Dennis Dunleavy

Stories and links about Brooks Institute of Photography

Repsonding to a request for more information about the situation at Brooks Institute of Photography I am putting together a chronological listing of some of the stories and links I have collected. In addition to conducting a web related search for links to stories about Brooks, I have also searched the LexisNexis database through our Hannon Library at Southern Oregon University. The list is in no way complete. If you have any other references to add to this bibilography please feel free to email me or comment on the blog.

On July 19, 2005, Business Wire and the Financial Times reported how Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, owned by Career Education Corporation, was given a notice of conditional approval to operate from the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education.

The following day, The Ventura County Star, Santa Barbara Press, the Associated Press, and   Inside Higher Ed ran articles about how the school was being investigated by the state for alledgedly "willfully" misleading prospective students to enroll at Brooks.  According to these early accounts, the Associated Press reported that "Former Brooks administrator Cam Van Wingerden triggered the state investigation in September 2003 when she alleged school officials forged and tampered with student files and administrative records, purportedly so the school's then-new Ventura campus could pass inspection by accreditors."

Within the first week of the news about the investigation, the Ventura County Star reported how the school would appeal a report by the state education watchdog agency.

The buzz about Brooks began in earnest, however, after The New York Times's Gretchen Morgensen wrote a story titled, "The School that Skipped Ethics Class," on July 24, 2005. Shortly after publication, Morgenson's story was picked up on A Photo A Day and the Digital Journalist. The story also made its way onto blogs like this one and  StockPhotoTalk also followed the news about the investigation.

Interestingly, in December 2005, the Ventura County Star also covered a story about how some Brooks students produced a film about the school's legal woes, which was promptly banned by the institute.

In a January 2006 article, The New York Times in reporting on New York State's move to freeze the growth of vocational and commercial schools in the state mentions California's problems with regulating institutions and mentions Brooks Institute of Photography as an example.

By March 2006, Brooks had won its legal battle with state regulators. Consequently, another round of reportage covered the issue including, a Business Wire story on March 16 titled, "Career Education Corporation Announces Favorable Decision for Brooks Institute of Photography; Judge Invalidates Actions of California Bureau."  The local papers also reported on the court's decision.

In In August 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on legislative debates in California concerning regulating for-profit colleges such as the University of Phoenix and Brooks Institute of Photography.

January 2007, Ventura County Star,  "Brooks Institute under microscope:State critics say school misleads  its students" by John Scheibe.  
The Vault Student Surveys has a number of comments about admissions requirements for Brooks Institute of Photography.

Commodification and the culture of celebrity

Photo Credit: Topps

It should come as no surprise that our culture's insatiable appetite for celebrity and entertainment is closely linked to marketing products.

This week, Topps baseball card released a digitally altered image showing slugger Derek Jeter. In the background, President Bush and Mickey Mantel can be seen looking on. The interesting thing about the card is that nobody's  crying foul. In today's celebrity-crazed culture it's all about branding.

Had the manipulator placed Jeter in the same frame with less savory types, Topps would probably still be on the phone with its army of lawyers.  Public Relations stunts in the advertising world are common place and it seems clear that the selection of Mantel and Bush cheering Jeter on was done deliberately and very carefully.

Topps isn't revealing the source of the manipulation, but if they wanted to get the media's attention this appears to be a good way to do it. 

In the sports collecting world, the card is already demanding high prices. So, what's next?

Jon Amechi, the first gay NBA basketball player to come out of the closet, shooting hoops with evangelist Pat Robertson?

 

Picturing the other: a revision

Photo Credit: Cynthia J. Edmonds

The idea that intimacy can transcend the aesthetic qualities captured in a picture in order to tap into a viewer's emotions suggests that human judgment is sometimes more rash and reactionary than logical.

Yesterday, I misrepresented research being conducted by Professor of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton, John Ibson. According to the author of  Picturing Men: A Century Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography, his investigation involving historic photographs of men shows that the pictures suggest less about sexuality and more about intimacy between men, which in today's culture, seems all too often misconstrued as homosexuality. "The everyday photos that I have studied, unless there is some explicit inscription on an image, cannot document a sexual relationship between the subjects," Ibson notes.

For Ibson, "Photographs  usually provide wholly inadequate evidence about sexuality. It's intimacy, not sexuality, that I believe the photos display,  though I do try to explain the history and consequences of the assumption so  often made nowadays that intimacy between men, in photographs and elsewhere,  is a sign of gayness."

Ibson's perspective become especially salient as we come to understand how the signification of an image changes over time depending on the cultural values and social tastes of an audience.  In other words, it seems easy to jump to conclusions when looking at two men showing signs of intimacy in a picture. 

Historically,  pictures of "unselfconscious physical closeness" between men in the 19th century was not uncommon, but as the 20th century progressed distancing and stiffness of pose emerged. 

In a recent article for American Sexuality magazine Ibson observes:

The contrast between earlier and later poses of men together in photographs is striking, charting an increasing discomfort with closeness to each other’s bodies. The practice of males having their studio portraits taken together, once such a common token of association, was by comparison virtually extinct by the 1930s.

So what can pictures tell us about each other? What does intimacy between people in a picture suggest beyond the physical closeness of the moment when the shutter was released?

Clearly, human beings disclose themselves to others in different ways according to societal norms. There is, as Erving Goffman points out, both front stage and back stage behaviors in which people function.  As the camera fixes, frames, and freezes a moment in time, human behavior may intensify, i.e., hamming, mugging, or clowning for the photographer.

In our photojournalism course we have been exploring interaction rituals between photographer and subject. The students must photograph people that seem different than themselves. The exercise, therefore, is to help students understand "difference" in the pictures they make. Students are asked to examine some of the preconceptions and prejudices they may hold of people that appear different to them.

As student Cynthia Edmonds observes:

This country is so politically correct that one must be careful not to offend another.  More than the action of approaching a stranger to ask for a photograph, it is the fear of misrepresenting one’s intentions that makes this assignment challenging.

However, it is only when the photographer actually approaches the “other” he or she realized that there is, in fact, no “other” in existence.  Whether the person has different colored skin, different shaped eyes, or is of a different generation, they all have something in common: they’re strangers.

Unfinished business: art and life in the age of instant

In January 2004, Kodak announced it would stop making film cameras. Faced with the reality that film was rapidly being pushed aside by digital technologies, George Eastman’s company was in turmoil. In fact, in the first years of the new century, the firm cut more than 22,000 jobs.

For Kodak, the writing had been on the wall for some time as digital cameras were already outselling their cousins in film by leaps and bounds. In 2003, more than 50 million digital cameras were sold, an increase of 64 percent from the previous year.

Today, the digital camera market is flattening out. As the market becomes increasingly saturated with product, digital camera sales are predicted to peak at 111 million by 2009.  Nevertheless, there seems to be no turning back. More than a century earlier, George Eastman, Kodak’s founder, dreamed of making photography an “everyday affair.”   Consider Eastman’s surprise at how much photography has changed since the day he hit the street promoting his Kodak One to the public.

The introduction of the digital camera has changed how people act in front of and behind the lens. The act of reviewing the picture immediately after capture, similar to the affect Edwin Land’s Polaroid, alters the interpersonal dynamic between subject and photographer significantly.

The time of Eastman’s “everyday affair” has come in an age of instant everything.  Digital photography is making how people communicate cheaper, faster and easier than ever.

The immediacy of digital photography has several advantages over older technologies beyond speed and cost.  The digital photography allows people to be more productive, feel more creatively empowered, and to develop greater levels of social interaction than previously experienced with older technologies. 

Digital photography has a democratizing impact in that ultimately increases social and empathic interactions, greater productivity, and creative empowerment. At the same time, the seamless and malleable nature of the digital format raises, once again, concerns about the authenticity and veracity of the image.   

From a social psychological perspective, thanks to digital technologies, human visual behavior in the age of instant becomes a fascinating and ever changing challenge.

Increasingly, for many of us, the world in which we live has been defined not only through our direct experience with it, but also through the pictures we carry in our heads about it. Advertising images, television, still pictures, and now just about everything about Internet, provide us with a relentless stream of mediated visual messages.

Young people now experience the world radically different from their ancestors. Growing up in the age of instant means that people learn about themselves predominantly through the likenesses and representations created by others.

The images we see in print or on a screen map a world view, construct and define desires and fears, create self and group identity, promote societal likes and dislikes, and promulgate a collective memory.

On the day we dropped our toddler off at daycare for the first time we included a tiny book of family photographs. Feeling guilty that day for having to leave our child with strangers, we believed that the pictures would be a consoling influence for her throughout the day.

In grocery store we avoid the cereal aisle knowing well that the brightest, most colorful, and most seductive boxes of cereal, designed to attract the attention of little ones, are always placed on the lowest shelves for easy viewing. Pictures, as a form of persuasive communication, inform, shock, terrify, tease, inspire, entertain, teach, seduce, and console us emotionally and intellectually.

“We thus live in an era in which it is difficult to conceive of even a single human activity that does not use photography, or at least provide an opportunity for it to be deployed in the past, present or future.”
Ariella Azoulay, (2005). The Ethic of the Spectator: The Citizenry of Photography. After Image: 33

What is unique about the photograph is the almost instant capacity to substantiate our experiences, and by extension, our very existence in time and place. The only problem now is that in a world already saturated with images, we continue to produce more and more of them.  If cultures are shaped through ritual and routine, then, images play a significant role in process as an on-going  medium of recollection. 

Picturing the human costs of war

Source: AFP/Jim Watson

Since 2003, the War of Terror in Iraq has injured more than 16,500 U.S. soldiers, yet, until recently, little attention has been given to the issue.   

How could such an important story get so buried by the mainstream media? Why does it take a scandal, such as the one the Washington Post reported on recently about conditions Walter Reed Army Medical Center to break through to the public?

Let's face it, pictures of a soldier having a leg amputated  aren't as interesting as those showing the car bomb du jour in Baghdad. Pictures of a Marine learning how to walk again cannot compete with the seemingly endless stream of press conferences announcing the latest strategy for winning the war in Iraq.  More than anything else, however, is the fact that pictures showing the consequences of the conflict gets personal. Every soldier has a story to tell that is unique and very personal. Ultimately, the stories soldiers have to tell reveal the disturbing and honest reality about the conflicts we find ourselves engaged in overseas.   

To tell these stories accurately and honestly news organizations would have had to commit more resources than they normally would on what is typically considered human interest. However, there are exceptions such as Todd Heisler's  Pulitzer Prize winning photo essay on a family's struggle to cope with the death of 2nd Lt. James Cathey or the essay by James Natchwey on soldiers recovering from injuries featured in Time magazine.

Part of the problem may be how news is categorized by news organization into what is perceived as either "hard" or "soft."  The dichotomy  between classifying news as  more salient or relevant in terms of content becomes especially problematic in the case of the injured soldiers story.

Showing how the lives of thousands of injured Americans are dramatically changed by war challenges our preconceptions of what news is.

In other words,  it appears that the mainstream media doesn't get behind a story like this one until there is critical mass. This gets back to the criticism that the media may not tell us what to think, but they do tell us what to think about.

How the injured soldiers story has been typically framed for us as a human interest story rather than as a "hard" news issue, until now, suggests a form of agenda setting. For example, look how long it took for Americans to see images of the flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq. Clearly, there is are ideological interests involved in keeping Americans in denial about the very real costs of war. Pictures of injured soldiers  does little to promote a war-time mentality, because they speak truth to power as well as challenge the logic and intelligence of our foreign policy makers.

There is a dramatic  difference between what is perceived as "front" and "back"   stage news stories. In society today, it is easy to miss all of the backstage stories associated with the conflict in Iraq since so much press attention seems to focus how a political administration reacts to specific developments and events from day to day.  In many ways, evaluating how the media uses images from Iraq is like watching a football game on television. 

In summary, what we too often see in visual reportage today is the "effect" without understanding the "cause." 

 

 

 

Art and life: the colonization of memory and identity

Source: AFP/Antonio Scorza

National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry's famous "Afghan Girl" picture becomes a prop for revelers  at carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this week. The dancers dressed in burkas, while carrying a framed picture of Shabat Gula, the girl's name, illustrates how images maintain relevance as a cultural tropes in societies around the world over time.

The picture of the revelers also reminds us what Crownshaw was talking about when he spoke of how the human mind can "colonize" memory and identity. 

The fading memory of hope

 

 

Memories fade faster than photographs; and those memories that do remain seem distant and other worldly.

What is the connection between human memory and pictures of past events? Even in a society bombarded with visual messages words will always support the interpretative process.

In the early 1990s, the decade long civil war in El Salvador was grinding to an end. Funding for the conflict, about $4 billion coming in military aid from the United States, was running out. After the rebels launched a “final offensive” in 1989, it was clear that the Salvadoran army would have to accept an uncomfortable compromise.

Meanwhile, hundreds of children, abandoned, abused, and orphaned, found sanctuary sniffing glue and running in gangs near the central cathedral in San Salvador. Within a few feet of the tomb of the slain Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, the children beg coins and commit petty crimes.

The emotional connection between emotions and memories, especially feelings of longing, is very strong in the interpretation of an image. Although meaning seems to lose authority without the context and textual explanation, subliminal and symbolic forces tug at our emotions and intellect.

We assign meaning to images because they are personal – resonating culturally and sometimes even spiritually. The 5-year-old boy, right, provides the symbolism that connects this moment to a more universal human condition.

Impoverished and abandoned to the streets, the child gazes into the lens of a camera and raises his hands in a gesture of prayer that transcends the literal to move into the figurative realm of meaning.

Is the gesture of hands folded in prayer signifying the child’s surrender or is the picture simply speaking to our imagination?

When we witness suffering in a picture memories are conjured up in the mind’s eye.

However, as Richard Crownshaw warns, it may be dangerous to appropriate an image in the mind's eye in order to recall events of the past. Crownshaw writes:

What concerns me here is the potential for adoption to turn into appropriation....to collapse into seeing through one's own eyes and remembering one's own memories instead. In short, what is to stop the colonization of victims' memories and identities?

Source: Richard Crownshaw “Considering Postmemory: Photography, the Archive, and Post-Holocaust Memory in W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz.” Mosaic. Vol. 37, 2004.

Crownshaw's perspective is valuable in reading images that connect with suffering and hope. The notion that the human mind can "colonize" memory and identity, also suggests the potential for apathy and disinterest in viewing images.

Bummer graphic on newspapers in decline

Source: Lehmann Brothers via Wall St. Journal

We are all well aware that newspapers are no longer what they used to be in this country. It's a painful reality to come to terms with, but news organizations across the country are laying off people right and left.

In my newswriting classes I always start off the term asking how many students actually have a subscription to a daily newspaper. For the past few years, if a hand goes up, I get really excited.

What do you do with journalism students who don't have a feel for the traditional newspaper?

The watchdog of the future is looking more like a laptop dog.

Steven Rattner has a commentary in the WSJ about what going on in the industry. Rattner claims that "falling circulation, repeated rounds of layoffs, disappearing ads and a chain of bad earning reports" are doing newspapers in. But there's more.  That might be part of the story, what is really killing newspapers is the culture of celebrity news and entertainment.  The media is willing to pay photographers an outrageous fortune for picture of the couple or the latest Brangelina baby (that's the offspring of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to the uninitiated), but barely covers world news the way it really should.

This ice cream tastes funny

Oh, those shameless capitalist do-gooders Ben and Jerry have done it again. Now they have added comedian Stephen Colbert to their line of frozen delights, along with folk-rock icons Gerry Garcia and Phish.  Does this latest confection have nuts in it?

Was the design of the typography in the word "Americone" suppose to have the "e" a bit smaller than the other letters? 

On the intimacy of the frame

Photo by Eva Ford


We come to a place of knowing the world around us through observation and reflection. Pictures invite themselves into our consciousness as small gifts which we fix in time and space. How we understand what we see as a gift to be shared is largely dependent on our willingness to accept people as they are in the light of their experiences in the world.

We have discussed the concept of intimacy as a way of tapping into human emotions and feelings. Eva's picture of a woman resting shows her capacity to see others as real people in real time. Ultimately, this is what photojournalists do best.

 

 

To know photography is to know the world in new ways

Nearly 30 years ago, I drove up the dirt drive to a neighbor's house hoping to make some pictures of a farm and the people that lived on it. Since that moment I think the way I have come to look at the world changed forever.

Stomping around Doc's dairy barns and out into the orchards, I realized that photography was a means of communication well suited to the world I lived in. 

Since that day, I have come to know photography as perhaps one of the most immediate and emotional forms of communication available to us as a society.

Rally for higher education in Oregon

Linda Richards, a student at Southern Oregon University, raises her voice in unison during a rally and march  demanding change in how the State of Oregon supports its institution.

Southern Oregon University is facing a $4 million budget deficit due to declining enrollment and cuts in state spending. In January, President Mary Cullinan proposed eliminating 30 staff, 24 faculty positions, as well as three majors and the honors program.

From observation to reflection

Photo by Cynthia Edmonds

Success in teaching comes in recognizing those small moments when a student truly begins to realize their intellectual potential through observation and interpretation. When a student "gets it," it feels like standing in front of a 200-member choir singing Handel's Messiah.

Recently, I asked my photojournalism students at Southern Oregon University to reflect on an earlier post I did on observation. They were not only to reflect on what I was trying to say but also go out and practice the art of observation. Last evening, Cyndi e-mailed in her assignment and reflection. The picture above is one result, and the following passage is another:

In theory, it makes sense that a photographer should be in tune with their surroundings and use all of their senses when capturing a moment with impact.  It makes sense that to capture the intricacies of life on film, then one needs to immerse themselves in all the details that make up the setting of the photograph.  However, knowing something in theory and applying it in the practical action of photography is a complex task. 

From an early age our brains are wired by society to see things in a certain way.  It is not an easy task to switch gears; however, the more time spent consciously opening all the senses to an environment, the more likely those senses will begin to open up unconsciously.

And now for the kicker:

"A person knows they have been corrupted by their photojournalism professor when they look up into the sky, notice sunlight shining through the clouds, and don’t say, “How pretty,” but, “I like that lighting.”  Of course, two seconds later, the clouds have moved and the moment’s gone before the camera can even be raised toward the sky."

I hate to think of myself as a corrupting influence, but if I can make people see the world around them in new ways, so be it.

Another student, Kelsey Richmond, thinks intelligent observation may sometimes even get in the way of making emotionally compelling images.

We as a race in general do not “observe intelligently”, that we do not immerse ourselves in out surroundings and really connect with our world. However, I feel that personally, at least, the more immersed I become with my environment, the more emotional judgment my photographs contain. Only after I have become truly engrossed and connected with, say, a sunset will I go so far as to comment on its beauty. I do feel that to make a photo of a subject, after I have become emotionally involved with it does change the feel, the meaning of the photo. Yet somehow I feel that if I did not take the time to immerse myself, so truly observe the subject, I might never have given it a second thought. I might never have even considered taking a photograph of it. And perhaps my emotion, my connection to the subject is what makes it beautiful. Perhaps my best photograph is best because it is mine, because I composed what I saw into a frame with the intent of making others feel how I felt at that time.

Perhaps, then, thinking about what we see as we go through the process of making images is not the most constructive thing we could do for ourselves and our students. Perhaps, we should just encourage individuals to immerse themselves in the world with their cameras in ways they feel work for them. In other words, less thinking about the act of making pictures, and more doing, more snapping, and learning by doing.

Maybe this is what Kelsey means when she notes, "I sometimes feel that to observe intelligently takes most, if not all of the fun out of photography." This may well be true for some, but photography is as much about process as it is about product. To arrive at the end, we must understand the beginning and middle as well.

In today's culture of immediate "point and shoot" gratification, there appears a tendency to have a finished, emotionally and intellectually moving result without having to do any of the work to get there.  Ultimately,  for me, photography is about transformation and humanization. Photography, through observation and reflection, encourages empathy and telling what we believe to be the truth as we see it.

 

Digital culture reveals seedier side of visual behavior

News about how photography is becoming increasingly diverse in our digital universe in all over the Internet these days. Stories about how our visual culture may be changing how people act in front of and behind the lens of a camera. However, human nature and needs based on fears and desires, remain the same. 

People remain obsessed with making and sharing images with each other, but now there is the Internet and digital technologies to make it all that much easier.

This week alone, on the seedier side of life, there are stories about how Scottish troops made mobile phone pictures of each other allegedly taking drugs while on duty, nude photos of actress Jennifer Aniston appearing on the web before the release of her latest movie, a teen prosecuted for taking naughty photos of herself and her teenage beau and e-mailing, the arrest of an Australian man for taking dozen of digital photos up women's skirts, a host of embarrassing and personal photos of a young woman in a dressing room mysteriously appearing online after being dropped off for processing at Wal-Mart.

We hear a lot about how digital photography is helping people become more productive and creative in recording their daily lives, but what we don’t often understand is how the darker side of human behavior is also coming out.  We know that citizen journalism is now joining forces with mainstream media, camera phones are being banned from public places, and new laws are prohibiting pictures such as those from Ana Nicole Smith’s autopsy from ever being published.   

Are digital cameras enabling deviant behavior more now than in the past with film cameras?

Something to sneeze?

Kleenex is offering a service where you can get a box of tissues with your favorite photo on it.  Send in a picture and get a box of tissues for about $5. The advertising copy on the top of the website reads, "Let your creative juices out." Someone probably got paid a lot of money to think that one through.   

What makes a good photograph?

In an announcement recruiting citizen-sourced media a few months ago Reuters defined for its audience "What makes a good news photograph?" For many students of photojournalism Reuters' definition might be worth consideration.

What makes a good news photograph?

As you're thinking about taking news photographs, think about what constitutes a good picture.

Most importantly, it will be of interest to a wide audience. It may depict an event in the news: a train crash, a clash in the streets, deliriously happy fans the moment the big game is won.

Or it may not be of a strictly 'news' event. It could be an out-of-the-ordinary moment in time in an otherwise ordinary day. Something that has novelty and impact. For example, a model falling over her huge heels on the catwalk, or a fox running up Downing Street, or a fire station catching fire, or a mouse hitching a lift on the back of a toad during a flood.

It may be unique. A picture that no one else took has much more news value than one taken alongside a rank of other photographers.

A good news picture will tell a story without words. It will have context by showing the surrounding scene, or show the emotion on the faces of the people in the picture.

Whatever the content, a news picture can lose its value in a short space of time. News events move quickly, and the shot of a mini tornado you took last week may have been destined for the front page when you took it, but of no interest to a newspaper or a website a week later. There are exceptions if the event is of huge significance and rarity. For example, a photo of a tsunami wave could still be of great interest days after it struck.

And please remember, absolutely no photo is worth harassing others, putting yourself or others in danger, or getting in trouble with the law.
   
   
   
   
   

 

 

Is this the future of journalism?: Associated Press to collaborate with citizen journalism Website

 

On Friday, the Associated Press announced it will be working with PublicNow.com to expand access to news as it happens. PublicNow has a membership base of more than 60,000 citizen journalists in 140 countries, while the AP remains the world's largest news gathering operation with more than 4,000 employees.

Potentially the partnership could revolutionize mass media by doing away with the boundaries between amateur and professional content production. It will be interesting to see how PublicNow contributors understand and comply with the conventions, standards, and ethics of mainstream journalistic practice.

According to Managing Editor for Multimedia Lou Ferrera:

"In the early stages of the relationship, AP bureaus will work with NowPublic communities in selected locations on ways to enhance regional news coverage. National AP news desks also may tap the network in breaking news situations where citizen contributors may capture critical information and images. NowPublic also will help AP extend its coverage of virtual communities, such as social networks and contributed content sites."

The collaboration, however, seems to signify a trend in the industry to capture competition for content in an already content-saturated media environment. A few months ago, Yahoo and Reuters joined forces by inviting citizen shutterbugs to submit images of breaking news events.

Although the merger of professional and citizen-sourced content is inevitable in an age of instant communication, the road ahead may be a bit bumpy for an industry already struggling to maintain credibility and public trust.

As images and events continue to flood into the newsrooms of AP, Reuters, and other organization from citizen-sources, what is to prevent public relations firms and the government from trying to make propaganda appear more legitimate. If I worked for a company that wanted to get on the news wires to sell a product or brand a name, I would be thinking really hard right now how to take advantage of the collaborative trends.

Already, news seems so saturated with an array of pseudo-events that stretch the definition of what constitutes relevant and significant information. 

Ultimately, wire services and Websites will be challenged to ensure that citizen-sourced media is legitimate and credible. At the same time,  maybe the prevailing public perception of mass media as a trustworthy source of information is so low, that it won't really make much of a difference. 

Michael Tippett founder of PublicNow.com write in a recent post about the Anna Nicole Smith notes that many people are becoming concerned that the news is increasingly sensationalist and celebrity driven.

What really struck home was Tippett's comment on how news has changed in recent years.

"Where news goes wrong is when it goes from being the messenger to being the message. Where people get bored is when news produces celebrity instead of reporting on it."

Intimacy: the highest level of emotional attachment in an image

Photo by Dennis Dunleavy (1995)

What makes some images more emotionally appealing and persuasive than others?

One way of understanding how images evoke feelings is by understanding the concept of intimacy.  Intimate images create a feelings of being, closeness, and belonging.

Although we commonly associate intimacy  with person-to-person relationships, the connections we make with an object, such as a photograph, may have produce similar feelings.

Joe Elbert, picture editor for the Washington Post, once categorized pictures as ranging from "informational" at the lowest end of the scale to "intimate" at the highest. But Elbert doesn't elaborate conclusively on the exact definition of an "intimate" image. "I can't give you a description of an intimate picture; it's something that can be felt," Elbert notes.

What this suggests is viewing, as a highly selective and potentially emotional process, connects the ways of seeing with ways of making things seen though meaning and interpretation.

Viewing assumes people apply perceptual filters to thing seen. This also suggests a state of consciousness. A perceptual filter refers to how personal perceptions and judgments bias our understanding of what we see. In writing about self-esteem and recovery, James Henman contends:

We experience the world through filters that have a profound effect on how we feel. These filters are made up of our underlying assumptions and beliefs about reality, our attitudes toward ourselves and others, our past experiences, our current expectations and how we process all of this information.

The perceptual filters we use to interpret an image may also be deeply connected to the store of memories we call upon when seeing.  In the process of viewing, memories and experiences are recalled and compared to the new object. Ultimately, an intimate image breaks through the barriers of personal prejudice,  and judgment by connecting to memories or universal feelings we hold inside ourselves.

 

Photo by Karla Gachet

Psychologist Joel Bennett observes, "A relationship has meaning when seen and lived in a broader temporal context."

What Bennett suggests here is that people experience time multi-dimensionally through the past, presence, and future. The feelings of intimacy evoked in an image, then, help to provide a broader context in which we experience life.  In this way, the photographer is challenged to create pictures that resonate on a higher level -- one that connects with a viewer's needs and desires beyond a informational context.

What technical, compositional, and content considerations are needed for understanding how intimate images are created?

 

Photo by Dennis Dunleavy (2004)

 

First and foremost, the intensity and direction of light becomes a dynamic factor in evoking feelings in an image. Softer and indirect light may evoke empathy in viewing an image. When we are drawn into a frame through  the use of softer more painterly tones, the possibility of creating stronger connections with the needs, feelings, problems, and views of others emerges.  This does not mean, however, that is not possible to have intimate images with hard and direct light, but the difference may be more the equivalent of a whisper over a shout or scream.

Ultimately, the relationship between the subject and the light captured in a frame becomes increasingly more critical in the ability to produce empathic and intimate images.

 

Intelligence Communities and the Common Good

Stacie Peart, writing for the Salt Lake Community College weekly, is concerned about how society is changing with the addition of new technologies.

"If people turn inward mentally, emotionally, and especially physically, the human race will cease to exist," Peart claims. The writer makes the assumption that the world is becoming more isolated, hostile, and less civil place to live since people have moved online.

"Increased interest in the self has sparked an inhumanity of negligence, propelled by technology, but not wholly caused by it. To protect our humanity, Americans need to rethink our dependence upon technology."

Peart's anxiety about the future, albeit seemingly alarmist, should not come as much of a surprise. The speed in which society is moving into a computer-mediated environment has given rise to a whole new culture of paranoia surrounding issues of privacy and deviance.

Dan Frost, staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, notes that the Web is fostering a new generation of innovation and creativity.

 

By using Web sites that stress group thinking and sharing, these Internet idealists want to topple the power silos of Hollywood, Washington, Wall St., and even Silicon Valley. And like countless populists throughout history, they hope to disperse power and control, an idea that delights many and horrifies others.

At the same time, a recent article titled "Who watches the watchers in surveillance society" illustrates some of the negative affects of how technology impinges on individual freedoms.

Since the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, sections of New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago and even a few smaller U.S. towns have been blanketed with closed-circuit cameras. Privately owned cameras are also proliferating.....The encroachment on privacy in what civil libertarians call a "surveillance society" may be a price willingly paid by citizens who fear terrorism and crime.

Although there are great benefits to being locally, regionally, and internationally connected through the socializing and democratic potential of cyberspace, there is also this nagging concern that, as Michele Foucault suggests, technology will also be used to increasingly codified personal information in order to subject individuals to disciplinary and authoritative action.

In 1977, Foucault  observed:

He who is subject to a field of visibility, and knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power, he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relations in which he simultaneously plays both roles, he becomes the principle of his own subjection.

The Techno Toilet: All pimped out and nowhere to go

"Fear not, boring toilet victims!  Thanks to Roto-Rooter®, the ultimate toilet now exists. They’ve developed a customized, one-of-a-kind throne; a truly “Pimped out John,” designed to fulfill all of your wildest bathroom dreams."

Source: Roto-Rooter Press Release

Sometimes there are moments when you have to stand back and just scratch your head at how far a company or companies will go to catch the attention of the media to sell products.

Roto-Rooter recently announced a sweepstakes where people can enter to win a techno commode featuring a flat screen TV, iPod, laptop computer, Xbox 360, DVD player, exercise system, cup warmer / cooler, and an "emergency" button for service. I guess the only thing they are missing is the web cam.

After we stop laughing, there is always time to think about the curious relationship between new and older technologies. Much of the attraction between functional technologies such as the toilet and newer technologies designed for personal pleasure is connected to ritual and routine.

The toilet is a technology that has pretty much stayed the same for hundreds of years. Now manufacturers of personal media are latching on to ways to push their products right into the toilet.

I can't wait to see what a 2-year-old child would do with all this tech when they are potty training. Or how about the night someone has a little too much to drink.

The intelligent observer

How much of what we see do we really understand or even try to make sense of?

The answer to this question lies in developing the skill of intelligent observation.

Artist and philospher Frederick Franck noted, "We have become addicted to merely looking at things and beings. The more we regress from seeing to looking at the world—through the ever-more-perfected machinery of viewfinders, TV tubes, VCRs, microscopes, stereoscopes—the less we see, the more numbed we become to the joy and the pain of being alive, and the further estranged we become from ourselves and all others.”

The art of observation begins with immersing ourselves in the textures and tones of life. Observation requires us to immerse ourselves in looking and listening without passing judgment on the impressions we collect.

Observation as part of the communicative process is about acknowledging the value of relationships between things that will provide a context for the experiences we have. Sense of place refers to making connections to the impressions we collect. Journalists are not mechanics fixing broken parts. Rather, journalists are storytellers communicating about what it is like to be in the world.

It is through details and context and a sense of place that photojournalists can create images of impact.

Human beings are dependent upon the senses for the impressions we hold of the world around us. We rely on our senses for survival – sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. However, as we develop and refine our craft, there is a tendency to favor one sense over another.

The key to becoming stronger storytellers, through words and images, is to work with all our senses to remember the impressions we experience and collect. As photojournalist we must learn to observe without judging, without letting thought intrude between you and the object. When you see a sunset or a landscape and say, “How beautiful,” you are not immersed in it, and will notice only part of what you might otherwise have seen.

In order to communicate messages effectively or express ourselves fully we have to think about what it means to be an observer. However, we must aknowledge the paradox in the acts of seeing and being seen. In our increasingly visual culture, we are both the observer and observed, the seer and the seen. What could this possibly mean? Are there any consequences implied in the act of observing or of being observed?

Dictionaries offer various meanings for the word “observation” including:

To perceive or notice
To watch attentively
To make a systematic or scientific observation
To watch or be present without participating actively.

Howerver, the observational skills we used in photojournalism suggest the active engagement of all our sensing powers.

The world is a sensual place: we see, hear, feel, smell and taste so that on a number of sensory levels we engage ourselves. Think of the moment you woke up this morning. What were the things you felt, sensed, perceived, and eventually responded? Was it the light coming through a window, the sound of traffic on the street, or the smell of coffee in the air?

Most of the time, I walk through my days unaware of all that is going on around me, out of touch with how I am being affected by what I sense. When I finally slow down to really take in space, sounds, sights, smells, texture and tone, my experiences with that space change. I feel more fully engaged. Observation teaches us to be this way in the world and to have empathy for the things we see and photograph.

There is a clear distinction between looking at something, seeing and observing. Observation is about allowing yourself to become sensitized to the things you are seeing. In other words, observation is about sensitive seeing.

As photographers we are drawn to light and the shape of things. We compose images as we think they might be in our heads and then with our cameras. How many times have we looked at our images and said to ourselves that is not what I saw, that is not what I felt? Becoming a sensitized observer means more than passive seeing––it means entering into a relationship and engagement with the things we see. Observation is experiencing what we see and translating that experience through the words and images that come to us.

How many images of war, famine, natural disaster, poverty, or any other extreme of the human condition have we seen in our lifetimes? I am thinking now of Kevin Carter’s image from Africa of a starving infant with a vulture nearby waiting for death to come.

How many other images like this one have I seen but not been moved or touched by in some way?

Our newspapers, television screens, websites, magazines and books are flooded with such icons of depravity and horror. Observation is part of a process of perception which engages all of your senses, sound, smell, taste, touch, and sight. When you acquire the skills of an observer you will also learn the value of waiting and anticipation. This is important to remember because there are no easy ways to learn how to be careful observers of the world around us. There is no mathematical formula, master plan, blue print or recipe for learning how to see and experience the things we choose to see.

Observation begins with both subconscious and conscious states of begin. We enter a space, connect with, pay attention to, and open ourselves to the hidden dramas of life that otherwise we let slip past us.

In the chaos and confusion of life we are trained from an early age on to focus almost entirely on the outcome of our efforts. No pain no gain. Life in our advanced capitalist consumer-centric society is measured in outcomes: material possessions, wealth, class, status, highest level of education attained, etc. With so much emphasis on producing outcomes in our art or in our daily life we have lost the ability to clearly discern the quality of incomes. We might refer to “incomes” as all those subtle and understated attributes which contribute to the outcomes we produce.

Observation helps us to explore and evaluate the things we are drawn to. As photographers we are moved by an array of ways of knowing the world and experiencing it. We place ourselves in the path of the present to make sense of the path and to glimpse the future. We become aware of space and time in an attempt to capture it, fix it, brand it, and preserve it. This is what an image does––it holds time and space in an illusionary dimension of the two as if it were somehow real. Beneath the surface of this temporal spatial relationship a continuum emerges through our memory of the likeness we view before us.
Observation is a skill we must develop if we want to engage in the world beyond the mere looking at it through a lens.

The images we create of our reality arise through observation and contemplation. Many, many times we fail to capture what we believe to be the essence, understanding, or truth of what we observe through photography on the first attempt. Perhaps this is because what we looking at first, what we glimpse is only a suggestion of something deeper, more profound and more meaningful.

As Franck reminds us there is always “the glaring contrast between seeing and looking-at the world around us is immense; it is fateful. Everything in our society seems to conspire against our inborn human gift of seeing."

Ultimately, learning to observe people, places, and activities in the world can make us better storytellers, communicators, writers and photographers.

The technological malaise

Technological innovation has always played a significant role in the history of photography. With innovations in digital technology––cameras, computers, image editing software and telephony––photographic routines in photojournalism are being driven by a relentless push toward faster, cheaper and greater quantities of information.

Digital technology increasingly intensifies and fundamentally changes the way people think, feel and act toward making images. Albeit an overly deterministic and simplistic comment, the consequences of shifting from film-based to digital photography are only just now emerging. It seems fairly obvious to me that there is a strong relationship between how productive and how empowered a photographer feels using a digital camera. However, do these facets of routine necessarily change the nature of photography?

Perhaps not in the way we think.

As many observers have argued, it has been suggested that the camera, be it film or digital, is a tool for communicating information and ideas between a source and a user. The camera is an extension of the seer and the seen. People tend to act predictably in front of and behind the camera, but the immediacy of the digital format is what alters the experience from prior experiences with film.

The speed in which communication takes place in a digital age does have the potential to impact the encounter significantly. Moreover, it is not only the camera that is changing the landscape of how we capture and exchange “moments” and “memories.” Along with the camera, the user must how become familiar with other technologies, including computers, software programs, and electronic storage, and telephony, especially cellular technology.

All of this complicates how we talk about digital photography, because it’s not just about taking pictures anymore. It is about how we take, select, size, store, and share the images with one another on printed page or computer screen. It is about how we decide to interact with one another when making pictures with a digital camera. It is about the science as well as the moral agency of making pictures in a digital age.

In a recent survey of professional photojournalists 75 percent of respondents claimed that they not received training in the use of the digital camera. In fact, most of the knowledge photojournalists have about digital technology comes from word of mouth or the Internet.

Even higher education has been hard pressed to keep up with these transitions. For Jon Jeffery, “New technologies have recently changed the universal body of knowledge that defines the foundation for teaching in professional photographic education.”

In the classroom, the changes in what students are required to know about photography is not just about making technically clean, well composed and meaningful images. The days of standing under the amber and red safelights in a darkroom watching prints develop are ending. Now, students must understand the techno-speak of computer geeks and photo gear heads.

Students now often face the harsh reality of technological malaise with concerns over increased image contrast, dot gain, editing and storage. In an all-digital environment, photogrpahy is no longer as mysterious, magical, or even as sexy and hanging out in a darkroom making a perfect print. Digital technology makes the process of producing images for publication more clinical and less quaint.

When we think about what photographers have to do now in order to make a publication deadline compared to what we did only 15 years ago, it is easy to understand the discontent and sense of frustration expressed by some professionals.

As Grazia Neri contends, “Reflection is necessary also on the subject of the new technologies: photograph scanning, digital transmission, the Internet. Many photographers consider the advent of digital technology a collective misfortune, which it is not possible to escape. The digital world is here to stay. It is a world that can be improved.”

Why images of the president fail us today

 

President Lyndon B. Johnson listens to tape sent by Captain
Charles Robb from Vietnam, 07/31/1968.
LBJ Library photo by Jack Kightlinger.

 

President Bush gestures from behind the podium as he makes remarks on the economy during an address at Federal Hall in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

 

The images featured here are strikingly different representations of our nation's commander-in-chief at war. In the former, we see a president caught in an intensely private and intimate moment.

We enter President Johnson's world as a human being reacting honestly to a real situation. We are allowed, even if we disagree with his decisions about the war in Viet Nam to get a glimpse of how heavily all this weighed upon him in some sense. We, in essence, get to empathize with him. There he is, bent over, listening intently to the words of a soldier. The image is moving and touches us with concern.

How often can we say that we have seen similar moments from our current president? How often do pictures of President Bush allow us to empathize with him as a human being?  To my knowledge, never. The president is portrayed as the hero, the closer, the bare knuckles guy who has a ranch in Texas. Is this really who Bush is?

It is not that President Bush lacks emotions or feelings, it is just that his public persona is kept, well public. Rarely, are we entitled to view any sign of the president acting human and expressing emotion.

In a recent image of President Bush, made by AP staffer Gerald Herbert, I suggest that restrictions on media access as well as real opportunities to show the president's true persona, rather than his public one, has made the photojournalist's job largely one of complacency and compliance.

Under Bush's years in the Oval Office, photo-ops seem to have blended into another. There is really nothing particularly interesting or significant about most of the images made of the president in the past years, other than to say that the photographer was on the scene. Today, the presidency is all about maintaining an image status quo, "Cover Your Butt" mentality the media has been forced into accepting from an image-sensitive administration.

In this case, Herbert's image, is an attempt to make something out of nothing. The image is also exactly what Eugene Richards was critical of when he spoke about how contemporary photojournalism has been shifting toward producing metaphorical imagery, instead of just visually reporting the event.

In other words, photojournalists are spending more time covering what the stage managers want us to see, and they are doing it splendidly.

Getting personal, unfortunately, is not in the  public relations style manual, so it is very unlikely that we will see anything but what the president and his handlers want us to see. Of course, none of this is new.

All presidential photo-ops constitute preconceived events that Daniel Boorstein describes as pseudo-events. 

What is the metaphor of the gesture behind the podium? Can a talking head be replaced by a gesturing hand? Apparently, that seems to be one of Herbert's interpretations on the situation.  In the circus like ambience of a carefully staged-managed world metaphors abound.

In fact, most presidential public appearances are designed and choerographed for maximum visual impact.  In a hyper-media visual saturated world, what people long for is a sense that those in power care about them. Most of the pictures we view on a daily basis of the world's most powerful individual does very little to reassure us of their humanity.

Instead, the representations of our current leader mostly project hubris and supremacy. Seldom are we gifted the opportunity to see the president as vulnernable, indecisive, humble, or even human. But hey, don't blame photojournalists for constructing this altered-reality -- they're just doing their jobs.

How Technology Impacts Photojournalistic Routines

Photo by Julieta Aponte

Gary Hershorn, News Pictures Editor, North America for Reuters News Pictures runs test files during for Super Bowl coverage from the kitched counter in his Hoboken, NJ condo.

Kenny Irby of the Poynter Institute reports on how technology is changing photojournalistic rituals and routines in significant ways. Irby writes that new technology, "enables photographers to transmit pictures directly from their cameras to their editors. It eliminates the need for runners, who shuttle picture-laden memory cards between photographers and on-site editors."

In this case, it's Hershorn sitting at home in New Jersey editing the images of no less than eight Reuters photojournalists covering the game in Miami.

The Digital Journalist features op-ed on Brooks Institute of Photography

My commentary about the on-going situation at Brooks has made it into the February issue of The Digital Journalist. It's always gratifying to recieve acknowledge from Dirck Halstead and company that I am on the right track with my analysis from time to time.

You'll find David Burnett's photograpy also featured in the issue. In fact, another article about David can be found in the Salt Lake Tribune this  weekend titled, Grace Instilled.

Are metaphorical images replacing physical reality?

A student checks the back of his digital camera this week on campus.

In an article about Eugene Richards' visit to Tufts University last week, Erin Baldassari of the Tufts Observer notes:

"The omnipresence of television and print journalism provides a unique opportunity for photographers to define how the world is presented to the public, but also lays much responsibility on photographers to get it right."

Richards observes that in today's fast-paced media environment, photographers are inclined to make pictures increasingly metaphorical.  "There is a trend now to make pictures more metaphorical and less direct," Richards is quoted as saying.

If the point of photojournalism is to make images that people can identify with in some real way, then, it is important to explore what Richards seems concerned about.

Compound the trend toward producing more symbolic and metaphorical imagery in photojournalism with an onslaught of new technologies that tend to, from Marshall McLuhan's view point, diminish the communicative power of the senses and consciousness, and we find ourselves on the edge of a massive change. Metaphors are about ideas, while photographs concerns themselves more with a physical reality.

Our perception or understanding of events changes with images become more about ideas than they are about an event or a person directly.

 

 

 

Associations

Sunrise Southern Oregon, Feb. 2 by Dennis Dunleavy

"Association plays a key role in what the mind's eye sees....
The mind's eye incorporates what we know with what we see. Since each of us has a unique conglomeration of facts, memories, associations, and speculations in our heads, what one mind's eye sees at any moment is very different from what another mind's eye sees. Artists, writers, and personal friends can open our eyes to what they see and thereby enlarge our vision, but ultimately the images that form in our brains are our own." -- David Finn

From: David Finn (2000) How to look at everything. New York: Harry N. Abrams Publishers 

From darkness to light: A - F Evaluating Student Photographs

Photo by Rebekah c. Hill

Becky's image captures the stillness of winter. There is a brief moment of transition from dark to light as the walls frame the expanse of snow and cold.

The most exciting part of working with developing photojournalists is to watch the progress from one week to the next.

Bruce Thorson, photojournalism professor at the University of Nebraska has been looking into how professors grade students' work.

I am sure there are many criteria depending on the level of skill, but I come to rationalize the evaluation process in terms of what could be published or not.

I grade the work with my students by simply asking them what they think the grade should be based on the following criteria. 

Before we look at the picture in class, the student suggests what the grade should be (A-F). This always gives the students something to think about other than the usual "oh, I just liked it."

(A) This means we can publish this picture as it is.  The image has all of the technical, compositional, and content-driven qualities needed.

There is a sense of immediacy, intensity, and intimacy in the frame.

However,  the student still needs to defend the Publish Now argument.  At times, when students aren't available, I use the same criteria but without a defense.

(B) We could the publish this picture if the toning, cropping and selection were just a bit better.

Basically, image needs improvement but it isn't total crap. Again student has to argue for the B grade.

(C) We wouldn't publish the picture, but the photographer clearly tried   to make it work. What this means that there are deficiencies in terms of two of the three criterion of technique, composition, or content. 

(NO GRADE)  No effort. Never publish the picture  (F) Student can't defend the effort or lack thereof.

It would be interesting to discover how other instructors evaluate student work. In this case, students seem to engage more in the critiquing process because they learn to self-evaluate the effort in a systematic way.