The Online Photographer

A Different Afghan Girl

Well, it was fun to make that little academic excursion into terminology yesterday, although today I have a bit of a hangover from it. I like words and write reasonably well, but I have no gift for names and naming.

I concede I didn't think of the problem with "correction" implying that a mistake had been made in the first place—one that needed "correcting"—which might make you look bad to clients. Acknowledging that none of these terms are going to catch on in any event, I think as a result I would prefer the word "finishing" instead of "correction." FER?

  Sir John Herschel drawn by Margaret Louisa Herschel, his daughter,
possibly with the aid of a camera obscura

And here's a fascinating twist. The king of the name-givers in our field was Sir John Herschel, who probably wouldn't be pleased to know that he is now mostly remembered in Julia Margaret Cameron's photograph of him in old age, in costume (left). He made protean contributions to the invention of photography, including the discovery of fixer and the words "positive," "negative," and "snapshot" (a term imported from hunting, as when a bird is flushed and the hunter makes a quick reactive shot). His greatest contribution to the lexicography, of course, was the word "photography," which, quoting Wikipedia, was "created from the Greek roots φωτός (phōtos), genitive of φῶς (phōs), 'light,' and γραφή (graphé) 'representation by means of lines' or 'drawing,' together meaning 'drawing with light.'"

So instead of "reworking" (a word which Ctein supplied to CER, incidentally), shouldn't that be redrawing? (Or rewriting, if you prefer the translation "writing with light" for photos and graphe.

Because no matter how you feel about reworking or modifying or retouching or "photoshopping" a digital image file, all I know is that if you replace 40% of the honest pixels with different ones, the result was no longer "drawn with light." Not entirely. It was drawn by light and the retoucher. And, since there's no way to tell which was which, the viewer coming to it cold can no longer take anything in the picture as honest.

...But we're back in my personal value system, which (of course!) you are under no compulsion to adopt for yourself unless you want to. In any event, my advice to younger and beginning photographers regarding reworking or "photoshopping" is the same as photographer Frank DiPerna's advice on cropping. Frank once said, "I absolutely never, ever crop...except when I want to." Which is part good joke and part deep truth. I think it's generally good advice for reworking as well. My guiding principle is: I absolutely never, ever rework a photo...except when I want to. In other words, when it's really necessary and there's a very good reason to do it, then go ahead, but apply sparingly and use it a crutch. Of course your photography belongs to you, and you should do any tomfool thing you want to.

As the great photojournalist Bruce Haley said to me in a private e-mail (I received his permission to quote him here, but bear in mind he wasn't speaking for public consumption):

If I spell out my personal "rules" of photography then I risk sounding like a sanctimonious pr*ck. However, it's more just a matter of simplicity, of avoiding "tangled web" territory...I have always just used the KISS principle for my photography: I either got it or I didn't...if I got it, I might use/release it; if I didn't get it, it gets tossed in the rubbish bin, never to be seen by anyone else. I don't crop—I either got it right at the moment of the shutter's release or I didn't. If there is a pole or a tree growing out of someone's head, the image gets tossed. If my shadow is in the frame, it gets tossed. If someone is looking at me and smiling (like the now-vanished fellow on McCurry's rickshaw image), that photo gets tossed. Really simple: I "fix" things like that during my edit, by throwing the image out....

This is just how I want to work—I have absolutely no desire to set expectations or guidelines for others.

This is the same sentiment, phrased differently, as my long-held idea that a photograph is either a "yes" or a "no." If it doesn't work 100% for you, then it didn't work; and if it didn't work then it didn't work. It doesn't matter if it came close, or how much you wished it had worked, or how hard you worked to get it, or if you were just positive there was a great photograph somewhere in the vicinity when you shot it. (We all get our heads turned by those things occasionally, I think.) It just either works, and it's a yes, or it's a no. An addiction to reworking/retouching/"photoshopping," to me (we're still in my personal value system, remember), is like an addiction to plastic surgery: the more you try to correct, the more of an unnatural mess you make, until you've created a grotesque. Or perhaps I should choose words that are a little less loaded (!) and simply say that you're no longer drawing with light, so what you've got no longer quite fits John Herschel's fine old 19th-century word.

Bruce Haley's unretouched, unphotoshopped photograph of a wounded Afghan girl in a Médecins Sans Frontières clinic in Pakistan in 1986. Bruce took three photographs and then sat with her for a while until the doctors could see her. A photograph like this one either works or it doesn't, and its
connection to the real is where its power lies.

Of course, the meaning and uses of photography and its culture will change. New ways of understanding it and using it will emerge in the wake of new technologies and peoples' changed experiences, assumptions, and expectations. Our children won't have the same conceptual framework in place that we had. We're all taught to deal with a world that has already changed by the time we're living in it.

At least it's always interesting to watch those changes happen.

Mike
(Thanks to Bruce)

P.S. I still have more than 60 comments to add to yesterday's post, so please come back soon to check some of those out.

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

Len Kowitz: "Mike, I understand where you're going with this thought and I think you're on the right track but why bother? You reminded me of an exhibition I saw at the Ransom Center in Austin. If my feeble memory serves it was an exhibition in conjunction with the Magnum symposium in 2013. One of the prints in the show was a 'work print' with the photographer's notes indicating the 'adjustments' he wanted in the final print. My first reaction to the picture was this is a piece that MoMA would fall all over itself to hang in a show of 'New Masters.' Dodge this 5%, burn this area 10%, all over the image. Photoshop just gives us a new tool (one that's easier to use) to do what photographers have always done with their prints. Thank you for making me think a little deeper about what I'm doing with my camera."

Mike replies: You answered your own question. Why bother? To make people think a little deeper about they're doing with a camera. Works for me. That is really the whole point of a post like "C-E-R": the goal isn't to change global terminology, it's to encourage thinking about what our own values and principles are and should be. Engaging with such questions helps clarify thinking, and clear thinking makes decisions easier and our practices more forthright.

It doesn't really matter where you fall on the actual issues—whether you conclude that you love photo-illustration and are going to stop looking at straight photography (i.e., disagree with me), or whether you want to stop at enhancement and keep wholesale reworking mostly off limits (agree with me). It's all good. The point is to become more clear about what we're doing and what our own values are.

Michael Perini: "Re Photographs are either a 'yes' or a 'no'...very appropriate for digital...either a 1 or a 0....

"I've always felt that getting it right in the camera (for me) was a very good discipline, and a worthy goal that helped me get more 'keepers.' But I do straighten horizons, and occasionally crop a picture within the 'picture' as I Correct-Enhance-Finish the work. I also tend to take far fewer frames than most others I know. It works for me. When I shot film, I developed and contact printed the roll and never excised bad frames, I just ignored them. I've been going through old negatives and scanning them and have found more than a few overlooked gems—so I'm glad I saved them. I do the same with digital, and occasionally find the same thing. All this is also effected by the kinds of work we do, and who we do it for.

"As you often say, it's a big house with many rooms. However there is value for each of us in deciding where we stand on these issues and then being true to that. Because the trouble always arises when our Implied Disciplines differ from our Actual Disciplines."

Photographers Can't Be Trusted? (Reuters and Raw Files)

Apparently photographers themselves can't quite be trusted...but their cameras can be.

The global news agency Reuters, which was purchased in 2008 by Thomson Corporation, is based in London and employs several thousand journalists, whose work ethics are governed by the famous Reuters Handbook of Journalism.

Perhaps that's not enough? This week Reuters sent notice to its photographers that it has stopped accepting photographs that started out as raw files of any type. Only original camera JPEG files are to be submitted, "with minimal processing (cropping, correcting levels, etc)."

"According to Reuters," writes Sebastian Anthony on arstechnica, "there are two reasons for this move. First, there's the matter of alacrity: RAW images need to be processed by the photographer, which takes time—and when you're reporting on a breaking story, sometimes you don't have time. The second reason is much more contentious: Reuters wants its photographs to closely reflect reality (i.e. be journalistic), and it's concerned that some RAW photos are being processed to the point where they're no longer real."

There might be one more reason...because cameras have advanced technically so much that camera-native JPEG files are good enough. Perhaps it's just no longer necessary to mess with the raw files. Just within the last year or two, it seems to me, I've encountered, for the first time, photographers claiming that even when carefully processing from raw in standalone conversion software they can't quite match the results of the camera's own JPEG engine. The common speculation there is that the manufacturers know best what their sensors capture and therefore, how best to design the conversion to JPEG.

Yet another possible consideration...I know that for some time, research has continued on ways to detect, just based on a file, whether an image has been manipulated. I'm purely speculating, but perhaps we're at or getting close to the time when news organizations will be able to protect themselves by analyzing image files to make sure nothing in them has been faked. Perhaps this is easier to do on camera-native JPEG files? Just a thought. I don't know much about all that.

My position has always been that the camera (and, by extension, any image file) can "mislead." Just as false or poorly-chosen words can mislead. And just as you need to trust a witnessing journalist to write honestly, you need to trust a witnessing photojournalist to be honest as well. If there's a problem with manipulation in either case, it's not the technology that's to blame—it's the journalistic ethics of the reporter. Good news photographers are journalists, and tell the truth in conformance to the ethics of standard journalistic practices.

But what do I know.

So were dpreview and Ken Rockwell were right after all? (Didn't both used to analyze only JPEGs from tested cameras? Not sure what the policy of either is now.)

Is the flexibility of those raw files really just too fatally tempting for news photographers?

(Once again, though, I feel glad to be an amateur "art photographer" with only myself to please.)

Mike
(Thanks to John Hogg and others)

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

John Camp: "Reuters commonly buys photos from freelance photographers in conflict areas, which I consider questionable at best and in many cases immoral. Many of these people have immediate concerns that are much deeper than 'first world' problems with journalistic ethics, like the fact that they may operating in a sea of armed ideological crazies or that they may be so impoverished that any photo sale may be the difference between their family eating and not eating—hence the problem with biased or manipulated photos, and the reason that some of these guys take chances that border on the insane. (Or, they're so inexperienced that they simply don't know what they are doing, and get killed as a result.) As a matter of fact, I think the same applies to writing journalists, as well, although they don't need to physically expose themselves as photographers do. Limiting purchases to in-camera JPEGs doesn't really change any of that—it just gives Reuters another little hanky with which to cover their graver sins."

Joe Kashi: "Over the past several years, various academic researchers have been developing forensic software that can detect cloning and other covert manipulation by examining the unique noise patterns, etc. within image files produced by individual sensors. I would speculate that Reuters may have some version of comparable forensic software and in-camera JPEG files are required to produce valid results. Raw processing could blur the noise pattern and render any validity test less reliable."

Dennis: "One of the things that occurs to me when reading about this is dynamic range.  The amount of dynamic range a camera can capture varies according to the ISO setting (technically, with the amount of light that hits the sensor, but the two go hand in hand). Even a newer FF camera like the Nikon D4s at ISO 6400 has similar DR to my Nikon D7000 at ISO 1600, which is considerably less than either camera at base ISO. If you shoot an indoor sporting event with uneven lighting, or a stage event, your shadow detail and highlight detail can vary with your shutter speed. Speed it up to freeze action and you bump up the ISO and lose dynamic range. And somehow, what the camera 'sees' is more 'real' than a photographer's interpretation?

"I've submitted photos to our local small town weekly over the years including many of concerts and plays at our local school. At high ISO, the contrast of the uneven stage lighting is magnified, and some kids are whited out like ghosts or others are in deep shadow; either way, it looks nothing like what our eyes can see.  So I play with curves or dodge and burn to get a more realistic looking photo.

"Could this be done with JPEGs? It would certainly be better with a newer FF camera, though I often shoot at 200mm on APS-C, so would run into problems there (I'd have to crop or buy a 300 and then I wouldn't be at ƒ/2.8 any more). There might be JPEG processing options that preserve highlight and shadow detail better (I can't do multi-shot HDRs) but I've never been interested enough to experiment with the various menu options. I just have no interest in not shooting raw...just like some people have no interest in driving a car with an automatic transmission. If I were freelancing for Reuters, I'd just suck it up, but that's one of the joys of being an amateur...no reason not to do whatever I want."

Ron (partial comment): "Where I think this Reuters directive is aimed is precisely at improving image delivery times. Photographers can sometimes be their own worst enemies, wanting to endlessly tweak images to conform to their 'vision.' This can waste a lot of time, which I know from both being on the sending side shooting deadline sports events, and on the receiving side working in a newspaper imaging department (before it was automated). Many a time have I hounded a photographer to upload images from an event to meet deadline...."

[For the full text of partial comments, please see the Comments Section. —Ed.]

Roy Feldman: "I shoot press and always deliver JPEG but usually derived from raw. I have never had a image I didn't tweak a little always following the 'only what you could do in a darkroom' rule. I find it to be as fast a process as shooting JPEG. I have been a expert witness for the FBI and made the point that a raw image cannot be altered. You can alter it and save it as something else but you cannot change the raw image it self and re-save it as a raw. The real advantage I see going forth is being able to transmit and upload via cell phone wirelessly. For one paper I work for I use the Wi-Fi transfer on the Fuji to my phone to the mothership."

Ed. G.: "I think this is going to wind up biting Reuters in the butt. It seems to me that most of the photo-manipulation scandals have been proven only by asking the photographer for the raw file—either the comparison shows what was done or the miscreant runs away. Now, if there's a possible problem, Reuters can't ask for a raw file anymore. ('Sorry, since you don't allow processed raws, I shoot JPEG only, so the JPEG I sent in is the only photo that exists.') A smart organization would require raw (or raw+JPEG) shooting. ('You cannot submit photos unless you have a raw file you can give us in case of a dispute.')"

Gary Nylander: "I'm a staff photographer for a small daily newspaper. I always shoot JPEG for pretty well all assignments on a daily basis. Once in a while I might shoot raw for some special project. The JPEG quality I get from my cameras is exceptional, even from the 2007-era Nikon D300 I shoot with, one of my favourite digital cameras for PJ work. If were ever to shoot for Rueters it would not be a problem."

Adrian Malloch: "Yeah I got that Reuters memo too, but since it arrived in the text of an email, I could not possibly trust its veracity. We all know how infinitely flexible word-processing algorithms are and how words and meanings can be twisted so easily by ingenious and unscrupulous writers when using such devious gadgetry. If instead they had sent me a letter crafted on the standard office-issue Royal Quiet Deluxe Portable typewriter then I would know that it really was a Reuters document that could be believed."

Mike replies: Hee hee....

Ben Rosengart: "If you're interested in ensuring that an image is unmodified out-of-camera, it's dead simple: have the camera sign the image cryptographically, and verify the signature. The photographer doesn't have the camera's secret key, and therefore can't re-sign the image after modifying it. Canon markets this by including the signing tech for free, and charging for a 'verification kit,' but that's just an implementation detail."

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

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."

 

More About the Remarkable Mary Ellen

Mary Ellen Mark, "Rat" and Mike with a gun, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1983

TOP is usually off on Saturdays, but in case you have a bit of extra time today, I thought it would be valuable to list the best of the great links we collected yesterday.

First, Rat: the boy on the left in Mary Ellen Mark's famous picture "Rat and Mike" above (his real name is Rich) is now a 48-year-old tow-truck driver with a "beautiful wife, beautiful children and grandchildren." He cried when he learned of Mary Ellen's death.

You can read an update about his life and what he's doing now in an article by Chris Macias of The Sacramento Bee. This was suggested to us by Rick D; thanks, Rick.

In case you never have and you'd like to read the original 1983 LIFE magazine "Streets of the Lost" article first, you can find it in readable form on Mary Ellen's website. I'd recommend reading this before reading the update. It's a great classic of photojournalism and of the photo-essay form at its best.

Next, Kyle: Old friend-we've-never-met Kyle Cassidy, a fascinating photographer in his own right, wrote a very beautiful short piece about Mary Ellen on his Live Journal website, pointed out by Kathy Li. It's of special interest to practicing photographers, giving a window into Mary Ellen Mark's attitudes and determination and the way she taught. Not to be missed.

(Kyle says Mary Ellen used to introduce him by saying, "This is the weirdest photographer you'll ever meet. He's good, but he's weird. Aren't you?" Funny.)

Kyle's piece really points up the truth about what reader latent_image said in the Comments: "Following news of her death, I saw Mary Ellen Mark referred to in one article as a 'street photographer.' To me street photography is characterized by anonymity. Mark's work was always about connection and intimacy...just the opposite."

Finally, 'Mary Ellen presents': If you really have some time to spend today (the video is more than an hour long), Robert Hudyma found this great video of a slide lecture given by Mary Ellen, at Ryerson University's Ryecast. Many of us have heard her speak in person, but if you haven't, this will be the next best thing. The images are not always coordinated but it's valuable to be able to see better-quality versions of the pictures on the right. Studying the pictures in the slideshow emphasizes one of Kyle Cassidy's insights about the work: "You don’t need to know that someone’s a movie star or someone’s a prostitute or someone else just won a mustache contest, they’re all beautiful images first."

We'll be back on Monday with the Spring season's exciting Kate Kirkwood Print Offer announcement.

Mike
(Thanks to Rick D, Kathy Li, Robert Hudyma, and everyone else who commented yesterday)

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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Jennifer Lawrence to Play Photojournalist Lynsey Addario

Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone

Photo: Roadside Attractions

A couple of friends and I have privately wondered about the eyebrow-raising publicity juggernaut behind photojournalist Lynsey Addario's new book It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War. She's been all over the MM hyping the book. Deservedly, but still—photographers don't usually raise quite this much interest.

Well, the plot thickens: just on Monday, Warner Brothers secured the movie rights to the book (apparently in exclusive bidding), and Steven Spielberg is already slated to direct current "It-girl" Jennifer Lawrence in the lead role.

It will be the first time in 30 years that Spielberg has directed a female lead. The last time was Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple in 1985.

Lawrence is both a movie star, raking in the cheddar in pop fodder, and a serious actress, one who is by some reports exceptionally avid for dramatic roles worthy of her very considerable talents. If you haven't seen her yet in something that isn't slathered and greased in CGI, check out Debra Granik's Winter's Bone, a harrowing tale of a young (and female) orphan caught between the vicissitudes of the drug trade and the strict (and sexist) traditional Ozarks mountain backwoods culture. Winner of the Grand Jury prize at Sundance, and lastingly superb.

I'm eager to know more of the hidden story here—whose interest has been driving this, and when did it start? To my reading it's possible that the book was significantly ghostwritten (it's at least very well edited—you just don't write that well without practice), so the publicity behind the book and possibly even the book itself could have been driven by the interest of one or the other of these Hollywood bigs. And possibly from very early on. (Wish some real reporter would bird-dog this; smells like an interesting tale to me.)

Anyway, a big-budget photographer movie comin' someday to theaters near you, and that's good news.

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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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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Stan B.: "I've been wondering too. Seems she suddenly burst on every radio station and media outlet for a week there—same questions, same answers (almost verbatim, as if scripted). Good on her, but the whole affair did seem somewhat...odd. As for her story going Hollywood—definite mixed reaction. Hope I'm not the only one a tad leery about Spielberg reaching into his cinematic bag of tricks—I'm still smarting from his colorization gimmick in Schindler's list.

Mike adds: And Schindler's odd, sappy, retrospective outburst near the end, which you almost can't help but read as the character and actor being the mouthpiece of the director, and which catastrophically torpedoes the greatness of the film (it's still very good). Spielberg is the Norman Rockwell of movies, superbly skilled but with a core that essentially thrills and vibrates to the maudlin and the mawkish. It's almost guaranteed that his portrayal of Addario will be a) overcooked at least at points (a fault of all of Hollywood, though, so we can't lay that entirely at Spielberg's feet) and b) excruciatingly corny at one or more key junctures, infecting the toughness and naturalism of the story.

Stephen Scharf: "Don't forget about Jennifer Lawrence's performances in both Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. Both incredible, superb performances. I personally don't have an issue with Lawrence working in pop fodder; it likely provides her the financial independence for her to do more serious work. John Cusack took the same approach so he could work in films like High Fidelity and The Thin Red Line."

Lynsey Addario's New Book

[Please note that TOP is offline Saturdays. We'll return Sunday afternoon. —Ed.]

-

Remember Lynsey Addario? She's appeared twice here on TOP, once when she won the MacArthur "Genius" Grant in 2009, and once when Audi chose to profile her for a car advertisement and we posted it.

She's just sent me a copy of It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War, her memoir published by Penguin Press.

Photo: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Photojournalist—and now author—Lynsey Addario

Strangely perhaps—write it off to chaos theory—I didn't write about it when she was kidnapped in 2011. Maybe that's good, though, because it means you can read her own account of it, as you should.

It violates the Pinker Rule to recommend a book before I've read it all the way through, but this one is turning out to be a particularly compelling example of its genre. I tried to contact Lynsey for permission to publish a short excerpt; she's doubtless off doing much more serious things than answering emails. In the breach, try this, maybe tomorrow when TOP takes the day off:

1. Go to the Amazon page.
2. Click on the book cover to "Look Inside."
3. Scroll down and click on "Prelude."
4. Scroll down and start reading past the three-dot break where it begins "I was there on assignment for the New York Times with three other award-winning journalists...."

Blurb-words are impossible to use, because of runaway blurb-word inflation and excessive blurb-word overexposure, but see if you don't think what follows gets more and more "gripping."

It's illegal to steal large sections of published text without permission (people who repost whole articles on forums take note), but Fair Use allows you to publish reasonable small selections for the purpose of discussion. I think I'll venture this, from page 123 of the hardcover:

"Is anyone here a journalist?" the driver repeated. " I have the body of a journalist in the trunk of my car and don't know what to do with it."

I definitely couldn't handle that. I walked back over to Eric and Elizabeth. Eric rattled off a phone number, and Elizabeth dialed and handed the phone back to him. It was a number for the wife of his dead colleague, and the answering machine picked up. He hung up. Eric uttered another number, and someone picked up. It was his office in Australia.

"Hi. This is Eric. Paul is dead."

Just like that.

I ran around to the back of the hospital and put my face in my hands. That phone call could have been for me, for Ivan, for Elizabeth. I didn't even have any phone numbers for Elizabeth's family. We were all there minutes before the car bomb detonated. Now there was some random taxi driver with the body of a colleague folded and dismembered in his trunk, asking what to do with it. How did one transfer the body of a friend out of a country we all snuck into illegally, when there were no functioning embassies, no police, no diplomats, and the only open border accessible from northern Iraq was with Iran? It seemed so obvious, but I didn't know war meant death—that journalists might also get killed in the war. I hid behind the hospital, ashamed of my weakness, my tears, and my fear, wondering if I had the strength for this job, and wept inconsolably.

The war had begun.

Frightening and sobering, as life. As writing, cracking good stuff. I suspect you'll find that the book's value as information about photojournalism begins to take a back seat, and what you're reading is actually top-drawer, page-turning true life adventure writing.

I do 95% of my reading on the iPad Air and Kindle now, and I have It's What I Do for the Kindle app and also in hardcover. In this case I'm going to recommend the hardcover. It's a compact, solid, well-made book printed on good paper, and the numerous color illustrations integrated into the flow of the printed matter are particularly well done.

I guess I have to finish this before I can say "highly recommended." So stay tuned for that.

Mike

P.S. She was profiled on NPR just the other day, but I can't go 44 minutes without music. And here's the book link for the U.K.

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Bryce Lee: "Wanted the hardcover copy of the book through Amazon Canada. One to three month wait before being allowed into Canada. And the price could also (after checking with my local retail outlet who are not bringing in the book) be twice or more the listed U.S. price. And I don't do tablets or readers."

Mike replies: Easy. Just go here. Free shipping worldwide, and in stock.

'Sports Illustrated' Does Away With Staff Photographers

A great shot of Terrell Owens and Tony Romo by Al Tielemans, one of the last six remaining SI staff photographers who were all laid off last Thursday.

The venerated photography-centric Sports Illustrated magazine let go all six of its last remaining staff photographers last Thursday, amid sad noises about restructuring, smaller quarters, and new working arrangements.

However inevitable, it's another sad ladmark moment in the transition from old media to new.

With distinct irony, the NPPA notes that the layoffs occurred "less than 12 hours after many sports shooters were in Manhattan for the premier of the ESPN film Keepers Of The Streak, a new documentary about four photographers who have shot every Super Bowl since its beginning." Here's a clip from the film featuring sports greats Walter Iooss (pronounced "yoss") and Neil Leifer, along with Joe Namath, talking about Walter's poolside shot of Broadway Joe—a great period piece.

Sympathies and solidarity to (in alphabetical order) Robert Beck, Simon Bruty, Bill Frakes, David E. Klutho, John W. McDonough, and Al Tielemans.

Mike
(Thanks to concern from many readers)

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Michael Barker: "Next time I go to a game, I'm cheering for the photographers."

Benjamin Marks: "Wow. Just wow. Where is the 'Illustrated' going to come from? Fans with iPhones?"

Steve Biro: "I've said this time after time but I'll repeat it here: I'm fine with the transition to new media, even though I love books, magazines, traditional broadcasting and, yes, photographic prints. But I have a major problem when that transition is used as an excuse to gut an institution of what made it great in the first place. This latest move by Sports Illustrated is more evidence that most of the media brain trust has yet to figure out this new-fangled digital thing."

John Camp (partial comment): "I'd point out that the photographers weren't let go because they were unnecessary—they were let go because SI is failing. The company will struggle along for a while, but not too long.

"I once worked for one of the largest, most powerful news publishers in the nation. That entire corporation is now gone. When I was there, the place was rockin'—when they thought they needed more money, they'd just push the advertising rates. The couldn't even conceive of something like Craigslist.

"There was a group of us who really did see this coming, but we weren't the people who got promotions—those went to the socially ept, the guys (and I do mean guys) with shiny teeth and square chins who were good with the wives of the top managers. Most of the people who saw it coming eventually did okay: they got out and found something more economically relevant to do. The guys with square chins got early retirement, because the company fell apart beneath their feet. Many of the newspapers they ran no longer exist."

Photojournalism

A reader, Christian K., put this question to me yesterday, and I put it to you: What's the best magazine left for original photojournalism?

Mike
(Thanks to Christian and Bobby B.)

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Mike R: "Magazine? Is that something like a 'record album?'"

Mike replies: You mean like this?

psu: "I like the Guardian Eyewitness app on the iPad. Or is that not what you meant? :-)"

John Krill: "Harper's, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone. Just about any large city newspaper. We rarely give press photographers their due. Don't look just for photoessays but also how publications use support photography."

Vincent Bilotta: "The New York Times."

Howard Owens: "I subscribe to the New York Times on the iPad primarily for the photojournalism. If sports is your thing, Sports Illustrated is great of course.

Michael Shaw: "TOP honors (sorry...) to News Photographer magazine, published by the National Press Photographers Association. From the NPPA website, 'non-members can also order a subscription online or download the order form.'"

James Symington: "National Geographic is the only one that really comes close in my view."

robert e: "Didn't you link to Lensculture a few days ago? Impressive. Andy Adams' flakphoto.com is another excellent curator of photojournalism projects. Not as intense, but The New Yorker's "Photo Booth" is often worthwhile, featuring mini-slide-shows of photojournalism, both old and new, which I appreciate. I couldn't say whether it's part of the paper edition. I seldom bother to operate a printed magazine these days, but I expect to see good photojournalism any time I pick up the New York Times' Sunday Magazine, National Geographic, or ESPN Magazine."

JohnMFlores: "David Alan Harvey's Burn Magazine has some great work from upcoming photogs."

Tregix: "6 Mois."

'Kiev's Fatigue' by Eric Bouvet

Photo by Eric Bouvet, from the essay "Kiev's Fatigue"

Take a look at "Kiev's Fatigue" by Eric Bouvet. Really takes you there. Outstanding photography of a heartbreaking situation.

Mike
(Thanks to Norm Nicholson and Ken Bennett)

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David: "Wow. I'm up here in Michigan in the trees and snow, happily working away, thinking about much different stuff than what these humans are enduring. Once again, science fiction trumps itself and comes to be. Road Warrior images that make Road Warrior look like child's play. Very scary to know that all over the world there are people who are embroiled in situations that defy imagination. Very powerful images and extremely disturbing."

John Stanmeyer Wins World Press Photo of the Year

John Stanmeyer of VII photo agency has won the World Press Photo Photo of the Year (Contemporary Issues, 1st prize singles) for this photograph taken on February 26th, 2013, for National Geographic. The picture, titled "Signal," shows "African migrants on the shore of Djibouti city at night, raising their phones in an attempt to capture an inexpensive signal from neighboring Somalia—a tenuous link to relatives abroad. Djibouti is a common stop-off point for migrants in transit from such countries as Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, seeking a better life in Europe and the Middle East." Here is his website if you'd like to see more of his work.

Congratulations to John!

Mike
(Thanks to Steve Rosenblum)

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Stan B.: "One subtle but oh so dramatic composition without the direct aid of war, blood, or catastrophe that still addresses the current world situation, both directly (immigration) and at large (technology). Stunning in its simplicity, relevance and beauty."

Dennis Ng: "It is very other-worldly. They looked like ETs calling home when I first saw it. Then the explanation...great photo. Just great!"

Olivier Morin Bottles Lightning

Photo by Olivier Morin/AFP

Sports photographers, like most photojournalists, are always striving to get the story into the picture. Few succeed like AFP photographer Olivier Morin did when he lucked out and got a lightning bolt behind Usain Bolt of Jamaica, just after the human Bolt regained his title in the 100 meters at the IAAF World Championships in Moscow, Russia yesterday.

Kind of like photographing Tiger Woods at a key moment in a tournament just as a tiger happens to walk by in the background.

Olivier blogs about his sure-to-be-famous shot, which he took with a trackside remote unit, here.

Mike
(Thanks to Matthew Allen)

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john: "Good photographers get all the luck."

This Is What You Get!

This will take you only three seconds to look at.

The old saw is that a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a quick two thousand words on why you shouldn't fire your photographers.

If I lived in Chicago, I know what paper I'd rather look at! (The Trib's pic is by Anthony Souffle.)

Mike
(Thanks to Amy Sakurai and others)

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toto: "Looks to me like they also fired their layout artists."

Peter In Portugal

A nice short film about our friend Peter Turnley in Portugal, on a Portuguese website, Público; reader John Krill sent me the link.

The interview must be very new—Peter's in Portugal right now, and I notice that one of the pictures featured at the end of the interview is one that I know he took just the other day.

Mike
(Thanks to John)

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Ed: "Nice little feature on Peter. He's probably right, photography is about life, most of the time. Or about what's become of it these days. I like the way he shoots, never sneaky, always in the open and in full view of the public and with a lot of Aretha Franklin in his mind."

Manuel: "Let me put this into context, Mike: Público is a portuguese newspaper which employs the best portuguese photojournalists and is very seriously focussed on quality—which, of course, includes photography. Reading this newspaper can be nothing short of a revelation when it comes to knowing the work of the greatest photographers. (And, of course, Peter Turnley is a great photographer, entirely worth Público's attention.) Not only they publish great photographs, but they often publish rather interesting articles on photography. It's a newspaper that's worth reading, and even more so because of the sheer quality of the photographs they publish.

"As you see, that's as far removed from the Chicago Sun-Times affair as you can imagine...."

Alex Garcia Weighs In

It's a little ironic—a contrast, let's call it—that the Chicago Tribune actually supports a regular blog by one of its leading photojournalists, while the Chicago Sun-Times no longer supports its photojournalists at all (Jim Romenesko reports that the outgoing photographers have already had their email accounts cut off). At any rate, here's Alex Garcia's requiem for his fellow warriors at what used to be the competition.

The Sun-Times might have bought some headaches to go along with being boneheaded: USA Today is reporting that the photographers' union, the Chicago Newspaper Guild, is going to file a bad-faith bargaining charge with the National Labor Relations Board.

Photo by John J. Kim / Chicago Sun-Times

And a taste of what that paper's readers will no longer be getting: John Kim's photo essay on Chicago detectives was part of what won a Pulitzer Prize for the Sun-Times in 2011.

Mike
(Thanks to Albin)

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rnewman: "Thanks for the link to Alex Garcia's column. Very educational. It gives us outsiders a view from inside the newspaper photo world which we don't often see."

Journalism Experience Will Disqualify You For This Job

Romenesko republishes comedian Jason Sereno's acerbic take on the slaughter of the photojournalists. Note that they, there, and I, here, are just commenting on what happened, not doing original reporting ourselves. The Internet is great for commenting (it profoundly gives new meaning to the old phrase "another party heard from") but isn't supporting a lot of original reporting. Unless you think reporting is repeating things you hear and linking to other reports.

One way we might not be looking at this is one of the ways it might be: perhaps what we're seeing is just one newspaper sinking toward oblivion in a city that's no longer big enough for two papers. Chicago is the largest city in Illinois. I live in the largest city in Wisconsin, the state just north of Illinois, and we haven't had two major dailies for a long time.

According in part to local historian John Gurda's book Cream City Chronicles, the employee-owned Milwaukee Journal, which was published in the afternoon, bought the former Hearst paper the Milwaukee Sentinel, the city's morning paper, following a debilitating strike in 1962. Not willing to let the competition die, Journal Communications continued to operate both papers separately. In 1995, with the afternoon paper faltering, Journal Communications merged its weaker flagship into the stronger and more successful morning paper, showing favoritism toward Journal employees and laying off many Sentinel stalwarts. The Journal-Sentinel has been a morning paper since then.

In any event, it's been 18 years since Milwaukee, about one-sixth the size of Chicago, has had two major newspapers. Maybe it's just that Chicago is finally following suit, in response to more recent economic pressures. Consider that when the Milwaukee Journal was founded in 1882, it competed with four English-language daily newspapers (including the Socialist Leader), and four German-language and two Polish-language ones. Obviously all those went away too.

In a broader sense, digital electronics is laying waste to the established business model in a number of fields, because the economics were all structured around paying for wrappers: the physical carriers of various media. Booksellers sell stacks of paper bound together along one edge; music companies sold disks of black vinyl in cardboard sheaths, and, later, smaller disks of polycarbonate with a layer of aluminum covered with microscopic pits, in a plastic case cunningly designed to be frustrating to open. Watchmakers didn't sell time, exactly—they sold fantastically complex devices that kept track of time and displayed it mechanically, on a dial face that some of my son's friends now have trouble interpreting. Newspapers sold sheafs of newsprint covered with ink.

Photographers, quaintly, sold small sheets of paper with images on them. How long has that been?

If you wanted to own music, you had to buy the wrapper—the physical LP or the Compact Disc. The fact that you had to pay for it made many of the artists wealthy and justified careful production and a whole infrastructure of deliberate selection and marketing—everything from lavish record stores to careful grooming of new acts. The fact that we no longer have to pay for the wrappers is a temporary advantage but a long-term loss, just like the decline of real journalism will be.

Of course, all of these markets and, indeed, all of these human pursuits are constantly changing; change is nothing new. Certainly it isn't for photographers. Nobody's ever really written a business history of photography, but they could, and it would be a tale of opportunities constantly migrating away from practitioners, constant inroads being made against established practices and business models, and skills and expertise continually being eroded and becoming outmoded. Digital electronics have accelerated that process, but it's been going on for a long time, in our field at least. I still miss the weekly LIFE magazine, which I pored over and perused every week and which was an essential component of my photographic education. Its demise, in 1972, was also preceded by many people—hundreds, in that case—losing their jobs.

Mike
(Thanks to Tom Kwas)

[CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post got some facts about the history of Milwaukee's newspapers significantly wrong. —Ed.]

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KeithB: "If Wikipedia is to be believed 8^), Los Angeles hasn't had two major newspapers since 1989 when the Herald-Examiner folded."

Chris Crawford: "My hometown, Fort Wayne, Indiana, is half the size of Milwaukee (about 275,000 people) and we still have two dailies. One of them is locally owned, the other is owned by a big chain."

Mike adds: Somewhat strangely, my town, Waukesha, has its own paper. And we have something like 65,000 people. It seems to keep soldiering on. The last time I tried it, at lunch one day, I was surprised to find that I had read most of the front page articles already—on the web, that morning.

Al Patterson: "Your comment regarding having read most of page one one the web before reading the newspaper is the heart of the problem. The perception is that newspapers sell 'yesterday's news today.' I'm betting some papers only exist to publish legal notices like marriages, divorces, bankruptcy, etc. And, we don't need photographers or journalists for those. It is sad though I do understand why they are doing what they are doing."

Terry Letton: "The problem with newspapers is Craigslist. It killed the classified ads dead. Of course the response of stripping out content to save money in the face of diminishing revenue was pretty much suicide. Before the Internet, a newspaper was pretty much a license to print money, so the idea of just being profitable didn't go down well with the ownership. As you alluded to, after you have read the obituaries there isn't much there that you can't get in multiple other places more conveniently. Therefore the workers get the axe. QED."

Mark Hobson: "I live 30 miles from a small city—pop. 20,000—which has a daily newspaper (two sections, news and sports, for a total of 20 pages). It seems to be doing quite well by focusing almost exclusively on local news—rarely does a national headline make the front page. National/world news is relegated to two pages at the back of the front section. Like the news section, the sport section also focuses on local sports— high schools, university and things like bowling leagues and the like. National sports news is usually mixed in with the local stuff, major sporting events excepted, on inside pages.

"In my opinion, they're doing well because the decision was made to let people get their national news on TV and the web. By the way, they employ at least one photographer of whom I am aware."

Mike replies: A smart, well-designed strategy responsive to real trends and real needs can help an organization survive. Ironically, though, the strategy you describe probably works a lot better for a small city than a large one.

A small local paper also needs to avoid the failing of mine: political partisanship. When the audience is scarce it's tough to willfully cut off half of it.

Canned! Chicago 'Sun-Times' Fires Entire Photo Staff

Without the benefit of hindsight it's always difficult to tell what the landmarks of history are going to be, but this has the look of one...the Chicago Sun-Times, one of the two major newspapers in America's third-largest city, has just laid off its entire photography staff. All 28 photographers. At once. Without notice. Effective immediately.

Management apparently wants to use freelancers on an as-needed basis, and reporters are going to shoot video (what could go wrong there?).

Twenty-eight sacked pj's, or a Significant Moment of gear-grinding in the changing history of media? Or both.

Or maybe just one newspaper doin' the old Drano swirl.

The competition (the Trib) has the news.

Mike
(Thanks to MM, Ken, Kevin, and others)

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Mark: "Wow, I feel very badly for the photographers who I'm sure have given their blood, sweat and tears to that newspaper. I feel equal sympathy for their families. I hope they are able to go on and land new jobs elsewhere, though I know how difficult that may be."

David L.: "The Sun-Times must have believed what Marissa Mayer said last week."

Dennis: "I certainly understand that times are tough; but if they want to move to more videos, I hope their "plan" is more substantial than throwing video/photo equipment at their reporters. Getting good video has always seemed even more difficult and time consuming than getting a good photograph."

Mike replies: Absolutely right. Unless you like that cinema verité style of amateur/found video. I only like it if it's authentically so. Or necessarily so.

Thomas Osborne: "White House photographer Pete Souza was a Sun-Times staffer in the '80s."

Dogman: "How well I remember that voice in my head 20+ years ago that kept saying, 'The business is dying...get out...get out soon....' I did. But it still breaks my heart to see crap like this happen."

Herman Krieger: "The reporters can use their smart phone to call in stories with attached photos."

David Dyer-Bennet: "A friend who works there reports that the memo to reporters last week said they must always take their smart-phones and take photos and shoot video. So, Herman, that's not actually a joke."

David: "Like others, the first guy I thought of was John H. White. Just a stellar person and a great photographer. Wow."

John McMillin: "Dateline, Chicago—The Sun-Times today announced the layoff of its entire editorial, composition and printing staff. The newspaper will now be published as a Facebook page. 'We won't be bound by the elite customs of "professionalism,"' said the publisher. 'This newspaper remains Chicago's voice, now more than ever,' he told his iPhone."

Ned: "Natural evolution. There was a day when a site like TOP would have been a newspaper or a magazine and would have employed photographers."

Paul Byrnes: "This is so disturbing I can hardly believe it. And the truth is, lots of others will follow. Worse, it is not the fault of management, I suspect. I know nothing of the Sun-Times management, but the problems are hitting every newspaper. Manuel is right about how cavalier it is, but I suspect he is wrong about the choices they had. Ad revenues are disappearing, along with subscribers, and they paid for good photographers, just as they paid for good writers. I'll bet no-one at that newspaper wanted to do this. Just makes it even more tragic. I've made my living since 1976 largely in newspapers as a journalist and many of my friends are photographers. It is so hard to watch as the structures crumble, not because they were bad, but because readers and advertisers moved on to different technologies. No-one's fault, but the things we have lost in the fire...."

cgw: "Show me a major N. American daily that isn't wildly budget-chopping in the wake of plummeting circulation/sales and ad revenues. The photojournalist firings are a sad symptom of this larger problem."

Gaspar Heurtley: "Here in Argentina, the biggest news network is Clarín (they have 100+ radio stations, newspapers, and TV channels). Their photo staff is almost non-existent; they rely on the audience sending their own footage and cell phone pictures, and they advertise it as 'TN and the people.' Not only they laid off a lot of staff, but they managed to make it look cool."

Happy Accidents

Every photographer knows—or soon learns—the "tree growing out of the head" phenomenon. You have to be mindful of your backgrounds, because things can look connected that aren't. (I play with it from time to time...although I can't find it right now, I have a picture of my Uncle with a fish balanced on his head, and one in which a museumgoer appears to be wearing an American Indian headdress.)

Juan Buhler has a picture (although I can't find that either) in which a child's eye is just barely visible past her parent's sleeve, and the weird juxtaposition makes the picture. [UPDATE: here it is, although I misremembered it—it's his hand, not his sleeve. Hey, it's been a year since I last saw it! Thanks to Juan. —Mike]

The Washington Post published a fabulous example by John McDonnell the other day—a baseball player with three arms! That weird, diminutive, slightly fuzzy third arm seems magically to be filling out the back of right fielder Jayson Werth's shirt.

You couldn't make that happen if you wanted to. Funny.

We seldom talk about it, but sometimes what "makes" a picture is just the result of happenstance. How do you make these fortuitous happenings happen? Just get out with the camera and see what happens. You never know.

Mike
(Thanks to Bob Burnett)

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Dennis: "I always liked Michael Reichman's happy accident."

Mike replies: That's amazing! What a wonderful example of ghosting flare.

William Schneider: "I can put my fingers on my most cringe-worthy accidental background...

"I had just been hired to teach basic photography by the man in the photo. He had been a picture editor at National Geographic before entering academia. His Pulitzer-prize-winning wife, also a photography professor here, was hugging a friend in the picture.

"I cringed at the irony of being newly selected as faculty in a photography school, and then making the basic beginner's mistake of not watching the background.

"Thankfully my embarassment has subsided over the 18 years that have passed by."

Tom Kwas: "...I actually went through about a ten-year period in the '90s where I tried to get as many weird things with foreground and background compression as I could. People balancing Union 76 Balls on their head, people holding up their hand with someone standing on it, the Trans-America building in SFO looking like a witches hat on someone in a office nearby...amused myself doing this with my 'snaps,' but you'd be surprised how concentrating on this stuff for a few months, all of a sudden you're making far less mistakes with compression, and paying much more attention to detail!"

Marek Fogiel: "I like this one of mine."

Mike replies: Made me laugh.

What a Journalist Is Obliged to Do

This week's column by Ctein

I am observing an unpleasant amount of "shoot the messenger" conversation going on around the subject of Paolo Pellegrin's professional lapses in his "Crescent, Rochester" series. What it mostly seems to boil down to is the idea that Michael Shaw was in some way obligated to provide Pellegrin with a forum to rebut his (Shaw's) article.

He was not. Not even if one considers the original piece to be straight reporting, and I don't think it's even close to that: You can call it analysis, commentary, opinion, or editorial, whatever you want*, but it is not a simple news article whether or not it includes newsy facts. In any case, that does not matter. The reason it is customary for reporters to contact the subject of an article is to make sure they haven't gotten any facts wrong. It is not because the subject is entitled to a forum in their article, and it is in no way about giving them free rein to spin their version.

Yes, it may be considered a courtesy to contact them, but it is done out of prudence, to "cover one's ass." And, sometimes, it is not done out of prudence, if you have reason to think the subject of your article will attempt a preemptive counterstrike. When a piece is not pure reporting, as Shaw's isn't, it's frequently not even customary. In no circumstance is it obligatory.

By the rules of the business he's in, Shaw did nothing wrong. Had he managed to get his facts wrong by failing to contact Pellegrin, then Pellegrin would be entitled to cry foul. He didn't. He accurately described three main points:

1. The caption was, in fact, incorrect and misleading about the subject. By journalistic standards, it was a minor bit of sloppiness, regardless of how the subject of the photo feels about it—honestly, this isn't about him. But it was, nonetheless, wrong.

2. More seriously, the location is falsified in a way that is materially important. That's a much more substantial lapse. That Pellegrin doesn't acknowledge that is troublesome. His response boils down to, "Well, I didn't explicitly say the photo was made in the Crescent, and besides I don't actually remember where it was made, and besides, who knows what the Crescent really means anyway?" That's a huge load of bullshit. It would be lame coming from a politician. It's unacceptable from anyone who practices journalism. And here again, Shaw's article is factually correct.

3. The real damning bit is the plagiarism. There's been a lot of obfuscation written about this—who really submitted it, was the material meant for publication or not, etc., etc. I quote Pellegrin: "The background text, which traditionally would be for internal uses, and not for the public, is something I gathered from various sources in Rochester and from the internet, including the New York Times."

Okay, so it is Pellegrin's text, and Shaw is factually correct about that also. Pellegrin's copy is almost word-for-word identical to the New York Times. The most that Pellegrin might be able to do (and he doesn't) is show that he pulled all the material from third-party sources, and even then he's still saddled with the problem of having presented someone else's writing as his own.

That is a major no-no, and he knows it. Not just in the field of journalism, though it's especially bad there. You don't do that. Not ever. Not for internal use or for publication. It is plagiarism, plain and simple.

As for Pellegrin's very weak defense that the text wasn't meant for publication, and that he expected editors to rewrite it before using it, that doesn't negate the plagiarism charge. The kindest word I can use for that is "disingenuous." If Pellegrin expected the editors to rewrite his material, that only means he expected to not get caught out in his plagiarism.

Editors and reporters usually rewrite that kind of copy before running it, as matters of space and style if nothing else. But the rules and custom of the business are that if someone sends you a press kit (defining that in the loosest terms), it's for publication and it only contains material that the sender owns and has permission to submit for republication. Unless Pellegrin demonstrates that the material was a.) clearly labeled "not for publication" and b.) clearly labeled as attributable to other sources, he's in the wrong. This is not even close to a judgment call.

From the perspective of professional journalism, Pellegrin's defense is a complete fail. It may very well play well to a lay public, appealing to emotions and inapplicable concepts of what constitutes "fair play" and muddying the discussion with diversionary tactics. Politically it's a sound approach; it's worked for many a candidate running for office. It is neither correct nor appropriate for a journalist.

The best thing Pellegrin could do in this circumstance, professionally, would be to fall on his sword and hope he would only suffer minor paper cuts (likely that is all that would happen). That he took the approach he did is disturbing.

As for Shaw, he got it right. There were several places where he could have easily gotten facts wrong. I think he made some educated guesswork and supposition (e.g., who actually inserted the text that accompanied the photograph), and that is risky. As I said at the beginning, that is why one frequently contacts the subject. But Shaw, in fact, got it right, and when the prose finally hits the page that is all that counts.

©2013 by Ctein, all rights reserved

[*Shaw himself said he's a media critic, meaning he'd call it a critique, presumably. —Ed.]

Ctein's weekly column appears on TOP on Wednesdays.

Original contents copyright 2013 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.

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

Stan B.: "The man's a brilliant photographer, one who has repeatedly put himself on the line and gone the extra mile. He got lazy on this one, cut corners. Fortunately, someone was awake and called him on it; and that's a good thing, both for his profession and for us. Ultimately, it's also good for Mr. Pellegrin—a major wake-up call to remain true to his chosen, professional code of conduct."

Sarge: "Coming from someone who calls himself 'a lousy critic,' this column is a fine piece of disambiguation. Op-Ed should be in another section. I think the category 'Legal and social issues' under which Ctein's column is filed, is TOP's equivalent of an Op-Ed section. Or should there be a separate, categorical Op-Ed section to warn off Moose [who, in a comment, objected to the subject of this column —Ed.] and like-minded readers?"

The Editor replies: This is a blog. We post about all sorts of topics. I am a bit perplexed that Moose reads this site and thinks this controversy has less to do with photography than a post about technique might; that would definitely not be my ordering of priorities. However, that doesn't even matter. If anyone doesn't like a particular post, he or she may simply choose to not read it. There is no penalty for skipping. There will be no test.

TOP is a buffet: help yourself to what appeals to you, pass on what doesn't.

Mark Alan Miller: "My biggest problem is not just that Pellegrin fudged the location and plagiarized his caption, it's that he, a photojournalist, did not report on what he found in the Crescent, as assigned, but instead went elsewhere to find what he wanted, a white gun fan who could be made look like a scary nut case. Have him grab his gun and drape himself in cartridges and get him to pose in a seedy-looking location (really just a garage), with a bit of dramatic lighting to push the message across. A little creative captioning later and the Crescent had an ex-Marine sniper who looked liable to break out in comic book, whoop-ass vigilantism at the least provocation. Am I reading too much meaning into it? The dude in his patriotic T-shirt with shotgun at the ready is a walking action movie/video game stereotype. Pellegrin knows it as well as we do. My problem with Pellegrin is that he created this image from the ground up. This ex-Marine sniper is not to be found on the streets of the Crescent. Actor, role, set, props, none of these are what Pellegrin purported them to be. He didn't just report badly, he passed off creative writing as journalism. And plagiarized part of it."

Brett: "The biggest failing for me, a journalist by training, is that Pellegrin didn't seem to even know where he was when he took that staged photo of the student/former Marine with the gun. If he didn't even understand the story, how could he report it accurately? His follow-up explanation that he was trying to reflect gun culture elsewhere in the city didn't ring true to me. That wasn't reflected in the caption.

"I think this exposes one big flaw when photojournalists parachute into an area and try to understand it. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't. Given the ubiquity of cell phone cameras and the like, it's no wonder that we're seeing more grass-roots photojournalism from people who actually live in a given place. Sometimes they have their own agendas, it's true, but by and large I think they will be able to more accurately report their surroundings than could a person like Pellegrin, no matter how talented and dedicated."

Followup: Pellegrin Kerfuffle

Yesterday, I linked to a BagNews post about the accuracy of an award-winning photo by Magnum's Paolo Pellegrin. Since then, Paolo has responded (weakly, in my estimation) and a number of sites have leapt to his defense.

This morning, BagNews responds to the criticisms. An excerpt:

[A] notable effect from yesterday’s critique was the counter-critique that BagNews "failed to contact" Mr. Pellegrin in advance or "give him the chance to reply." I welcome the chance to speak to that, and to clarify a fundamental misperception people make about the role and practice of BagNews relative to news photography.

What is essential to understand about our role is that we are critics, not reporters. That may be confusing to some because there are not a lot of  practicing visual news or, especially, news photo critics around. But our role and what we do—deemed essential by esteemed colleagues from visual media to academia—is no different from what art critics or television critics or theater critics or film critics do.

I like that point. But then, I'm sort of a critic too, so I sympathize.

Black eyes, or needed checks and balances?
If you don't mind me going all meta now:

To my way of thinking, there's a whole 'nuther can o' worms waiting to be opened here: are prizewinning photographs more often revealed to have been fudged to some degree simply because winning a contest puts the spotlight of scrutiny on them? To what degree are the offending practices simply standard practices that are only revealed on special occasions when outside parties have a reason to look into them?

Since yesterday I've been included in a large private conversation (initiated by Michael Shaw of BagNews) between more than forty photo media professionals regarding the kerfuffle. Several participants in that conversation have questioned whether there should be press photo awards at all. After all, it brings unwelcome as well as welcome attention to a photographer's work, and occasionally (when a winner is disgraced) gives the whole profession a black eye.

True, it does seem to happen with depressing regularity: a photo wins a prize, the photo thereby receives extra scrutiny, and the methods or the ethics of the photographer are exposed and called into question; people then discuss the matter—what the photographer's transgressions were, exactly, and whether he or she overstepped the proper boundaries of journalism.

Funny, but, to me—and I'm an outsider, remember—this is a good reason to have press photo contests. It's really their second best and second most desirable function (the first being to call added attention to especially outstanding work, of course). I'm starting to think contests do a whole lot of good precisely because then the winners are submitted to this higher level of scrutiny. The rest of us then get a "snapshot" read on the current state of photojournalistic practice—we get to see how a small sampling of work holds up under the microscope. And we find out which lines are getting blurred, which boundaries getting pushed, and we get to discuss what we think of it—whether we think it's significant or not, a transgression or not, etc. That's exactly what we're doing now, here, and what the broader photo community is doing.

That's valuable. It's a bit like the function of the press itself in relation to society, only in microcosm, related only to photojournalism itself.

Certainly, when it's agreed that a prizewinner has cheated, it sends a message to the rest of the profession: there are standards; others, down the road, might be watching; don't fudge. Mr. Pellegrin got caught fudging, is all (in this one instance). In a story about gun violence in an area called the Crescent, he posed a friend of one of his photo student guide's with a gun in a setting of his own choosing many miles from the Crescent, miscaptioned it, and called it reportage. Not quite.

If there were never any controversies, then I'd say maybe we could do away with contests. Otherwise, it seems to me we still need them. More glory to those who pass muster.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 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.
A book of interest today:

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

Speed: "The argument is that contests are bad because they sometimes expose cheaters. The corollary would be that reporting the news is bad because it sometimes exposes cheaters, crooks, liars, philanderers and thieves."

Mike replies: That's my thought, but see Jim Richardson's comment under the first post for a different take on contests.

Burt: "This is a tricky subject, no doubt. I actually started thinking about what good or bad was being done with the World Press Photo awards when they were posted on the NY Times Lens blog several days ago. I was immediately struck by the processed nature of a lot of the photos, and it honestly made me wonder if these journalists were in it to report on a story or to win an award.

"Cut to the other day and the flap over the Pellegrin photo, and the situation has only gotten stickier. Looking beyond the argument between BagNews and Pellegrin, I wonder if the question you present here isn't the most important of all. Do these awards themselves cause photographers to act unethically in hopes of winning an award?  Certainly not all the photographers involved are compromised, but some must have questionable motives. Any time you start to see the level of word mincing/semantics being picked apart in the BagNews/Pellegrin situation I think one knows in their heart that something is amiss, even if you can explain your way out of it with Bill Clinton-esque wording.

"As for the awards themselves—do they instigate this ethically questionable behavior, or do they bring about a beneficial level of scrutiny that would actually help prevent this type of thing? Of course the answer isn't clear, and I'm sure it's a bit of both. Perhaps those who give the awards should consider a method for selecting candidates' work that would reduce the desire for photojournalists to go out an behave unethically? Maybe individuals/magazines etc. shouldn't be able to submit their own work for consideration? Perhaps those giving the awards should be responsible, or submissions should be generated by a group of impartial, non-involved photographers. I'm not sure, but there's got to be a better way, no?"

Bob Keefer: "As a career journalist—writer, not photographer—what I think this tawdry episode illustrates is the sad arrogance of many members of the national media. The process works like this: Decide what the story is, usually based on reading other, more-local journalists' work. Fly in. Do a few interviews and take a few photos, all to illustrate the story you've already mapped out in advance. Fly home and enter contests."

When Reality Isn't Enough

Photo by World Press Photo contest winner Paolo Pellegrin of Magnum.

When I was in photography school, I made a small portfolio called Ocean City, Maryland. It consisted of 12 or 15 pictures (I don't recall now) taken in Ocean City.

Except, one wasn't. One was a photograph of a cabin cruiser under power, taken from above. The picture was very simple: the boat was in the middle of the frame, its wake behind it, and the background was entirely water. It might have been taken in Ocean City—who could tell but me?—but as it happened, it wasn't. It was taken from a bridge in Washington, D.C. of a boat on the Potomac River.

I wrote an essay on this "lie," which was probably the earliest formulation of my conviction that a photograph is like a statement by the photographer, and the truth of the statement is on the photographer—just as with written or spoken statements, he or she can be honest, or not. There was nothing at all inherently duplicitous about that photograph of the boat; but by putting it in a portfolio called Ocean City, Maryland, and not specifying that it wasn't taken there, it became the equivalent of a false statement.

I was surprised by how divided the response was to my essay. Some of my classmates thought my conclusions were obvious; a few hadn't ever thought about it before but were convinced by my argument; and others thought it didn't matter. It "could have been" taken in Ocean City...what did it matter if it wasn't?

I also noticed that some people easily generalized the issue, and others wanted to concentrate on the specific instance.

There are two issues there, it seems to me. The first is that photographs can have content that the photographer isn't aware of. I used the boat to stand for "a generic boat"—it looked like every other medium-sized cabin cruiser of the era to me, and I'm sure it did to 98% of the people who looked at the picture. But of course it wasn't generic. It was a specific boat, of a specific make and model, which had a specific individual owner, specific people on board at the time, etc. It's far-fetched to imagine that someone might need the specific information in the picture, but not difficult to imagine the possibility. To name a trivial scenario: imagine that that boat had subsequently been sold, and the seller told the buyer it had only ever been used in the Potomac River and had never been operated in salt water, and the new owner of boat saw the picture and was able to recognize the boat as the one he bought. He might then think the seller had lied to him...because he had found a picture of the boat taken in Ocean City, which is on the Atlantic Ocean. Granted, it's very unlikely that this would happen. But it's possible. And it shows a general truth: photographs can have content that the photographer might not "mean," or even know is in the photograph.

I'll give you another example. I was photographing once in the Brandywine River Valley, and I got accosted by a homeowner who accused me of taking pictures of his truck, which was parked about 60 feet from me next to the trailer home he had come barrelling out of. I wasn't; I hadn't even really noticed his truck. I was taking pictures of...well, a shadow cast by a wrought-iron railing. The confrontation, however, made me very curious: why had he wanted me to not take a picture of his truck? Was it stolen? Was the repo man out to get it? Had he told his ex-wife he'd sold it? I didn't find out. (He was hostile, and a little drunk, and had no desire to talk to me.) But imagine that I had taken a picture of his truck beside his trailer home. The photograph then becomes evidence that, yes, the truck in the picture was probably sitting next to the trailer home in the picture. What significance that might have had was unknown to me, but his actions indicated that it indeed had some sort of significance.

The second issue is that photographs are evidence of true things in the world—not proof, but evidence—and making them into false statements when it's not clear to others that that's what you're doing essentially falsifies their inherent evidentiary value. (That no one cares might be true, but doesn't change the fact.)

Anyway, all of this is very long-winded preamble to a link I thought was fascinating. As seems to happen regularly now, a controversy has erupted about a prizewinning photo, and there's an excellent discussion of it at Bag News Notes. The article is by Michael Shaw and is called "When Reality Isn’t Dramatic Enough: Misrepresentation in a World Press and Picture of the Year Winning Photo." It begins:

What happens when a World Press Photo and Picture of the Year International award-winning photograph doesn't show what it purports to show? Not through a mistake of interpretation or subjective opinion, but when the facts show the photo wasn't taken where it was claimed to be taken and when the subject of the photo isn't who the photographer says he is. What happens when a city is represented through photographs bearing photographer-written descriptions almost wholly plagiarized from a 10-year-old New York Times article?  Does it make it worse when the photos and the series in question, "The Crescent, Rochester USA 2012," have won multiple awards and the photographer is Magnum's Paolo Pellegrin?

A fascinating article...at least to me! The issue is virtually the same, but with much higher-level players, and considerably higher stakes.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 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.

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

Jim: "And here is the photographer's response."

Geoff Wittig: "As someone who lives near Rochester and whose son attended RIT, I found this post more than a little discouraging. Yes, Rochester has some substantial drug/crime problems in some neighborhoods, as do all midsized and large American cities. It's no better or worse in this regard than Buffalo or Cleveland. And it has nothing at all to do with Kodak's demise; Rochester's most crime-ridden neighborhoods were no better when Kodak was riding high. Adding some manufactured visual drama is simply beyond the pale.

"The grotesque violation of any standard of journalistic integrity is the obvious issue. The last few decades have witnessed a corrosive decline in confidence in many of our institutions, in many cases for good reason. Since journalism including photography is a vital check on other institutional powers such as government and corporations, this kind of self-inflicted wound is especially greivous. We already live in an era where true/false seem to be malleable constructs. This just adds fuel to the fire."

Dave: "An argument could be made your choices for your portfolio are more an 'artistic license' than the fraud discussed in the article. As an artist, you created a work to describe Ocean City Maryland and used a photo taken elsewhere to demonstrate a facet of that location. Boats, after all, are a major cultural element of Ocean City. Art is what the creator and viewer agree it is. Journalism, however requires an objective standard of credibility clearly lacking in the WPP winner."

Another phil: "I think the problems with misrepresentation (which his photo appears to be), is that it casts a shadow on all photojournalism, and people can then view photographers with suspicion. My rule-of-thumb is, the more accurate the description, the more accurate the photo has to be—if someone titles a photo 'Blackingstone Rock, Dartmoor, taken from the southwest,' I expect to be able to go there and see it myself, whereas if it is just titled 'Rock' my expectations are different."

Dennis A. Mook: "Thirty-eight years ago, and for several years, I was a forensic police detective. Part of my duties was to photograph the scenes of crimes, from minor incidents to homicides. When on the witness stand and under oath, the first question from the prosecutor to me was, 'Are these photographs a true and accurate representation of the scene as you found it?' This was in the days before Photoshop but, nonetheless, photographs could be altered in several ways. For example, we always photographed with a 'normal' lens to keep perspective correct, developed and printed our own photographs so as to keep the representation as close to how we found it, and never altered the photographs in any way. The photograph could not speak for itself, but only represent reality and truth when corroborated by the photographer. That was always necessary as a photograph could never be entered into evidence without the maker swearing under oath that it was both true and accurate. However, the irony lies in the fact that the courts would only accept black and white photographs, as color was too inflammatory and would bias the jury. So, I always added to my verification the words 'except for the lack of color.' We also noted if we used a strobe to light the scene. Looking back now, if color photography would have preceded black and white, monochrome would never have been admitted into evidence, as it is a far cry from reality as we found it.

"Today, the same standards are required. The image cannot represent the truth unless sworn to by the individual who made it. Should this be a requirement in non-judicial uses of photographs? I don't know but it would take the 'truth and accuracy' issue to a higher level."