Is Easy Bad? [Jill Greenberg and John McCain]

[Vaughn]

Well, at least she manipulate photos she took herself and not by others.

I am reminded of the photo taken by Yousuf Karsh of the WWII German industrialist (Kulp?). He purposefully lit the his face from underneath to make him look as evil as he supposively was (slave labor, etc). Haven't heard a word of censure about that image. Sorry, tried to find a copy of the image online, but could not.

Vaughn

 

[Anscojohn]

It was of Alfried Krupp. But I do not think it was Karsh; I think it was Newman.

 

[Monophoto]

It was of Alfried Krupp. But I do not think it was Karsh; I think it was Newman.

It was Newman, and he took a great deal of pleasure in expressing his opinion of Krup.

 

[k_jupiter]

Well, at least she manipulate photos she took herself and not by others.

I am reminded of the photo taken by Yousuf Karsh of the WWII German industrialist (Kulp?). He purposefully lit the his face from underneath to make him look as evil as he supposively was (slave labor, etc). Haven't heard a word of censure about that image. Sorry, tried to find a copy of the image online, but could not.

Vaughn

I think you are thinking about Krups but I can't get to anything here at work. They want to save me from myself and pornography.

There is a difference between making an image in a particular style and abusing your employers trust for your own political pleasure.

tim in san jose

 

[bill schwab]

I find it rather astonishing that there isn't some legal clause that photographers sign before they are hired for such things.

There is in most cases. For any such assignment I did for magazines, my contract always specified that I not use the images resulting from the shoot until anywhere from 30 - 90 days after initial publication. This is most likely why the magazine feels they have grounds to sue. Otherwise, the images belong to the photographer and after the agreed upon time can be used for other editorial purposes. What surprises me is that the McCain people allowed her to photograph him in the first place. They must not have done their homework.

 

[Lee L]

It's Arnold Newman and Alfried Krupp. Krupp was a metals and munitions manufacturer, not the Krups that makes kitchen appliances.

Lee

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

his name was Krupp.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Threads merged, title updated.

 

[Gay Larson]

I agree that this was certainly not ethical. If she had taken a photograph of him in a public forum and then manupulated it, she could have used it all she wanted. Of course she would have gotten a lot less publicity and it appears she is a publicity monger. To blind side both the magazine and the subject is insane. I looked at her website and could not find the photos except the cover.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

They hired a photographer who behaved at best, like a childish brat, and at worse... completely unethically. She was there representative.

Well I don't even care if that was ethical or not! Her biggest crime was that it was, as you said, childish, and also utterly cheap, primal, first degree, badly done, shallow, wanky, self-congratulating, me-me-me-me-me level of protest.

Goddamn it, where are the stylish protesters? I'm so surprised that she did something like that because her photo are so worked out, slick and shiny, that I don't understand why she gave in to such a useless posture.

For the record, John McCain can kiss my Canadian behind, so I'm in now way offended, but I don't see the point of at all of what Greenberg has done.

 

[removed account4]

michel,

any publicity is good publicity as they say ...

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do you mean this image ( newman / krupp ) ?

 

[Ole]

I looked at her website and could not find the photos except the cover.

Look under "Portraits", scroll sideways to John McCain.

 

[Vaughn]

Thanks everyone, guess I should have taken a photo history class...

And thanks Michael for supplying the photo....Newman did a good job. Jill's third one of McCain comes close.

Vaughn

 

[Dave Wooten]

Was she given access to do the portrait shoot to produce a specific product? She has a feature in FOCUS mag this new issue, animal portraits, they look kindly and human, due to photoshop. Maybe there is now a new market for wedding photographers to manipulate the bridal portraits and put them on the web. I dont know...if only Karsh had had photoshop, maybe his portraits would have stood the test of time and and his work given at least a modicum of respect...Kennedy as godzilla....dead ringer for the poster market or rock band cover.

 

[nemo999]

They hired a photographer who behaved at best, like a childish brat, and at worse... completely unethically. She was there representative.

I used to work for a news magazine, and when I hired a photographer who was working for us, I expected them to behave professionally and ethically. They had to apologize for her behavior. The Atlantic, I have no doubt, will take McCain to task, though I have not seen, nor read the Oct. issue, but drawing little devil horns, and using lighting setups designed to deceive is hardly the way they would want to present meaningful political debate.

I don't think the apology is inappropriate... her behavior was.

Just for my own information - do you recognize the function and validity of political caricature in any form? Or do you think that people such as Hogarth, Gillray, Cruikshank and Heartfield, whom I mentioned earlier, and for that matter the creators of the British "Spitting Image" TV show, later copied in many other countries, should be taken out and shot for the crime of irredeemable vulgarity?

 

[mcfactor]

The unethical thing would have been to help mccain by presenting him to the public in a normal light when she felt otherwise. At least she had the guts to show how she really felt. She didnt let herself be used to advance the career of a politician she dislikes.

 

[nickrapak]

If she took the shots for her personal use and clearly stated as such, the issue would not have been as big. The fact is, she was hired by a company to do a cover shoot for that company. That she used those images for personal gain (other than that related to the company) and to espouse her political beliefs is, although probably not illegal, INCREDIBLY immoral.

I understand that many of you are Obama supporters, so I pose for you this question: Would you be equally nonchalant if a photographer for Newsmax took a cover photo of Obama, and then subsequently modified another shot, portraying him as Stalin. Granted, you might not have a problem with that, but I know people that wouldn't have a problem with any immoral modifications of truths, as long as it supported their view.

 

[mcfactor]

breaking a contract, in-itself, is not immoral. She didnt claim that the photos on her site where "real", they were clearly doctored. Again, she followed her political beliefs and stood up for herself. We all know that someone else airbrushed the actual mccain cover in order to make his skin look smoother. is that not dishonest? or, at the very least, false?

 

[k_jupiter]

The unethical thing would have been to help mccain by presenting him to the public in a normal light when she felt otherwise. At least she had the guts to show how she really felt. She didnt let herself be used to advance the career of a politician she dislikes.

Then she shouldn't have taken the fucking job.

tim in san jose

 

[catem]

... do you think that people such as Hogarth, Gillray, Cruikshank and Heartfield, whom I mentioned earlier, and for that matter the creators of the British "Spitting Image" TV show, later copied in many other countries, should be taken out and shot for the crime of irredeemable vulgarity?

Good satire is clever, humorous, and often cruelly incisive (and the sign of a healthy society in my view). I don't think Greenberg's effort at photochopping is clever or funny, more like clichéd and silly. Also, Spitting Image (the original puppets) were brilliant on a technical/visual level (also Hogarth et al) whereas Greenberg's work is pretty crude (to put it kindly?) in comparison.

 

[SuzanneR]

Just for my own information - do you recognize the function and validity of political caricature in any form? Or do you think that people such as Hogarth, Gillray, Cruikshank and Heartfield, whom I mentioned earlier, and for that matter the creators of the British "Spitting Image" TV show, later copied in many other countries, should be taken out and shot for the crime of irredeemable vulgarity?

Yes, of course I do. I just don't look for it in the Atlantic.

And good satire, as Cate says, adds to the debate in a humorous and meaningful way. My problem, here, is that she is one of the irksome people who dumbs things down for her own glory.

As Arnold Newman's photograph of Albert Krupp has been mentioned... here was an instance where a photographer was hired by a magazine... Newsweek? to photograph someone who the photographer saw as evil.

Newman, unlike Greenberg, used his head. He made a portrait of an industrialist... classically... and still made the man look like the devil. That's a brilliant picture, and he didn't have to draw blood all over the picture like a bunch of bathroom grafitti to make the point. That is the sort of satire that will bring insight to readers, and, oddly enough, not embarrass the assigning rag.

 

[Soeren]

If it was in her contract that she could use the pix for personal use, then - "right" or not - her butt is covered, and Atlantic needs to learn to write better contracts...and John McCain needs to sign better contracts. As a lawmaker, he should be able to tell what to sign and what not to sign...or at least have his advisers inform him if he doesn't have the time himself.
SNIP<
.

Maybe the contract was send to him on E-mail

 

[eclarke]

Keith, she has a right to do what she wants with her photos, I'm not particularly interested in seeing what she did this time. But she is known for her manipulation of images, so what's the big deal.

Suzzanne Revvy raise a good point , but in the long run Jill Greenberg has mainly only affected her own credibility. Newspapers world wide tamper with and manipulate images in far more insidious ways. At least Gill Greenburg's manipulation is obvious, and she doesn't hide that's what she does.

Ian

The basic fact is that all "news" is edited, you can trust it to the point of humor and no farther...EC

 

[keithwms]

The basic fact is that all "news" is edited, you can trust it to the point of humor and no farther...EC

If that's where photojournalism is now, then it's very sad. Surely everyone here can see that this is not good for professional analogue photography. Not good at all.

JG's gloating on pdn was just disgraceful; she actually described tricking McCain et al. by setting a diffuse light not to fire. That is professional? Well, at least she didn't squirt stage blood on him during the shoot, that's about the only way she could have gone any further.

Infantile. I remember penciling horns and black teeth and Hitler moustaches on fellow classmates' photos... when I was 8 or 9.

Almost equally disgraceful though, IMHO, is the fact that some people are so blinded by hatred of Bush that a very basic question of ethics is lost in the noise. And who actually benefits by this? Guess. Suffice it to say that today's political propagandists understand the knee-jerk reflex very well.

 

[Gay Larson]

The unethical thing would have been to help mccain by presenting him to the public in a normal light when she felt otherwise. At least she had the guts to show how she really felt. She didnt let herself be used to advance the career of a politician she dislikes.

Then she shouldn't have taken the job in the first place.