the camera industry doesn't make the cameras I need to do the work I want to do, so I'm forced to adapt and use the tools that are available. But does that make me into an illustrator rather than a photographer? Color to B&W is a pretty big change, and a departure from observable reality.

No doubt Steve McCurry's reputation is going to take a hit over this (and it certainly underlines some of the things Teju Cole was claiming about his work). And that's too bad. But while I support news organizations in their efforts to maintain the "witnessing" property of photographs, I suspect it's a rear-guard fight and that we're just in a new era now. Photography used to have an irrepressible strain of subversiveness, persistently trying to insist on the look of the world even when it was chaotic and inconvenient, even when it didn't fit what we wanted to see. That has changed. We have the upper hand now.

Mike
(A number of readers sent links to this)

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david stock: "Re 'By the late 1970s, the fundamental difference between photography and all the other methods of creating visual art had been worked out more or less completely.' Completely perhaps, but temporarily. Photography was never automatically truthful; it always relied for its power on a culturally-mediated tension between the objective and the subjective. The medium is all about editing the visual world to make a statement or evoke emotion. In doing so, it often relies on an implicit 'deal' between the photographer and the viewer about how the things depicted by the photographer are 'truthfully' (or at least convincingly) represented. That deal is changing rapidly because the medium is changing rapidly. It was never set in stone. Eventually we may reach a new normal, with new conventions, where photographers and viewers know more or less where we stand once again.

"In the meantime, things are messy, and viewers who are used to the old conventions sometimes feel cheated out of our expectations. (Myself included.) Still, it's probably healthy to challenge photography's 'truthfulness' every generation or so."

David (partial comment): "As someone who has spent the better part of a decade working in the news industry, I find it absolutely shocking when the World Press Photo organisation reveals that more than 20% of submissions in the 2015 contest were manipulated beyond widely accepted norms. That someone like McCurry should find himself in such a situation is disheartening."

Jacques Leonard: "Ah, do I miss the good old times when Bolsheviks where the only ones manipulating photographs!"

Michael: "Interesting, very interesting. It was you, Mike, who first alerted me to the fact that RAW files are quite muddy looking, sort of like life. The first photo of the guys and the rickshaw is to my eye very like life, in that it is the monsoon and everything does get muddy and sodden, downbeat, including the light—until the sun comes out, and then the greens knock your eyes out, as do the signs, the shirts, and the saris. So I'm less displeased by the hypersaturation as a lack of fidelity to journalistic standards than as a lack of fidelity to a kind of light. It's as if the photographer has seen, not what was in front of the camera, but what was on every glossy ad page. Who knows, maybe it could be a professional deformation: if you depend on a public at that level and to that extent, you may end up following the public rather than leading it."

Andy DeBruyn: "I went to photography school back in 1975, the Art Institute of Boston. We had a very good photojournalism class. This question of manipulating images, including physically moving something in the scene came up quite a bit. If I remember correctly, the consensus was, including the instructor, that once you bring a camera up to your eye and you're looking through the viewfinder and selecting the frame, all bets are off. You're already manipulating reality. You can frame selected people in or out, you can use a telephoto to compress and make it look like they are more people at the event, dutch the camera a bit to make it more chaotic, etc. Burning and dodging can add or subtract drama. Heavy burning on the edges did get rid of a lot of 'distracting' items. Photojournalists are not exempt from these practices. They ask people to move, they re-position a visual item, flag, briefcase, etc. It's done all the time. The great photographer Eugene Smith in his photos of Minamata (not to take anything away at from the horror of the issue) darkened some of the images drastically to add the yoke of gravitas. I'm sure if Photoshop was around at the time he would have manipulated the images the same, perhaps even removing some background elements.

"It's all about selling the frame."

Stephen J: "This stuff is only important if you have a predisposition to want to change things to fit your reality map. I mentioned this the last time this subject came up... If you have an agenda about war and peace, about green nonsense, about leftyism, about civil strife... You want to be able to rely on what you are looking at. You want to be able to show this to the world and say, 'look what those people have done to us,' or something of that kind. Ask a dozen witnesses, what they saw when the bank was robbed, and every one of them saw something different, but broadly the same. Well Steve McCurry saw what he saw, but wanted to see something slightly different, in order to sell his art... So what? His pictures are just fine. Read the newspaper, do you believe what the journalist wrote, or was it just his opinion, or more likely, his reworking of a press agency's report? Truth is very different to everyone, and impossible to pin down."

Mike replies: Really? Is it? So before you sit down in a chair, you're uncertain if the chair is really there? Look at those two pictures by McCurry again. Do you believe the laughing man in the rickshaw was there in the rickshaw during the fraction of a second when Steve McCurry took the photograph, or do you believe he wasn't there? How much certainty do you have of your answer—none? Do you have to throw up your hands and give up on the question? Do you find it impossible to pin down the truth?

Graham Byrnes: "I really don't care much, but I find it amusing that in almost all regards, I prefer the first version."

shelley Stallings: "I have no problem stating that I prefer the second print and so no issue with the 'manipulation' of the original image. I do not see how the photographer changed the basic story the first image was telling the viewer. Removing distraction which do not change 'the story' is fine with me. Changing exposure, saturation, contrast to have the image 'look' like what the photographer 'saw' in his/her mind when the image was captured is also fine with me. In journalistic photography, the photographer should not manipulate the image so the story is so changed the meaning is lost."

Florian Kleinefenn: "I think the first original picture was very good, imperfect, with lots of 'subject noise' (things disturbing the initial picturing intention). Perfection seems to me most of the times boring. When a picture transports only intention, we don't get the world, which is much more complex than human will. I prefer by far the first unretouched (?) picture of the rickshaw because of its relationship between intention and accident. The alterations just made it academic."

John Camp: "I'm an absolutist when it comes to photojournalism: don't mess with the picture. If you're using photography for another purpose, then I don't mind the manipulation, and in fact, I expect it. I can promise you that ninety percent of the houses you see in real estate photos don't look like the photographs in the brochure; and that ninety percent of the actresses you see in publicly shots don't look like that.

"But the lie is never in the photo—the lie is in the presentation by the photographer. If the photo is presented implicitly or explicitly as the unvarnished truth, and its been varnished, so to speak, then somebody's lying. It's not the photo, which can't lie, because it's just paper and ink. It's the photographer.

"In regard to the [McCurry] photos, it seems to me that somebody was making some pretty good aesthetic judgments. That cart full of apples or whatever they are, on the right, really pulls your eye in that direction and away from what should be the center of interest. Getting rid of it brings you back to the main focus of the photo, and the red shirt, with the legs removed, does the same thing—pulls your eye right to the center. I'd have to say, by the way, that this story does not particularly surprise me. McCurry's photos, and indeed many National Geographic photos, have always looked 'processed' to me. And, of course, NatGeo has been caught at it before, as in the famous photo in which they moved the pyramids to improve the composition of a photo (a cover shot, I believe.)"

Steve L.: "It's anyone who says McCurry shouldn't be allowed to make personal artistic photographs because Wikipedia says he's a 'photojournalist' that I find ridiculous. The rickshaw in the rain image is wonderful, I would have made most of the same changes. I have no problem with anything he's done. He says right in his response to Petapixel that he allows himself more freedom in his personal photography. That's exactly as it should be. And as far as National Geographic goes, I've been involved in photography for over forty years, and subscribed to the magazine for about the same amount of time. Not once have I considered it a 'news source.' It wouldn't bother me a bit if it turns out many of the photos from its pages have been 'manipulated.' That magazine is all about beautiful photography, and those kinds of photographs don't just fall out of the camera the way you purists seem to think they should. It'd be an ugly magazine otherwise."

Daniel: "Pixelography is a term I coined for the digital manipulation, usually far beyond most darkroom dodging and burning. If the image above(and others) are journalism—this is a major breach of ethics. Even though Eugene Smith did it—it is still a major breach of ethics. If it is art it does not matter. Not until you try passing it off as the truth. Lying in images is like everything else; it may be acceptable but it is still lying. 'Artistic license' is a whole different animal as it is interpretation and creation, not reporting reality in images."

Ken: "This situation reminds me of the changes that once got Art Wolfe in trouble. Like Wolfe, Steve McCurry was also rumored to manipulate and pose his subjects. But as with the Wolfe case, this crosses a different line.

"Having previously defended Steve McCurry's work—and having long enjoyed it—I am rather disappointed to see this. I most certainly don't agree with removing people who are in the middle of the picture, but I am not opposed to cropping out someone entering the frame from the edge who is half-visible. I also would not hesitate to remove a beer can from an otherwise very nice landscape photo. For me, cropping a photo and deleting minor pieces of trash/distracting elements are acceptable changes, while removing an entire person from the key part of the image that you display is not. Does that make me a hypocrite, because after all I am altering the picture too, even if only just a little? And where do we draw the line?"

"As for McCurry and Wolfe, I still like their work, but would never again consider either's work as anything but photographic art—with an emphasis on art."

Mike replies: Re "where do we draw the line?"—that is the question, for sure.

John Seidel: "Interesting. When I first saw this post, it took me a while to see the missing guy. Then I forgot about it. Coming back to it a few days later, I find, beyond the obvious contrast and color enhancements, an amazing number of changes. Starting from the left side:

1. An awning is gone.
2. Most but not all of another rickshaw behind the front rickshaw is gone.
3. White area in background over left passenger's head is gone.
4. Smiling guy is gone.
5. Another guy peering past blue guy is gone.
6. Blue guy's foot is deformed and something has been taken out between his feet.
7. The telephone pole behind blue guy is gone.
8. Green sign has had the color muted.
9. Something on the ground next to the missing pole is gone.
10. Person in red shirt in background is gone.
11. Part of the shirt of that missing person is now something on the counter.
12. Stuff that was on the ground around red shirt is gone.
13. Stuff on the right side of shop counter is gone.
14. Lights in the shop in the background are gone.
15. Telephone pole on the right side is gone.
16. Stuff behind the missing pole in front of shop counter is gone.
17. The guy in white is partly missing, partly transformed.
18. The cart on the right side of the photo is gone.

"I am surprised that I saw little of this at first glance. Photographers' choice, of course. Not something I would choose to do, though. Partly inclination, partly lack of skill with Photoshop. Mostly inclination. All photography is manipulation. We all choose where to stop altering reality to fit what we see in our mind's eye. And for those who think that there is a thing called 'straight' photography, eschewing manipulation for reality, read The Negative and The Print by Ansel Adams."

A Clarification of the Vivian Maier Case

Guest post by Kevin Purcell

Regarding the Vivian Maier lawsuit settlement, I think Mike went hyperbolic on this one in his post last Friday. The fact that the owners of the prints and negatives and the estate have come to an agreement is good news for everyone.

The law is quite simple and, no, this case is not a distortion of copyright law. It's straightforward probate law and copyright law. The difficult bit was the genealogy. I explained that (accurately, even though I am not a lawyer) in this previous comment.

The simple version is that Vivian Maier's prints and negatives were sold before she died to clear a storage debt (that's contract law). The prints and negatives were never part of the estate and are clearly owned by John Maloof (and others who sold them on). But buying prints and negatives doesn't mean the buyer owns the copyright to them. The copyrights stayed with Vivian (whilst alive) and then with her estate (once she had died), which is administered by Cook County, Illinois, where she died. Vivian died intestate (i.e., without a will) and it's the Cook County Probate Department's duty to find her closest heirs and to transfer the property (the copyright, in this case) to them. As detailed in the New York Times article "The Heir's Not Apparent," David Deal just pointed out to Cook County that there's another heir lurking in the family tree that John Maloof didn't have a copyright agreement with.

Neither Cook County nor David Deal are the bad guys here. They are the good guys: they are finding the rightful owners of the copyright and putting them in contact with the owners of the copyrighted objects. The rest is business negotiation over filing copyright registration (which needs copies of the images).

One statement in the article goes against previous reporting: "At the center of the case is an unusual situation: A woman who died virtually penniless and without any clear heirs now has an estate potentially worth millions of dollars." They seem to take the witty title of the New York Times article cited above too literally. She apparently does have clear heirs (and there may be two first cousins once removed). The problem was they weren't clear at the beginning due to faulty genealogy. That they're "laughing heirs"—i.e., they didn't know they were heirs—doesn't make them any less heirs to the estate.

John Maloof, we now know, did violate copyright in publishing her images without a license from all the heirs; but he made a deal with the one heir he found so he did attempt to clear the copyright before publication. David Deal pointed out that this wasn't the only heir (and that Maloof's genealogy had been mistaken). There was also a bit of cage rattling from Deal over "copyright infringement" to get Maloof's attention and to set the scene for negotiation. I suspect that all that this means is he pays royalties to use the images he used in his books and film under the deal which gives the estate access to the negatives and prints to allow copyright registration of all the images and films.

Everybody wins (the heirs; Maloof; and the photography establishment, for finding a new photographer) if the settlement is finalized, because we will see more of her photos being reproduced. It would be nice to see what the agreement is, but we have to wait for it to be unsealed after May 10.

Crazy copyright law? Not in this case
People who are placing the blame on the deficiencies in copyright law here aren't understanding the law. There are problems with current copyright law, but this case doesn't exhibit any of them.

The status of copyright on this work and who it resides with is unambiguous. The Estate of Vivian Maier holds the copyright on this work as it passed to it when the original copyright holder, Vivian Maier, died. She didn't publish during her lifetime so there is no chance that copyright expired earlier; only current copyright law applies.

That's the one thing that's clear about this case.

The fundamental problem is the tangible objects (the negatives, the prints and the movies) aren't owned by the estate. They were purchased by other people when Vivian Maier was alive so they aren't part of the estate created at her death.

The owners of these objects don't have to give them to the estate. They bought them when the storage facility sold them off (following the contract at the storage facility to sell items when the fees weren't paid). So the owners of the objects own them like you own your car or camera. But the owners of the objects can't make commercial use of them by making copies (i.e. prints, books, films) because they don't own the copyright. That right resides with the estate.

Cook County won't get to register copyright for the estate until an agreement is made with the people who hold the objects unless as an act of goodwill those people provide low-res copies of the images. But without the prospect of an agreement, the owners of the objects have no incentive to cooperate.

It was clear how to resolve this problem. All sides needed to negotiate a commercial contract between the estate and the owners of the objects. Then, both can make money by publishing the images and dividing the proceeds. This seems to have been done—we'll find out the details tomorrow, when the terms of the agreement are unsealed by the judge.

Copyright law isn't broken. It's working here as intended: copyrights go to the estate and will last for 70 years after Maier's death (as the current law stands).

Probate law isn't broken either. It's Cook County's job to go to bat for the estate until an heir is found or the estate ends up with the State (as do all unclaimed estates). That's what probate law does. If you don't like it, make a will, or your estate will end up in probate.

Contract law isn't broken either. That's how the objects were sold initially. If you have a storage unit you have the same sort of contract.

Moral of the story: make a will. And pay your storage fees to avoid this problem happening to you.

Kevin

©2016 by Kevin Purcell, all rights reserved

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Manuel: "Allow me to put my cold lawyer's eye to this issue.

"It is important, previous to entering any discussion on copyright law, to understand the nature of the author's right as established by international agreements such as the Bern Convention. Copyright—or, more precisely, the rights that emanate from creating a legally protected work—bears an important divide: there's a monetary content on one side, and on the other a moral content. So, even if the word 'copyright' is primarily used to refer to the former sense, copyright is actually two separate rights under the same umbrella. The monetary aspect includes the author's right to sell the work—in which case all future profits from publishing, exhibiting or any other form of commercial exploration of the work belong to the purchaser, unless legally or contractually stated otherwise. Even in this case, though, the author keeps what is known in Rule of Law systems as the moral right over the work. This means that Mr. Maloof, by purchasing Vivian Maier's negatives, may have become the legal holder of the monetary rights, but he holds no moral rights over Vivian Maier's photographs. The latter are held by the authors themselves or their heirs. (In Vivian Maier's case, the moral rights belong to her estate until her heirs claim the heritage.)

"So, one thing is to have possession of the physical consubstantiation of the work, another is to hold authorial rights over it. They may coincide under the same holder, but not when the work is traded in any way. Let me exemplify: If I sell a photograph, I pass the physical content of my work to the purchaser, but unless agreed otherwise I am still its author and as such the purchaser needs my permission to publish, exhibit, sell prints or whatever.

"That's what this litigation is about: Vivian Maier's estate is rightfully claiming moral rights over her body of work. As Mr. Purcell correctly stated, 'Neither Cook County nor David Deal are the bad guys here.' I agree.

"I hope this casts further light on this subject brilliantly developed by Kevin Purcell. Law—under any form and any system—is founded on general principles. The separation between monetary and moral rights is one that has been at the inception of modern copyright laws, therefore knowing this fact is essential to understand what this discussion is all about."

John Camp: "There is, of course, a difference between the administration of the law (the discovery of the heirs, the proper application of the current copyright law, the determination of who owns the physical property) and the content of the law. A lot of people think that the copyright law, as it is now, was designed by indebted politicians to protect Disney copyrights to Mickey Mouse and other cartoon characters, and not in any way to really protect authors of original material or to promote publication, as the copyright law supposedly is intended to do. How does delivering money to a large corporation for seventy years after the death of the creator really serve the public interest?"

Mike replies: The opposite situation is instructive. Ulysses S. Grant worked assiduously on his memoirs at the end of his life, despite being grievously ill with cancer and unable to walk, because he had been bilked out of his fortune by a 19th-century Bernie Madoff and he was concerned that his wife would fall into poverty after his death. After Herculean effort and great determination, he died five days after the book was completed.

It became a bestseller, and by all accounts was quite a good book to boot (I haven't read it). The Grant family made $450,000 on it—more than $10 million in today's dollars—and his widow was able to live out her life comfortably on the proceeds. 

Crabby Umbo: "I don't understand why anyone thinks that the originator of intellectual property and their heirs shouldn't have the ability to earn an income off what they've created (and in fact, in 'perpetuity' as far as I'm concerned). Why is this 'insane' or 'ridiculous'?

"The only reason someone would be against this is if they are a 'stealer' of work and want the ability to profit from someones else's intellectual property solely because they bought the physical object. Moose [in the full Comments section —Ed.], I think, has it exactly wrong: when you buy any physical manifestation that constitutes intellectual property, you should never think you've bought anything other than the opportunity to look at it, listen to it, or read it. And what makes you think you should have more...?

"This is where the recording industry went wrong years ago by not making it crystal clear to people that they weren't buying anything but the ability to listen to music for their own enjoyment. The industry didn't worry about it because it was a self-destructive delivery vehicle of less quality than the original.

"I've also said repeatedly that I attended and graduated from an intellectual property rights and copyright course at the dawn of digital, and the class was virtually filled with people asking to what extent they could steal items off the internet to repackage or reuse to make money on, without getting caught or prosecuted; to the total exasperation of the attorney teaching the class. I found it interesting that the class wasn't filled with creatives trying to figure out how to safeguard their work, but 'suits' trying to figure out how to steal and repackage it! Keith above says that copyright law exists to encourage publishing, but I believe this to be incorrect. It exists to keep charlatans from stealing others work and profiting from it, and it exists to safeguard the originators of intellectual property. The written word (or a photograph) is much easier to steal than your car.

"Maloof is a hero for finding and preserving the work, and for searching, within his limited abilities, to find and make a deal with an heir. He's did all he could do or afford at the time. He's not in the wrong, it just needed to hit another level of research."

adamct: "Two comments: 1. I've been waiting for the day that lawyers get to shine on T.O.P. (however briefly)! Kudos to Kevin and Manuel. 2. My company has hired a 1st year law student as an intern for this summer. I sent her an e-mail today, in advance of her 1st year law school exams, in an attempt to reduce the related levels of absurd anxiety. With regard to Property (a subject that includes rules as incomprehensible and irrational as the 'life plus 70' rule in copyright—ask any lawyer about the Rule Against Perpetuities and they will run away screaming), I wrote: 'If Property doesn’t make any sense to you, it’s because it isn't a real subject. Property is just a perennial prank that law school professors like to pull on naïve young 1st years.'"

Mike replies: Maybe TOP should have a legal editor. As I did this time, I often get legal matters wrong, at least at first. At least I'm willing to stand corrected, as I was by Kevin this time....[sigh]

The Click Affair

Remember Melissa Click? She was the University of Missouri professor seen bullying a student photographer at a protest in a video taken by another student. (It's possible the photographer and videographer were "baiting" the protesters hoping for just such an incriminating confrontation, but the fact remains that they had the right to make photographs in that situation.)

Here's what I said about her in that post:

...a more serious issue is the woman seen at the end of the video...she is Melissa Click, an Assistant Professor of Mass Media in the Communication Department at the University of Missouri. She's clearly seen assaulting the videographer (her blow jolts the camera) and then inciting violence against his person, asking for "muscle" to help her "get this reporter out of here." (Keep in mind the "reporter" is a student.)

Is this appropriate behavior for a University faculty member? Even when acting out some fantasy of being a neo-1960s lawn-chair revolutionary, or whatever she thinks she's doing? Doesn't seem that way to a lot of people. The video of her unfortunate behavior went viral, and has created considerable backlash against her.

This morning she was fired from the University of Missouri for her actions on that occasion, and for her actions at an earlier protest. In a "Statement from University of Missouri leadership," Pam Henrickson, chair of the University of Missouri Board of Curators, said, in part:

After reviewing the report and Dr. Click’s response, and, after extensive discussion, the board voted last night in executive session to terminate the employment of Dr. Click. She has the right to appeal her termination. The board went to significant lengths to ensure fairness and due process for Dr. Click.

The board believes that Dr. Click’s conduct was not compatible with university policies and did not meet expectations for a university faculty member. The circumstances surrounding Dr. Click’s behavior, both at a protest in October when she tried to interfere with police officers who were carrying out their duties, and at a rally in November, when she interfered with members of the media and students who were exercising their rights in a public space and called for intimidation against one of our students, we believe demands serious action.

The board respects Dr. Click’s right to express her views and does not base this decision on her support for students engaged in protest or their views.  However, Dr. Click was not entitled to interfere with the rights of others, to confront members of law enforcement or to encourage potential physical intimidation against a student.

Mike
(Thanks to Mike Plews)

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Doug Thacker: "It's kind of delicious that this case centers around student photojournalism rights, and the perpetration of abuse against a student photojournalist, and that the perpetrating, professing doctor's name is Click. That's the sort of detail a writer like Vladimir Nabokov would add, and that a reader like me might both enjoy and think slightly contrived. But I digress before I've begun. (Always better to digress afterwards.)

"After reading several articles about the event, I watched the student photojournalist's video of it, both the short version and the unedited one. Each time I did I could feel the hair rising on the back of my neck and my blood pressure moving likewise.

"I can't quite convey what my immediate impulse was, probably because the language to do so would not be appropriate to your blog. And having not been there it's difficult to say for sure that I have a complete grasp of the situation. (I hate to be herded into an internet pile-on, only to find out later I was missing vital information.)

"But, honestly, it's hard to see how this so-called professor has a leg to stand on. Doing exactly the opposite of what any thinking person, never mind a university professor, should be doing. Where is the commitment to liberty, to free speech, to freedom of the press and the fourth estate? What was she teaching, Totalitarianism 101? Talk about setting a bad example. When next she appears it will be as media liaison for the NSA.

"The great thing about this, though, and perhaps the most surprising, is that the university fired her. From what I can tell she certainly had it coming. Sayonara, Dr. Click."

Mike replies: Yes, many people might not realize how difficult it is for a teacher or professor to be fired. The nail in Dr. Click's coffin might have been that in defending herself, she claimed she had never been involved in "altercations" before in her 12 years at the University—and then another video surfaced of her, at a different protest, getting in a cop's face and shrieking "get your f---ing hands off me." So that both indicated a pattern, and also undercut her credibility in her own defense of herself.

As for the "Internet pile on," the awkwardness for me is that I'm not reporting on, or analyzing, the entire larger situation. I'm just concerned with a small "kernal" inside the larger situation, which is that the student photojournalist was claiming he had a right to take pictures on the public Quad of a public protest, which he did, and he was being bullied, and was standing up for his rights. It's never hard to stand up for your rights when everyone accepts them. But it recent years (since Diana's death and especially since 9/11) photographers have been increasingly persecuted, and I think we need to continue to assert our rights, or we will lose them.

Don't Forget the Kids of the Pine Ridge

Photo by Aaron Huey

One of my regular charities is the Red Cloud School on the Pine Ridge Reservation. I learned about the school from photographer Aaron Huey, who did a National Geographic story about the Pine Ridge and gave an impassioned TED Talk about his experiences there. Aaron said that the Red Cloud Indian School is one of the beacons of hope on the reservation and one of the best ways to contribute to the Lakota people. I've given several times since, albeit modestly.

Red Cloud School graduates have gone to Princeton, Stanford, Dartmouth, Columbia, Creighton and Marquette; six former Red Cloud students have earned Ph.D.s; and Red Cloud School leads the country in Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholarship students for a school its size (about 50 students per graduating class). Great accomplishments on a reservation that encompasses the two poorest counties in the United States.

Or find another native cause to help! The United States has 550 recognized indigenous tribes and 310 reservations, rancherias, pueblos, and Indian colonies.

For an engaging look at life on the "rez," you might try The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, even though it was written for young adults. It's by Sherman Alexie, a multitalented writer who grew up on the Spokane Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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John Krumm: "Everything helps, and it's important. My wife works on the receiving end of programs like this as a director of a college med school program that recruits Native American students and supports their efforts once enrolled. She went through the same program herself in the '90s. Sherman Alexie is great too. We have given many copies of his books away and I used to use his stories when I taught H.S. American Lit."

The First Amendment

Are there any First Amendment lawyers in the audience?

At the suggestion of reader Ray Bosch, here is the text of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

And here's a brief explanation of what it means, from the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School.

This overview notes that freedom of speech and of the press has been extended by the Supreme Court to the entire Federal government and also to State governments, but it doesn't immediately address who else, outside of the government, might legally restrict speech. For instance, what right do colleges have to restrict free speech or the freedom of the press on their campuses? I don't know. Can anyone explain?*

Mike
(Thanks to Ray)

*Briefly?

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Anders: "The general rule was set out by the U.S. Supreme Court in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 US 503 (1969). Tinker says school administrators cannot punish students for speech that does not cause a substantial disruption to the operation of the school. Student journalist rights are limited by Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 US 260 (1988), which allows censorship of school-sponsored media that is not designated as a public forum for student expression."

Edward Taylor: "It is also important to note that the First Amendment does not guarantee no consequences for your speech. It just means there will be no government sanctions (with notable exceptions). A private business is permitted to fire you for what you say. You can be sued for slander for what you say, etc. The government cannot jail you for what you say or restrict what you say, again, with some exceptions."

University of Missouri Student Tim Tai Stands Up to Bullying Mob

Here's a fascinating six-and-a-half-minute video that provides a perfect microcosm of the challenges photographers face in standing up for their First Amendment rights. I think it provides a manageable opportunity for analysis and discussion of the issue. It shows a University of Missouri student photographer named Tim Tai calmly standing up for his rights...and by extension, all of ours.

The video, shot by Mark Schierbecker, shows Tim calmly facing down a mob of demonstrators that is attempting to bully him. Tim stands up for himself and repeatedly (and correctly) asserts and reasserts his right to be there and to take pictures; the students (and one professor, but I'll get to that) who are harassing him can resort only to the authority of the mob—they outnumber Tim, and they attempt to obstruct and intimidate him.

Other than "the mob rules," they have no other basis of authority.

Usually, the bullies we have to discuss are police or rent-a-cops and security guards. That sometimes clouds the issue because it makes it seem like the issue is photographers' stances regarding law enforcement officials and their authority.

It really isn't. Tim Tai is correct—as long as he is where he has a legal right to be, on public or community property, he can take pictures of anything and anyone who does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That right can't be taken away from him just because someone put up a hand-drawn lawn sign that says "No Media."

It really doesn't matter who is bullying him—it could be a chief of police or a renegade student mob, the bouncer of a nightclub or a worksite foreman worried about OSHA violations. He is within his legal rights.

Of course, that might not save him from violence.

In this case, a more serious issue is the woman seen at the end of the video (above). She is Melissa Click, an Assistant Professor of Mass Media* in the Communication Department at the University of Missouri. She's clearly seen assaulting the videographer (her blow jolts the camera) and then inciting violence against his person, asking for "muscle" to help her "get this reporter out of here." (Keep in mind the "reporter" is a student.)

Is this appropriate behavior for a University faculty member? Even when acting out some fantasy of being a neo-1960s lawn-chair revolutionary, or whatever she thinks she's doing? Doesn't seem that way to a lot of people. The video of her unfortunate behavior went viral, and has created considerable backlash against her.

Criticism of Professor Click's actions has since been taken up as a cause among conservative media. Mark Schierbecker appeared on Fox News, and last Wednesday filed a complaint against Click alleging simple assault. Professor Click issued a prepared statement of apology and regret, and resigned a courtesy appointment with the School of Journalism. However, she apparently retains her professorship in the Communication Department, so headlines on the Web such as "Melissa Click Resigns" give the wrong impression.

Student photojournalist Tim Tai, from his website

Freedom of the press
But back to Tim Tai. I agree with the Atlantic writer James Fallows, who wrote, "...in real time, under mounting pressure, [Tim Tai] shows intellectual and emotional composure anyone in our business would admire. The way the students (and some professors) are dealing with him is the way I’ve seen officials in China deal with reporters, which is not a comparison that reflects well on them."

Amen. The persecution and obstruction of journalists is indeed a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. And we all need to stand up for freedom of the press...whoever the bullies might be.

Mike
(Thanks to Mani Sitaraman)

*I tell ya, ya can't make this stuff up.

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

[CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post said, "He is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution" which I'm not sure it true, where it now says "he is within his legal rights." —Mike]

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Wes: "The University of Missouri consistently receives a top 10 national ranking for its journalism programs. It received the #1 ranking in 2014 by College Magazine. How does a university with the highest reputation for journalism education justify keeping employed a professor caught on video behaving contrary to everything they teach? I have lived in within 100 miles of Mizzou 46 of my 48 years and have always been proud of their standing in journalism education. But I can't say that right now. I know it's one rogue individual from a group of outstanding educators; but the university needs to make the statement that this won't be tolerated by letting this "professor" find a job elsewhere."

Art in LA: "It's ironic that this happened in the 'Show Me' state. From the mo.gov website... 'I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.' Go Tim!"

Dan Gorman: "I haven't followed this story closely, but I'd offer a few thoughts based on the linked video:

• I agree, the student journalist showed remarkable poise in a very difficult situation.
• The events in the video represent a finite slice of a much larger set of circumstances—what we see in the video is limited spatially, and chronologically, and may or may not be representative of the larger context.
• These events took place on a college campus, which by definition is a learning environment where people need the freedom to express themselves and to make mistakes—it may well be that some of the students in the video will have occasion to reflect on what took place, and may well choose to behave differently in an analogous situation going forward.
• Prof Click's behavior toward the end of the video certainly appears to be unfortunate for a teacher of journalism, and I respect everyone's right to express an opinion on this, but working as I do on a college campus I think we would do well to reserve judgment regarding her employment status—Prof. Click's faculty colleagues, college administrators, Mizzou students, and the people of Missouri are best positioned to determine what is in the best interests of the University, the students, and the state which supports them.

"We're all on a learning journey every day whether we're conscious of it or not, and we're all at different places on our individual journeys at any given time.  What's important is not to be right all the time, but to get better over time."

Nicholas Condon: "People can act entirely within their rights and still be rude jerks. Tai may be entirely within his rights, but he was behaving like a rude jerk."

Roger Bradbury: "Tim Tai held his cool far, far longer than I would have. The demonstrators are nothing but cowards and bullies. The video makes me angry. For much of this video, female demonstrators stand far too close to Tim, knowing that no matter how nasty they are, no matter how they force him back just by walking at him, if he pushes back an inch it will be a matter of, 'You can't hit me, I'm a girl!' While the big brave male demonstrators stand behind them, telling him he should go and ready to act in 'defence' of the women they hide behind.

"Like I said, cowards and bullies. I sincerely hope that Tim Tai is more representative of students in the USA than the deeply unpleasant members of this mob."

NancyP: "Click is on the way out, most likely. I suspect that she has been informed of non-renewal of contract. It can be hard to fire a prof mid-semester; one has to find a replacement, and that replacement has to cook up a course (assuming the course isn't canned) and get to know the students in a very short period of time so that grades can be given. Plus, the university lawyers have the final say on timing of firings.

"As for the protesting students, I was flabbergasted that they didn't have an appointed set of media spokespeople. What good does it do to have a famous J-school on campus if one can't be bothered to map a media strategy ahead of the event? The WHOLE POINT of the protest was to have their views heard and acted upon. They should have been in control by having a press conference with photo-ops. I take it that the guy fasting was elsewhere.

"Now as to their issues—yep, rural Missouri (and urban Missouri) can be quite racist. Administration can't do a darn thing about the non-student good ol' boys with confederate flags on their trucks yelling racist stuff at black people on the streets outside Mizzou. If the administration can figure out who did it, they could kick the sh*t-swastika guy out for vandalism. I can see that having some black counseling personnel at the student health center would be a wise thing to do. I have no idea how the administration can be successful attracting a sizable number of new black faculty from outside the state."

John (partial comment): "As a photographer who dabbled in protest photography, I feel his pain. Years ago I found myself between mounted NYPD officers and angry anti-war protesters (pre-Iraq II).

"The protesters took exception of me taking their images, asking for press ID (which I refused) and accusing me of being a police officer and the cops charged at me just like they did at the protesters.

"Can't win...."

Rob L: "As a Maneater [the student newspaper at the University of Missouri —Ed.] alum, and a Mizzou one as well, this was hard to watch. I still feel that the initial media reaction to some of this was a bit...navel-viewing, but Click was in the wrong. And she is a Communications prof, not a Journalism prof, and at Mizzou, that's a biiiig divide. She was removed almost immediately from an advisory role on the Student Media board, and her status as a guest professor in the Journalism school was revoked. I do think there is space to discuss that 'I have a right to take your picture' is a really bad argument to make to upset people, and that stepping back a few feet can help deescalate things. Props to Tim for keeping his cool, and if yall are curious, The Maneater has a great timeline of how we ended up here."

 

Crazy with a Capital Cray

See if you can wrap your head around this. Half tragic, half funny, and half absurd. (You see what I did there.)

In North Carolina (and I have to admit, this makes me shake my head about North Carolina—sorry, all you perfectly blameless North Carolinians), a teenage boy was found with nude pictures of a 16-year-old male on his phone. So he was prosecuted for sexually exploiting a minor.

Who was the minor? Himself. They were nude pictures of himself. Selfies, as we aging-out hipsters say now.

Mind you, this teenager did not post said pictures on the Internet. They were not available for public viewing. They were just on his own phone, apparently kept private as a personal matter between himself and his girlfriend, who is the same age and also shows up in several shots...and who was also prosecuted for exploiting her minor self.

The boy had to take a plea deal to avoid jail time and registration as a sex offender.

Oh, and about the "minor" bit? Sixteen is the age of consent in North Carolina. So neither of the two could have been charged with a crime for having actual sexual intercourse.

If that ain't cray-cray enough for ya, get this: the boy was charged as an adult. For sexually exploiting a minor. Even though when he took the picture (as the offender) of himself (as the victim), he was the same age as, well, himself. The trouble was, by the time the authorities discovered these (private) pictures on his (private) phone, he had turned 17.

So they had no choice.

Well, no, that has to be wrong. They did have a choice. The authorities could have thought about it for a minute or two and come to the conclusion that they themselves have mush for brains, and that they themselves should not be allowed to wield sharp implements or drive motor vehicles under the influence of their own richly evident inability to reason. They must have all been football players who took one too many shots to the head under the Friday night lights.

Sorry, I should stick to reporting.

But, you'll have to guess the race of the boy, I won't get in to that. (You can guess, though, can't you? Take a stab. And this isn't a rip against North Carolina in particular, but against the whole United States these days. We've been going backwards.)

The authorities in this case ought to be charged with malicious prosecution in my opinion. They themselves have done far more damage to these young people than the young people ever did to themselves. Is "causing completely pointless psychological distress to normal young people" a crime in North Carolina?

It clearly should be.

Mike
(Thanks to John Camp)

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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michael Ryan: "I am often particularly filled with ire when I frequently see the meme 'if you haven't done anything wrong you have no need to worry' on social media in relation to recent loses of civil rights in western countries and rights to privacy. No one should ever have seen his private photos on his phone nor had the right to see them never mind prosecute him in this Kafkaesque manner for a non-crime. I'll be quoting this story in future as an example of why your rights matter next time somebody quotes that meaningless nonsense to me. I've alway told them that the it's one of those things—you'll never know why they're so important until it's too late."