Article © Periodico
Awhile back Alissa Quart stated in an essay she wrote for On Photography:
"Despite all the critics who have claimed photos are "a grammar," images are more like a half-language (as John Berger, the critic who wrote Ways of Seeing, said), always both objective and freighted with meanings that even the photographer and her audience only sometimes understand. Good photography somehow can tell more, with its pulp and its present-ness."
She goes on to say, "That combination of directness and mysteriousness that is part of being a half-language must be preserved into the future. Despite the fact that amateurs have made iconic images in the past—the famed 1970 image The Picture From Kent State was taken by a student working in the college's photo lab—there have been many more iconic images that are actually extremely professional." and cites
Eddie Adams's General Nguyn Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon, from Vietnam
and
Robert Capa's Death of a Loyalist Soldier from the Spanish Civil War
But wait a minute! Morten Svenningsen has uncovered a bit of information from "Periodico" newspaper about Capa's photo and says on his blog:
"The photo established Capa has a heroic, top war photographer, it was used over and over as a prime example of great timing and of “Capa’s Rule”: “If your photo ain’t good enough, you ain’t close enough!”
He continues, "But the thing is, the photo has always been suspected of being staged. I vaguely remember first time I saw this photo, before I became a photojournalist, and just thinking “something ain’t right here”. (Also remember thinking “what’s with the hat?”) Well, if there ever was a set of rules in photojournalism, number one would be; You don’t stage a news photo and then claim it was a spontaneous event!"
Please continue reading about Capa's photo on Morten's blog
If one of photojournalism's most revered practitioners has been revealed as a fraud, do you think citizen journalists will try the same? According to Quart, "Photojournalists also question the journalistic reliability of the images of their amateur rivals."
Thirty-nine-year-old Magnum photographer Chris Anderson, a well known conflict photographer, wonders about the lack of "vetting" of the millions of images that are supposed to be carrying the truth to readers.
"There's a case already of an iReporter whose photos were bullshit," says Anderson, speaking of media companies publishing the work of amateur photographers. "News organizations will get burned by photographers they don't know and blur the lines between what is credible information and what isn't." And so it has been for over 70 years, whether the photographer is "known" or not.
After all, Robert Capa was a Magnum photographer.
Nevertheless, I agree with Anderson regarding the authenticity of images rushed to the public by news organizations. Rather than relying on photojournalists / journalists to provide the context in which events occur, news outlets seem to be making it up as they go along.
I recently received an email from a woman who was helping rebuild in Sri Lanka. She is a private American citizen who has no interest in photojournalism / journalism but she is the type of person news organizations are seeking out these days.
She stated, "I shoot a lot of video on my camera and everyone always asks for it for free which of course I do but CNN or someone could make a little donation to the cause."
What this means is that rather than being an impartial observer, she had "a cause" in Sri Lanka, but apparently that fact matters little to CNN.
Maybe Robert Capa had a cause too.
John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
My Mondo Library Photography
My Photoshelter Photography Archive Homepage
Awhile back Alissa Quart stated in an essay she wrote for On Photography:
"Despite all the critics who have claimed photos are "a grammar," images are more like a half-language (as John Berger, the critic who wrote Ways of Seeing, said), always both objective and freighted with meanings that even the photographer and her audience only sometimes understand. Good photography somehow can tell more, with its pulp and its present-ness."
She goes on to say, "That combination of directness and mysteriousness that is part of being a half-language must be preserved into the future. Despite the fact that amateurs have made iconic images in the past—the famed 1970 image The Picture From Kent State was taken by a student working in the college's photo lab—there have been many more iconic images that are actually extremely professional." and cites
Eddie Adams's General Nguyn Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon, from Vietnam
and
Robert Capa's Death of a Loyalist Soldier from the Spanish Civil War
But wait a minute! Morten Svenningsen has uncovered a bit of information from "Periodico" newspaper about Capa's photo and says on his blog:
"The photo established Capa has a heroic, top war photographer, it was used over and over as a prime example of great timing and of “Capa’s Rule”: “If your photo ain’t good enough, you ain’t close enough!”
He continues, "But the thing is, the photo has always been suspected of being staged. I vaguely remember first time I saw this photo, before I became a photojournalist, and just thinking “something ain’t right here”. (Also remember thinking “what’s with the hat?”) Well, if there ever was a set of rules in photojournalism, number one would be; You don’t stage a news photo and then claim it was a spontaneous event!"
Please continue reading about Capa's photo on Morten's blog
If one of photojournalism's most revered practitioners has been revealed as a fraud, do you think citizen journalists will try the same? According to Quart, "Photojournalists also question the journalistic reliability of the images of their amateur rivals."
Thirty-nine-year-old Magnum photographer Chris Anderson, a well known conflict photographer, wonders about the lack of "vetting" of the millions of images that are supposed to be carrying the truth to readers.
"There's a case already of an iReporter whose photos were bullshit," says Anderson, speaking of media companies publishing the work of amateur photographers. "News organizations will get burned by photographers they don't know and blur the lines between what is credible information and what isn't." And so it has been for over 70 years, whether the photographer is "known" or not.
After all, Robert Capa was a Magnum photographer.
Nevertheless, I agree with Anderson regarding the authenticity of images rushed to the public by news organizations. Rather than relying on photojournalists / journalists to provide the context in which events occur, news outlets seem to be making it up as they go along.
I recently received an email from a woman who was helping rebuild in Sri Lanka. She is a private American citizen who has no interest in photojournalism / journalism but she is the type of person news organizations are seeking out these days.
She stated, "I shoot a lot of video on my camera and everyone always asks for it for free which of course I do but CNN or someone could make a little donation to the cause."
What this means is that rather than being an impartial observer, she had "a cause" in Sri Lanka, but apparently that fact matters little to CNN.
Maybe Robert Capa had a cause too.
John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
My Mondo Library Photography
My Photoshelter Photography Archive Homepage
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