zaterdag, december 06, 2003
I am no photo editor. But this is the time when we begin to see roundups of the best news photos of the past year. And just running the loop of the year's most memorable pictures in my head, a funny thing happens: I keep seeing staged photos. For those who are sticklers for definition, I am defining "staged" as any photo arranged through the efforts of the person pictured, or arranged to reflect that person's world view.
There's that photo, for instance, of President George W. Bush making his tailhook landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln. That is a shoo-in for the top 10 list, and a classic of staged photography. There's Bush again, taking turkey with the troops during his lightning visit to Baghdad last week. That's sure to be included, too. Then there's the big one - the picture of Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down with ropes by American soldiers in Baghdad. That will have to be the No. 1 news photo of the year 2003.
Let journalism think-tankers explain the significance of this high number of photo-op pictures among the enduring images of the year. Maybe it means nothing in particular. Maybe it means the White House has figured out if not how to win a war on terrorism, how to convey pictures that make it look like it is winning a war somewhere about something or other.
There were other pictures this year, I know: The year's roundup will include the mug shot of Michael Jackson and one of the gap-toothed Arnold Schwarzenegger; and one each from the stories of the California wildfires, the Northeast blackout, the stooped Pope who defiantly keeps on; the miraculously recovered, living Elizabeth Smart. Others, I'm forgetting. Others are still to be made in the last 26 days.
But between you and me, the most compelling images of the year have probably been the photos never taken - pictures one can only imagine, even if one might not actually want to see them.
There are no enduring photos, for instance, of the costs of the war in Iraq. I have seen some pictures of American soldiers killed. But usually these are met with angry denunciations by the public, and American newspapers are not publishing many. There have been some pictures of killed and wounded Iraqi civilians, including children, but usually these too are met with angry denunciations by the public; and American newspapers are not publishing many.
The traditional photographing of flag-draped coffins descending from U.S. military planes, bearing home the bodies of American soldiers killed in the war, has been banned, for the time being, by the Pentagon. We do not have these images engraved on us, as we do the images of the statue falling, and the president flying here and there.
But these are real pictures for me, and perhaps for you. I keep them in the photo loop of my inner eye, where they run every time I am told again that things are improving, or that 60 percent of the people of Iraq are glad to see us.
OK, this is not about the Year in Photos. It's about the country's conscience. Photo images - not the staged ones, but the ones that capture life unfolding in all its unpredictability and awesomeness - are among the most powerful informers of the national conscience. Without them, we are left making only choices that have been stage managed: To vote or not, to shop or not, to see or look away.
When a woman was trampled by a crowd of shoppers running for DVDs on sale at Wal-Mart last week, there was no photographer on hand to snap the picture. But the image of that woman, huddled on the floor as others walked over her "like a herd of elephants," according to her sister, is near the top of my list of the year's indelible, if unphotographed, images. (The woman survived.)
When I think of Wal-Mart, or holiday shopping, or DVDs - or this year's model of the American conscience - I see that picture, the unedited emblem of American consumerism in its most extreme form: the willingness to kill for bargains. It is of a piece with the other unpublished photos in my loop - at least according to the photo editor in charge of my darkroom this year.
Paul Vitello/Newsday
There's that photo, for instance, of President George W. Bush making his tailhook landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln. That is a shoo-in for the top 10 list, and a classic of staged photography. There's Bush again, taking turkey with the troops during his lightning visit to Baghdad last week. That's sure to be included, too. Then there's the big one - the picture of Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down with ropes by American soldiers in Baghdad. That will have to be the No. 1 news photo of the year 2003.
Let journalism think-tankers explain the significance of this high number of photo-op pictures among the enduring images of the year. Maybe it means nothing in particular. Maybe it means the White House has figured out if not how to win a war on terrorism, how to convey pictures that make it look like it is winning a war somewhere about something or other.
There were other pictures this year, I know: The year's roundup will include the mug shot of Michael Jackson and one of the gap-toothed Arnold Schwarzenegger; and one each from the stories of the California wildfires, the Northeast blackout, the stooped Pope who defiantly keeps on; the miraculously recovered, living Elizabeth Smart. Others, I'm forgetting. Others are still to be made in the last 26 days.
But between you and me, the most compelling images of the year have probably been the photos never taken - pictures one can only imagine, even if one might not actually want to see them.
There are no enduring photos, for instance, of the costs of the war in Iraq. I have seen some pictures of American soldiers killed. But usually these are met with angry denunciations by the public, and American newspapers are not publishing many. There have been some pictures of killed and wounded Iraqi civilians, including children, but usually these too are met with angry denunciations by the public; and American newspapers are not publishing many.
The traditional photographing of flag-draped coffins descending from U.S. military planes, bearing home the bodies of American soldiers killed in the war, has been banned, for the time being, by the Pentagon. We do not have these images engraved on us, as we do the images of the statue falling, and the president flying here and there.
But these are real pictures for me, and perhaps for you. I keep them in the photo loop of my inner eye, where they run every time I am told again that things are improving, or that 60 percent of the people of Iraq are glad to see us.
OK, this is not about the Year in Photos. It's about the country's conscience. Photo images - not the staged ones, but the ones that capture life unfolding in all its unpredictability and awesomeness - are among the most powerful informers of the national conscience. Without them, we are left making only choices that have been stage managed: To vote or not, to shop or not, to see or look away.
When a woman was trampled by a crowd of shoppers running for DVDs on sale at Wal-Mart last week, there was no photographer on hand to snap the picture. But the image of that woman, huddled on the floor as others walked over her "like a herd of elephants," according to her sister, is near the top of my list of the year's indelible, if unphotographed, images. (The woman survived.)
When I think of Wal-Mart, or holiday shopping, or DVDs - or this year's model of the American conscience - I see that picture, the unedited emblem of American consumerism in its most extreme form: the willingness to kill for bargains. It is of a piece with the other unpublished photos in my loop - at least according to the photo editor in charge of my darkroom this year.
Paul Vitello/Newsday
# posted by Jan-Edward : 12:13
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