photography

[Ellis Vener]

I'ts worth noting that the Bush Whitejhouse has pushed editorializing the photo-op to new heights, as with the now-infamous aircraft carrier photographs with the "Mission Accomplished" banner, and the carrier sailing in circles waiting for the prez to fly in in his flight suit to proclaim victory with the right audience and the right scenery in the background and American flags all around.

Staging events like that, and the shots of Bush serving turkey in Iraq (and it wasn't a real turkey, it was in fact a prop turkey) fall into the category of propaganda and not editorial work. .

[paulr]

"Documentary would refer to images objectively documenting the facts of a given object or event, analogous to impartial reporting."

this is how the genre is sold, but many of the most famous documentary projects were designed to support a pre-existing point of view. which fits the definition of propaganda (like the bush administration's so-called editorial photos) more than it fits the definition of impartiality.

perhaps what's being documented is a viewpoint towards a place or situation rather than the thing itself.

similarly, in a lecture on the american picture magazine era, john szarkowski spoke about the role of photo essays. he disputed the notion that the photos told a story, or even that they contributed meaning to the text stories. as evidence of this he cited a number of examples where photographers like gene smith were outraged by the way their pictures (which had been made from a certain point of view, with the intention of conveying that point of view) were used by an editor to iillustrate a very different story, crafted by a writer that the photographer may not have even known or agreed with. szarkowski believes the role of the editorial picture is to make the story REAL. considering the story being made real is often not the story known to the photographer, Reality in this case sounds a lot like "truthiness." as stephen colbert has pointed out, the american people don't want facts, they want a nice warm feeling of truthiness.