Mostly True

Let's Be Professional About This

There’s a big difference between a professional plying their trade and an amateur. In this image I see evidence of two people (in particular) reacting to an unexpected attack, an atrocity, in a professional manner.

The first is the officer on the left, who unlike your average celluloid action star, has her finger in the proper position and not on the trigger of her weapon. The second, is photographer John Tlumacki of the Boston Globe who captured THE moment in a straightforward manner without any photo-gizmo trickery.

The image is a testament to experience and proper training (on both sides of the lens). It also puts the lie to the idea that social media, inexperienced witnesses and camera phones are a suitable replacement for a PFJ.

There’s a video of this moment as well. It was either made by an amateur or the absolute worst camera operator on the planet. The video fails on most levels. but most strikingly when it pans away from the scene so perfectly captured by Tlumacki and instead tilts skyward at smoke and broken windows. The video shows us little of what’s happening at street level (although one can catch a glimpse of Tlumacki helping to move some barricades). In doing so, the camera operator robbed the viewer, history and criminal investigators of a clear picture of what happened seconds after the blast.

(From a photojournalist’s perspective, it also robbed us of another example of how video of an iconic moment usually fails to have the same impact on the viewer as the still image, but that’s hardly important at this point.)

Some have criticized Sports Illustrated’s treatment of the image. Saying the pop-out figures gives it a comic book feel, but that rings hollow with me. In fact, I think it’s quite effective. Heroes (comic book or otherwise) are normal people who are thrust into extraordinary situations and react in heroic ways. In other words, cops aren’t any more super than anyone else, until they are.

That said, I salute the editors of S.I. for publishing this amazing image as well as they did. Perhaps it was because their tight deadline prevented them from talking themselves out of it. I don’t know. I don't care. They got it done, and that’s what counts.

With that, I'd like to make a quick comment about the first episode of a new reality show called “The Moment”, hosted by Superbowl winning quarterback Kurt Warner. Unlike the moment captured by Tlumacki, this show is scripted, exploitative (of both their subjects and audience), unbelievable, predictable and total removed from reality. Which explains why on TV it’s called a reality show. Its gimmick, err, premise, is that it gives people a second chance to live their dream.

In the first episode, Warner gives working mom Tracie Marcum a second chance at being a Sports Illustrated photographer. We're never told when she got her first chance, or why a gainfully employed person would throw away a perfectly good job.

Marcum seems nice enough. She’s obviously deeply loved by her family, a decent bunch, and is ready and willing to work, but a sports photographer she is not. The show puts her through a two week “boot camp” where photographer Lou Jones, also a decent sort and veteran of fourteen Olympic games, attempts to turn her into a sports photographer. The prize is a job at Sports Illustrated.

The show puts Marcum through a bunch of silly exercises designed to turn her into a sports shooting machine. The cruelest of which is when they send her to a skeet range to photograph clay pigeons exploding as they’re shot. I say cruel, because SPOILER ALERT Marcum’s mother committed suicide with a gun, so the sound of gun shots freaks the poor woman out. Yeah, no manipulation here. The producers of the show didn’t put Marcum through this for some canned drama, the “exploding clay pigeon test” is one every sports photographer has to pass.

Okay, so it’s all in good fun. We all know nothing sells soap like a working mom’s tears.

As a viewer, I expected Marcum would earn herself a day rate or two for her trouble. Maybe shoot a golf tournament or something for the magazine. That’s when things got weird.

At the end of the show, Marcum heads to New York to meet with the director of photography and a highly acclaimed Sports Illustrated photographer who will look at her work and decide whether she’s earned herself a “position” at the magazine or not.

As Keanu would say, “Whoa.” Position? I thought we were talking “job”, not position.

To make matters stranger not to mention ironic, since the episode was shot, both the DOP, and the staff photographer (who judged her work) are no longer with the magazine (along with several other GREAT photographers).

Sure enough, SPOILER ALERT, Marcum wins a position at the magazine. On one hand, I have to say, “good for you girl," but on the other I’m wearing my “I can’t believe what I just saw” face (and yes, I usually wear that face on my hand).

As this episode was being shot, the magazine’s hierarchy, the same people that knew they were going to fire a bunch of people whose talents the magazine was built on, thought it was a good idea to send the message to America that anyone, given a two week training course, could be a Sports Illustrated photographer.

Is that what you want your subscribers to think? There’s nothing special here, nothing to see, move along. That given a chance (first or second) by Kurt Warner you too could be a Sports Illustrated photographer.

George Plimpton notwithstanding, can you think of a professional sports franchise that would attempt to sell season tickets with this premise?

Whether it’s our sports or the people shooting them, paying customers want the best. They don’t want to see their overweight neighbor playing for the Miami Heat. They want to see LeBron. Just like they don’t want to sit through a three hour slideshow of their neighbor’s eco-holiday, unless they happen to live next door to Sebastiao Salgado.

I know I’ve said this in a slightly roundabout way, but professionalism is important. Not only in important matters, like national security, police officers and other first responders, but also when it comes to the our press.

As a photographer, a journalist, and a consumer of news, I’m tired of the mediocre spirit that has infected our publications today.

We don’t need another overly clever youngster, running around in tiny jeans, thinking the story is about them while attempting to make self-relevant snaps with their iPhone. Can’t you just picture it? A blood stained sidewalk, maybe a tattered piece of red, white and blue bunting, a cross processing filter...

What we need is some old school PFJ’s that know how to capture a moment in a way that is relevant and insightful, but also true. Yeah, I said it. Images can be true. Regardless of what your goateed, sports coat with faux leather patches on the elbows wearing, college professor told you.

What we want (and by "we" I'm probably only talking about me), what editors should be trying to deliver (and what we got for a brief moment this week) is some photojournalism which harkens back to the Boston Globe of the eighties. This is what we need and anyone who thinks otherwise deserves to have Stan Grossfeld's non-ironic Chuck Taylors shoved right up their arse.

America 101

I found myself in a long conversation last night with Arthur Grace. I gave him a call to congratulate him on his new book, America 101 (published by Fall Line Press). The book is everything you’d imagine it to be, big (over 11 inches square), beautiful paper, outstanding reproduction and 101 photographs which will please your eye as well as engage your brain.

 

When I have a chance to jump into the way-back machine with a person like Arthur, I don’t waste it. That said, we talked about many important things, which I won’t share here, but we also talked a little about photography, which I will.

 

I knew he started as a stringer for United Press International, most of the greats did some time at either UPI or The Associated Press. I was surprised how fast he moved up the food chain. Arthur quickly went from being paid in Tri-X, which he noted, “You can’t eat.”, to earning $20 a photograph. Within eight months the editors at UPI were actively looking to place him in a staff job, either with them or a newspaper.

 

Arthur attributes this fast rise not to his talent, which I think deserves some of the credit, but to hard work and the wire service’s philosophy. To paraphrase Artie, It was a sink or swim proposition and they threw you into the deep side of the pool. UPI didn’t start guys off by having them shoot high school football. No, they’d send them straight to a Patriot’s game (he was living in Boston at the time).

Arthur Grace © 2012

 

Excuses were not allowed. His standing orders were, “Give me the picture, not an excuse”.

 

He remembered shooting a Celtics game and coming back to the office with six rolls of film and telling the staffer about all the great pictures he made.

 

The staffer replied, “Great. Which roll, cause I’m only developing one.”  Luckily,the roll he chose had a few good frames!

 

It’s amazing to think of the discipline. Shooting a sporting event on six rolls, a little over 200 frames, would be unheard of today. Not to mention the 36 frames the UPI staffer thought adequate.

Arthur Grace © 2012

 

Sink or swim and no excuses is right. He also reminded me, that you were only as good as your last picture, so everyday you had to prove yourself again. An attitude which kept you humble and working hard.

 

Soon, Artie was working in New England for Time, People, and the New York Times, with legendary editors like John G. Morris, John Durniak and John Dominis.

 

I asked another legendary editor, Karen Mullarkey, who was the first woman director of photography at a newsweekly, what made Arthur special. She told me when she arrived at Newsweek she was allowed to hire one staff photographer and picked him because;

 

"He never went were other photographer's went. He reminded me of the years at Rolling Stone when I worked with Annie Leibovitz. She never followed the pack..she had a unique "eye". She saw differently. Well so does and did Arthur. I wanted someone who would be rebellious with the camera and he certainly was. I adore his view on the world. Arthur's photos are very funny and subtle at the same time. It is no surprise to me that the project we did together "Choose Me" is now being exhibited at the High Art Museum in Atlanta. Arthur is a journalist with a fine art eye. Love him, love his work."

 

By the time I met Artie in 1987, he too was a legend. We were covering the presidential race, both of us were bouncing between candidates (him for Newsweek, me for Life) and ended up with Bush Sr. for the last month or so. He told me last night he knew then he wasn’t interested in covering any more campaigns. As the traveling press wanting Perrier and carrot sticks instead of late night toga/pool parties.

 

Speaking on campaign photography today, Artie said, “We put the film in a caption envelope. A messenger picked it up and we were done. Apparently today’s photographers work around the clock. I don’t know how I could have done that.”

Arthur Grace © 2012

 

Which lead to Artie sharing a story about shipping film while on a train with Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat. The messenger was to be waiting at a certain dirt road that crossed the tracks somewhere between Alexandria and Cairo (Egypt), where the train was scheduled to slow down. Artie was shooting for Time and Wally McNamee was working for Newsweek (It was Thursday and the deadlines in New York were Friday). So they bundled up their film in a heavily padded Newsweek envelope, but when they came to the intersection the messenger was nowhere to be seen. At the last minute, Wally tossed the package into the crowd and they both headed to the bar (on the train). The next week their images were in their (respective) magazines, although they have no idea how the package made it to the airport.

 

The pictures in America 101 work on multiple levels. They’re journalistic. Which means they tell stories. They’re personal. One can imagine Artie making these images for his own amusement. They’re documentary, as they capture moments in America’s past that are historic. They’re artistic, as they would not be out of place hanging next to the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson or Robert Frank.

Arthur Grace © 2012

 

Just don’t expect these images to immediately reveal themselves. Sure, the casual viewer will find something to enjoy, but the viewer who makes the effort to dig into these images will be well rewarded for their effort.

You can find America 101 on Amazon right here. It looks like they're moving fast, so don't come by and expect to borrow mine... oh no my brother, you've got to get your own.

(If Amazon is out, try this link from the publisher.)

Joe Klamar, My Hero

Joe Klamar, works for AFP and made some pictures that some people aren't happy with. Joe Klamar is my new hero.

You can see his portraits of U.S. Olympic athletes here.

You can see some of the discussion here.

Personally, I love these images.

I don’t think Joe was making a artistic or political statement, that would be more insulting than any of the other criticism he’s been getting. He’s a photojournalists not accustomed to doing these type of photo junkets and did the best job he could.

Portrait wise, the shoot didn’t work out as planned, but only because we have this stylized idea of what portraits like these are suppose to look like. Where everyone from the PR person, the photographer, the editor, the publisher and the advertisers share the common goal of properly packaging the merchandise, err amateur athlete.

Ironically, the portraits he captured, coming from a photojournalist background are more truthful, hold greater insight and have more artistic merit than what will be churned out this Olympic cycle by anyone else.

Yeah, they’re hard on the eyes, but that’s beside the point.

Sports Illustrated (emphasis on illustrated) announced another round of layoffs about a week ago, which will mainly affect the photo department. The suits at Time/Warner don’t care, they’ve already decided that Getty can do a better, read cheaper, job for them.

Gannett isn’t sending it’s “A” team of trusted staff photographers to the games as it’s cheaper to send a bunch of hacks who work for a two-bit agency, get paid in peanuts and sign away their copyright.

Gannett and Sports Illustrated have plenty of money. They’ve just made an editorial choice to serve their readers sub-excellent content (Sports Illustrated has offered their columnist millions of dollars to keep from losing them to ESPN).

I know it’s not news here, but this is what you get when you fire everyone that has talent and cares enough to use it… an unintended commentary on the state of the editorial world.

I think it’s also telling, that several commentators here attempted to spread the blame around to;

Lack of post-production… have we really gotten to the point where people think the photographers only job is capturing all the relative elements and handing them off to someone else to reassemble? Here’s an idea, make a good frame to start with. It’s easier now than ever. A lot easier than when Avedon was doing “The Family” or “The American West” (although he did resort to some darkroom trickery in some of his New Yorker work).

Lack of attention on the part of the PR person… as a photographer you’re suppose to be working for yourself and the person that signs your checks (OK your editor, who might not physically sign them), not the PR person. The PR person is the bad guy. They’re the ones who have destroyed the editorial portrait. They’re not your friends. They are working for the people who sign their checks. They have their best interests in mind. They don’t care if you fail, as long as they don’t get in trouble with their client.

The PR people will be the ones who use this to approve every photographer who ever has special access to their clients again. They don’t want to do these junkets (either?), and now they have an excuse not to.

Getty bought and paid for the Olympics, so it’s nice to have this thing slap them in the face.

Right now, photographers are feverishly working on special portfolios of Olympic athletes for Sports Illustrated, Time, and a host of others. It would be fitting, because they’ve done so little to support their own photographers, if four years from now these magazines were instead given a bunch of handouts by the USOC. This way, the USOC and the advertisers wouldn’t have to worry about a photographer not knowing what is expected of them (actually the magazines wouldn’t mind not having to pay for the production themselves either).

Finally, given the continued post-modern collapse of what constitutes a great image, I advise Joe to polish these babies up, maybe hire one of those post-production gurus, and get ready for an free trip to Amsterdam!

 

btw...I understand the difference between Getty and AFP. If the credit reads, AFP/Getty, than it's Getty's content. Just like if you went to a dealership that sold you a crappy car which had different franchises on it's shingle. The dealership's overall reputation would still be tarnished, regardless of the car's maker.

The point is that all of these "portraits" are contrived and designed to fool the viewer. Telling them that they, by looking at this "portrait", are getting a unique insight into who this person is... that's what portraits are meant to do. The Getty, A.P., or Reuters staffers may have done a technically better job, but Joe Klamar is the only one who made a true portrait.

The portrait of a bored athlete, in a makeshift studio, wishing they were spending their precious time before the London games getting better prepared for their competition.

So yeah, if we're talking about the cover of Parade Magazine (do they still print that?), the other shooters did a better job. Otherwise, not so much.