Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/16

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Re: Photojournalistic integrity and masking
From: "Lee, Ken" <ken.lee@hbc.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 09:08:59 -0400

Eric,

Maybe I am being too literal, but I have a question. Don't "you" (photo
journalists) always play with reality based on your prejudices or adjenda?
The best example I can think of to try to explain what I mean applies to
landscape, but I think it applies to everything else as well.  On one side
of a path is pristine wilderness, on the other side, a garbage dump. You are
asked to photograph the are for the Sierra Club; which side of the path do
you shoot?  Do you always shoot both sides?
If a political rally has 5000 people in attendance and two people get in a
fight the fight picture is usually what makes the news. Is this always the
editor's call?

How do pj s deal with these issues (what to include/excluse in a picture?

Ken

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Eric Welch [SMTP:ewelch@ponyexpress.net]
> Sent:	Wednesday, September 15, 1999 6:18 PM
> To:	leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us; leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject:	Re: [Leica] Re: Photojournalistic integrity and masking
> 
> At 12:06 PM 9/15/99 -0400, Paul Schiemer wrote:
> >We, as photographers, know what we get is usually a 'truthful'
> >representation of reality. We can play with that reality a bit, both in
> >taking the image and then in the darkroom.
> 
> No we can't. To "play" with the reality, as the photograph is capable of 
> conveying it - no photo is a direct translation of a scene after all since
> 
> it's going from 3D to 2D - is unethical to any degree at all. We should 
> only work on the photo to make it as accurate a description of the scene
> as 
> possible. That goes for journalists and documentary photographers. Not 
> artists, hobbyists, commercial/advertising photographers or art
> photographers.
> 
> Good editors respect the vision of the photographer. A good editor won't 
> change a photo, or manipulate a photo to fit in a preconceived layout.
> Good 
> design is invisible. It respects the photos and text. Hack editors lay out
> 
> a page before they know what the photos are going to be (not counting 
> last-minute photos that are shot on deadline and the photographer is 
> consulted about it before shooting).
> 
> Eric Welch
> St. Joseph, MO
> 
> http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch
> 
> "A lot of people face adversity by asking, "How would
> Jesus have dealt with this?" But that doesn't help me
> much, because I doubt Jesus ever had bad credit."