[Leica] Don McCullin, reuters, war photos

[kcassidy at asc.upenn.edu (Kyle Cassidy)]

anybody who hasn't yet should buy or at the very least look at Don McCullin 
's book "sleeping with ghosts" about his years as a combat photographer. 
Don's photos (i've called him "don" ever since we were in that prison 
together in istanbul for two months and had to tunnel our way out with 
spoons. we got quite close) which are some of the most stunning examples of 
photography i've ever seen benefit from serious darkroom manipulation. never 
to defraud the viewer, but to isolate a person, to draw our focus, clouds 
are burned in dramatically ... the most recent reuters debacle was an 
abomination -- however, i don't want to see _art_ become devoid from _news 
reporting_. i expect our photographers to use polarizers, to use burning and 
dodging, and tools like sharpening to improve the quality of their images. i 
don't want to get flat raw files. i want a skilled technician to present 
truthful images beautifully. and yes, that means spotting dust off the 
sensor too.