[Leica] screaming children meet john

[pklein at threshinc.com (Peter Klein)]

The cover photo is not the issue.

Ms. Greenberg actually delivered a good cover photo.  McCain looks tough, 
weathered, a "don't mess with the U.S" kinda guy with his history written 
on his face.  I subscribe to the Atlantic, and I remember thinking that the 
photo was striking.  I paid much more attention to the article than to the 
photo.  The article explores how McCain's wartime experiences have affected 
his psychology and world view.  It's a good article.  The image fits the 
content.

What is at issue is that Greenberg used the same photo session to take some 
stealth pictures with Hollywood horror lighting and angles.  She didn't 
take them for the Atlantic, she took them to embarrass and lampoon 
McCain.  She then Photoshopped the pictures, adding bloody shark's teeth to 
one of McCain's images, and added a monkey defecating on the Senator in 
another.  And so forth.  She then posted these on her Web site, commenting 
gleefully how she hated McCain and had pulled a fast one on him and his 
people by taking her additional pictures.

I've thought Ms. Greenberg had highly questionable ethics since the "crying 
children" affair.  This episode only reinforces this.  Her actions were 
stupid, juvenile and even counterproductive to her own political aims. 
She's given the right-wing pundits and bloggers something else to rant 
about, to divert attention from the real issues.  The Atlantic now has egg 
on its face. It has to grovel and apologize. The integrity of a thoughtful 
publication has been tainted, and the substance of the article has been 
lost in the controversy.

Yes, that the Atlantic didn't "vet" her is their mistake, and their own 
fault. But at that level of the profession, the idea that a photographer 
would pull such a stunt may simply not have occurred to them.

If you're hired by a respected national magazine to take a picture of a 
candidate you don't like during a highly charged national campaign, you 
have a choice.  You do the job, and stay out of the politics.  Or you 
refuse the job, and play the politics all you want.  You can't do both at 
the same time and maintain your own or your client's integrity. And by 
extension, the integrity of all your fellow photographers.

Ms. Greenburg's manipulated images were in such poor taste that I don't 
think they would persuade anyone of anything.  They belong in junior high 
school, or perhaps in a bad Yippie publication from the 60s.  For this, and 
a few minutes of fame, she has done some real damage to a good magazine, 
her profession, and probably to the cause she espouses in the bargain.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

--Peter


>On Sep 16, 2008, at 6:47 PM, Tina Manley wrote:
>
> >  Jill Greenberg deliberately used unflattering lighting and editing,
> > even adding a monkey to a photo, to portray McCain in a biased way.
> > If she wants to do that for "art", that's her prerogative, but it
> > has no place on the cover of the Atlantic Monthly unless they are
> > covering her art exhibit.  It's certainly not photojournalism.