Photo journalism and personal bias

<p>A <em>gedanken</em> question.<br>

You are a successful magazine photographer for Vanity Fair or in day's past, Life weekly. Let 's say you were somebody on scale of Alfred Eisenstadt,whom all know and admire.<br>

You are asked by the editor who trusts you without qualm, to photograph, in a "safe venue" like the American consulate for the overseas shoot, one of the following folk. Ahmoud Amadinejad. Hugo Chavez. Ann Coulter. Rush Limbaugh. Bobby Jindal. Marlon Brando,-lets say he is still with us.<br>

Could you,or better yet, would you, clear your mind of personal poltical or moral repugnance and just " do photography?" And if so,how would you frame your job as a photographer of a notable figure. No glib answers, please. thanks.</p>

<p>First off, other than his sphericity, what's the matter with Marlon? </p>

<p>Gerry, what you describe is a component of professionalism. Doctors and lawyers have to deal with this, and probably priests and the like, too. The question can be paraphrased: can you act dispassionately when your subject is someone you despise? I think a true professional can, although not all do, and for some, it's no doubt just a job. </p>

<p>It is a cheap solution to portray these characters as one-dimensional villains or monsters, but I think that is often what the news editors want. In the days of USA Today and the 10-second soundbite, they rarely miss an opportunity to take the low road, if it will mean selling papers, or advertising minutes. But the greats of photography would be able to winkle out the essential character of the subject, and make it come through in the photo. </p>

<p>One of the more puzzling photos I've seen recently is a snapshot of Saddam Hussein, out on a picnic with his family. It's disturbing because the Great Scumbag, may he rest in peace, reveals himself to be an ordinary schmuck, sitting with his over-makeupped womenfolk, and wearing a ridiculous fedora. The Hussein photo is one of a very few pictures that show the man as he is; practically every photo released in his political lifetime was taken to portray him as a hero, or a one-dimensional monster. (Incidentally, perhaps a better example than any of your list would be AH himself, but I digress and, dammit, now I've <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law">Godwinned</a> the thread.)</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt">Hannah Arendt</a> coined the phrase 'the banality of evil' when she was writing about a different scumbag 50 years ago, and maybe that idea fits in here somehow. I think we find it troubling to know that these pariahs share our DNA, and they eat, drink, put their pants on one leg at a time, and love their dorky families the same as we do. It's easier for photo editors to go for the simplistic message, but I believe the image-makers should keep the tension up. Creating that depth is, IMHO, one thing which distinguishes the professional from the guy who is just doing a job.</p>

<p>I could photograph Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh in ways that it would make it clear who they really were. They wouldn't like them, and whether or not I could get them published...well that's another story.</p>

<p>Marlon Brando could look heroic in photographs, my kind of model.</p>

<p>Well I guess no Eisenstadt would have made it to Berchtesgaden as a weekend photo op shooter, huh, Der Feuhrer is nicht off limits to me either. More than Leni R ,back then, eagerly sucked up to Adolf and he was mesmerizing I give him that..<br>

Marlon Brando, inreresting case. Which Marlon is the question. More I read of Marlon,he became pure kooky in his later years.<br>

Read if you will anecdotes of how he treated publishers who sought his memoirs and his interviews with press. Vulgar, brilliant, enigmatic, arrogant and totally off the wall fruitcake say some folk.<br>

Reference re Brando is Vanity Fair/ The Atlantic/ London times writer and publisher Evans in his autobio book "Paper Chase,. " True I guess he did some real good on Indian tribal treatment when he was lucid. No one is all pure repugnant,true so where does that leave the photo interpreter?.</p>

<p>I could not keep my own feelings out of the issue.....which is why I do very little work that could be considered journalistic. I have worked hard for many years to get emotion, expression, feeling, opinion, personality etc., into my images....that's what I sell.</p>

<p>So I do, and have, turned down work on that basis. Robert...</p>

<p>"Ahmoud Amadinejad. Hugo Chavez. Ann Coulter. Rush Limbaugh. Bobby Jindal. Marlon Brando,-lets say he is still with us."</p>

<p>I'd want to photograph them in a plain and straightforward way, to see the person and not the role they play for pay. Better yet would be a portrait that captures both, if I were that good. Their celebrity or fame is not important and their opinions or politics have nothing to do with photographing them. Limbaugh and Coulter...Uncle Bob and Cousin Millie, I think. Chavez and Amadinejad seem lively, even vivacious; they seem like guys who like to talk and attitudinize. I think it would be a rewarding experience to photograph them. Brando at any age would be the most difficult and least rewarding for me. He was a consumate actor, always on. It would be difficult to get behind his performing. I don't know who Bobby Jindal is.</p>

<p>A la Marlon Brando:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>It would be difficult to get behind his performing</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Exactly correct. No one ever could. Consummate performer. Never out of his make up.</p>

<p>Please to erase on list one XXX Bobby Jindal XXX. Add this name instead. We are doing a double spread shoot of the handsome and accomplished <strong>Tiger Woods.</strong></p>

<p>I would have no trouble keeping my preconceived (pre-felt?) feelings out of the issue (I think of myself as relatively kneejerk-free), but it might be hard to photograph some folks, assuring the art director/photo-editor that Ann Coulter, for example, wouldn't look skeletal, or that poor old Marlon would still remind viewers of the Marlon in "Streetcar..."</p>

<p>In other words, I think of myself as a photographer. </p>

<p>Avedon made handsome portraits along with scary renditions. at the same sittings (Ike, Billy Graham, George Wallace etc).</p>

 

<p>Were I photographing Brando, I'd not necessarily want to deny or negate his performing. Since his acting is so much a part of him, I'd be inclined to work with that . . . and him. Our public faces are no less ourselves than our private faces. I prefer not to separate people from the roles they play so I'd likely keep in mind the public personnas of all these people. I'd also keep in mind my own feelings about them and work with and against those feelings, as I generally do. By acknowledging, I can transcend what I might feel I have to. By denial, I often accomplish less.</p>

<p>How about the photographer that did the saturnine picture of the Krupps arms magnate on a cover that became a symbol of German war machine and arms industry.<br /> Was Holbein, brushes and pigment, even in his day, kind of able to sneak in some artifact that was revealing of the subject and a kind of insider hint at the personality. I ask because I really don't know.<br /> Was this a kind of a subversive artistic license OR do all superior portrait artists, and I now limit that thought to <em>photo artists </em>of portraiture- relish/ nourish that kind of license or freedom of expression. Somehow pulling off the commision and still doing their thing...<br /> Case in point. When Karsh pulled the cigar from Winston he knew what he was doing and was beyond a' Rupert Murdoch' kind of puppet master control...<br /> When i posted mot so long ago the cover photo of Rudy Giuliani for Times weekly magazine, by the in- your- face /all warts out there- artist ,Nigel Parry ("Sharp") someone wrote that Rudolph looked 'just like the mean bastard he is.'<br /> Maybe Giuliani was complicit in that one and loved it. A self revelation and reflection by a bold other that actually made him feel stronger and more confident. Rather than an airbrushed view like the one of Napoleon with ermine robes, hand in jacket, neo classical pose. Seems almost part of the 'calling' so to speak of it as a calling if one dares.<br>

A photographer,if you like even showing the 'taro cards to his or her subject . Maybe. maybe too far and too poetic an aspiration.<br>

And yet maybe we all of is have a litle of that in us if we aspire to be very much better than we are...again I ask and don't have a parboiled answer for myself...</p>

I worked as an active stringer for a local paper for several years. You bet I editorialized. I liked to do politicians ala the Giuliani you mentioned. I softened the elderly as best I could. When you get a murderer on a perp walk you don't try to soften the image. I tried to keep the gore out of car wrecks. I loved getting grimaces on athletes in motion. I like to shoot tight which is great to bring out wrinkles and blemishes when you want to and render a realistic image of your subject. If I were to shoot the above I would certainly bring my biases. I have some flattering pictures of Al and Tipper Gore, John McCain and some others. The light was soft in these and the pictures just came out that way. I did PR work in my studio where I really tried to make people look good. That was not always the case with my journalism. The purpose of knowing a lot about the use of light and flash is to get the effect you want. The really good photographers I admire do that. Anytime I begin to think well of my work I go look at Karsh and really understand how inadequate mine is.

<p>I have no experiences, so just theoretical ponderings here.<br>

Seems to me there are 2 questions:<br>

1. Can you leave "your agenda" behind, yes or no?<br>

2. What is the possible impact of how you depict them; what do you want to achieve?</p>

<p>The first question would be about trying to objective. Which sounds like a rather undo-able thing, and a personal consideration, and one you'd make for each case seperately. Tiger Woods, Marlon Brando - flawed humans.... completely different stories than mass murderers.</p>

<p>The second, to me, photographically, is more interesting. I find a picture of a loving, caring man in an article that describes a near monster more scary than the standard portrait-as-murderer. Those are cliché and add nothing. For example, the movie <em>Der Untergang </em>was to me a more shocking way to display one of history biggest monsters than displaying him as a raving lunatic. It opens up other perspectives, encourages more to think about who this monster really is. But it does mean your audience will have to know who it is, to get this 'alienating' effect.<br>

Anyway, 'making look good', I think, does not necessarily mean you have closed your eyes for who they are and what they do.</p>

<p><em>"d</em><em>o all . . . portrait artists . . . relish/ nourish that kind of license or freedom of expression."</em> <strong>--Gerry</strong></p>

<p>I relish the dynamic I often feel between license and freedom of expression on the one hand and the kind of relationship, both personal and photographic, I develop with the subject of a portrait.</p>

<p>I am interested in the subject and who the subject is will help determine what I want to or choose to express. A lot will depend on the situation of the portrait. Often, the subjects of my photos are lending themselves to me precisely in order for me to express myself. That will go somewhat differently from a subject who has asked me specifically to do a portrait or one who might pay me for doing one. I will not be untrue to myself but much photography is a matter of compromise and choices among rarely-perfect alternatives. Even when trying to please a client, I try to form a vision that's personal to me. I seek clients who are appreciative of a personal vision rather than generic fare. It's worked out OK so far.</p>

<p>I think one can flatter (if that's part of the deal) while also getting a little extra, something that's real about the person. Sometimes flattery itself is very real. As for subversion, it can be great or appalling and sometimes you can get away with it, sometimes not. I take that on a case by case basis.</p>

<p>Sometimes the most rewarding sense of freedom (of expression) comes in the tension between my own needs and the needs of others, or at least in my own sense of conflicting things pressing on me to express. What to express and what I've got in me to express is not always so clear that it's just a matter of exercising my expressive freedom. It's often as much about commitment as freedom.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The first question would be about trying to objective.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>However I go into the project, for me I think, several thing seem to happen. I know I would try to portray in a good light technically to satisfy and fllatter of feed my needs. Flatter maybe,not deflatter to coin a term... Secondly,the subject can seduce with their charm. And I think all of the ones I mentioned have that power. I would have to decline shooting a cover photo of Glenn Beck. I would probably show him in a pleasing way,rats and double rats. I think. (That might make me a lousy photojournalist of course...I can live with that thought.)</p>

<p>Wow, Karsh was something else wasn' he. Gave a lecture here once. And while in college, Eisenstadt was in our library doing a feature for Life. (It' s ok you may touch me :-)) Well it is an imponderable. And so are most of such things that get at reflection of one's temperament, artistic and otherwise.</p>

<p>Hi Gerry....I knew Karsh and participated in a couple of his seminars.....I think that not many understood him all that well......as for Glenn Beck, what's wrong with him? He is pretty upfront, he never offers facts you can't check out for yourself.....we could do with him up here! Regards, Robert</p>

<p><em>"as for Glenn Beck, what's wrong with him?"</em></p>

<p>He's a raving lunatic. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Interesting OT. </p>

<p> Krupp's portrait was made by Arnold Newman, who did his work intentionally, view camera on-tripod, making heavy use of props and background. His simple lighting (mostly cheap reflectors and bulbs) usually looks conventional, clean, attractive, is relatively uncommunicative...but in Krupp's case he used primative theatric lighting and Wagnerian factory background intentionally to create an image of a monster. He could have made the old man look less terrifying, but had another obvious intention.</p>

<p> Krupp was just a politically opportunistic industrialist like those of CIBA and Volkswagen, no more monsterous as an individual than executives and political enablers of ENRON, Blackwater, Halliburton...BP... <em>The Shoa factor (!) is interesting re Krupp and Newman's Judaism, but perhaps modern executives/politicians are just as evil. </em></p>

<p>... given the access and money, would any of us intentionally do a Newman-Krupp job on our subjects? I'll bet those grandfathers are all cut from the same cloth, pleasant-enough, perhaps socializing comfortably with photographers who will add handsome portraits to their portfolios..to get more work...</p>

<p>Eisenstadt was wonderful but didn't take risks like Newman did with Krupp, Karsh was successful because he intentionally made everybody look heroic (advertised that in New Yorker Magazine side bars, along with the Greek-fisherman-style hats, junk jewelry, and steamship tours)...Avedon had a sort of bipolar photographic integrity, required that his subjects allow him to show multiple sides (eg of Ike as hero and Ike as exhausted and near collapse).</p>

<p> </p>

<p>oops... by "<em>re Krupp and Newman's Judaism" I meant to contrast someone Jewish with someone who drove Nazi manufacturing industry...</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

<em>I wonder what what Krupp thought about Newman and his portrait? </em></p>

<p>So many photographers of stature were Jews or of Jewish heritage. Cornell Capa. Eisenstaedt. Margaret Bourke-White. Joe Rosenthal. Nat Fein. Ralph Morse. Annie Liebowitz. I am sure an essay could be developed to connect the social photojournalism awareness of Jews. And their ability to put aside the very personal in the display of their talent to do the right thing by their portraits. I don' t know how far one can push that. It may be that Jews feel strongly about social issue, but stronger about the primacy of art for art's sake. <em> Arts gratia artis.</em></p>

<p>OK Fred.....it's not enough to call someone a "raving lunatic" without backing it up. So, why do you have that opinion....specifics please....thanks, Robert</p>

<p>Sorry, Robert, wouldn't be fair to this thread's topic. Another place, another time.</p>

<p>Thanks Fred....fair enough...R</p>

<p>I force myself just as an exercise to watch Glenn Beck, between 10 minute sequence of dumb Fox commercials.<br /> Yesterday he seemed to be defending someone who was was castigated for diminishing the Civil Rights Act. I think it was the libertarian fence straddler, opportunistic sort of guy,Paul Rand on a Rachel Maddow interview which I missed. His (Beck's spiel before another potload of commercials made me turn him off) was great theater only. Line up a group of black pundits along with photos of black historical figures like Booker T Washington on a nice set.<br /> Beck comes in with a slick mellifluous and vacuous patter about the government really responsivle having done in the blacks in this country's history and still doing them in....<br /> Glenn is a complete unvarnished idiot, ashameless panderer who is in it for money period. No ideology that makes any sense.<br /> Qualfies as a <em>raving lunatic with a midas touch</em>, no inconsistency there is there? <strong>Fred</strong>, I done said, and I stand by it,<br /> <strong> </strong></p>

<p><strong>BUT getting bact to OP,</strong> if I had to photo him I could not but be influenced by his theatrical charm and down country folksy way and cute buzz cut. I am a photographer.</p>