Dennis Dunleavy

Sarkozy's spare tire: French President gets digital makeover in Paris Match

There's a great deal of concern in the media these days about the power to deceive readers through the manipulation of news images. Sherry Ricchiarrdi writes in a recent American Journalism Review article, "Thanks to Photoshop, it’s awfully easy to manipulate photographs, as a number of recent scandals make painfully clear. Misuse of the technology poses a serious threat to photojournalism’s credibility."

We tend to think of the problem as one that has mostly occurred in the U.S., but that just doesn't make sense. Media has gone global, and with it so too do all the problems of a digital age. 

Recently, France has been dealing with a media scandal involving the retouching of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's picture showing him on vacation in the United States. The scandal has set off a debate about the president's close ties to the publisher of one of the country's most influential newspapers, Paris Match.

What would make a newspaper manipulate a picture like this? Can it be that the editors decided that the people of France weren't quite ready to see their new president hauling around a few extra pounds? Or, did the editors decide that it was easier to remove a little excess flab than it would be to deal with falling out of favor with the most powerful people in the country? Did the editors get a call from their owner telling them not to make Sarkozy look bad -- that there was an image to uphold and that it was important to show the president looking healthy and active?

The truth may actually be much more complicated than simply removing elements from a picture.

Like its U.S. counterparts, French media is taking a hit these days in terms of public confidence over its responsibility to reporting what they see and hear -- not what they think people want to see and hear.

Thomas Seymat, a former student from France, explains that the newspaper has been defending itself against charges of photo digital manipulation by claiming that they had done no wrong. Editors claim that the picture made the president look heavier than he actually is because of the camera angle, cast shadows, and poor printing technique.

Thomas notes:

"The thing that makes the story more scandalous is that it is not the first time that something like this has happened with this newspaper. Last year, Paris Match put in front page a photo of Cecilia Sarkozy (Not yet France's first lady) with her lover, in the street of NYC. The editor in chief of Paris Match was fired shortly after, the unofficial reason being that the owner of the newspaper is a very intimate friend of Nicolas Sarkozy. Arnaud Lagardere, a major share-holder of Paris Match, even publicly called him [Sarkozy] "my brother").... which only illustrates once again that collusion between politicians and the press is threatening its freedom and reliability."

The Paris Match controversy demonstrates once again the power of images in the construction and shaping of public perception. However, when the truth is finally discovered what we are left with is a feeling that pictures aren't the only things being manipulated here. Over all, there is a heightened public awareness of the media's power over us. The silver lining to all of this, is that with all of the scandals over digital manipulation in the press these days, people are become better consumers of information. We are learning not to trust everything we see, which may seem unfortunate on the surface. However, in the long run, understanding the relationship between what we see and what we know benefits everyone.

In a recent survey respondents were asked if "it's okay for the media to digitally alter pictures of celebrities to make them look healthier, younger, or thinner. More than 85 percent disagree or strongly disagree that it is wrong.

Even if this all seems to be a matter of common sense,  the nagging reality is that the number of incidents related to digital photo manipulation doesn't seem to be on the decline. Therefore, in order to survive in a digital age, we must become more sophisticated visual communicators -- more digitally literate. We must learn to call upon the media to never violate the social contract it builds with its public, as a force outside the reach of self-interests and party politics.

 

America's most patriotic town

Driving across the desert of Northern Nevada, sand, scrub, sky and no cellphone service merge together in the expanse of space that is the American West.

Rolling through the Walker Indian Reservation we pass rows of mysterious looking concrete buildings near Hawthorne. Discovering that these buildings and their role in history, provide the reason for Hawthorne's claim to be America's most patriotic town comes as a surprise.  Often we hear in the media about the bombing of other places during wars, but rarely do we think where and how and where bombs are made. The near windowless huts we drove by are part of this nation's bomb-making capacity.  For more than 40 years, hundreds of thousands of bombs and other munitions have been made here.

In the mid-day sun, the town seems deserted as a slight breeze catches the dozen or so American flags hanging from businesses and homes. The people of Hawthorne, population 3,000, are proud to have carved out a small piece of American history through their association with the ordnance depot, which is the town's largest employer. The second largest employer is a casino.

Along the strip of highway that cuts through the center of town is the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum. The former car dealership turned museum displays bombs, torpedoes, mines, and other weapons.

A mine greets visitors to the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum.

It's easy to forget that places like Hawthorne exist when you live so far removed, politically and physically, from the historical contingencies and necessities that war  presents. 

Larry Montgomery moved to Hawthorne to build bombs in 1956 after a stint in the Navy. Montgomery worked at the depot for more than 40 years. He now spends his time as co-founder of the museum, greeting strangers who wander in off the streets.

Larry Montgomery

The drive through the desert and the visit to the museum brings to light how diverse this nation really is. What we learn, then, is how people come to define themselves not only by what they do for a living, but through the connections they make with a place over time. The notion of patriotism, in the case of Hawthorne, Nevada, is interesting because of the relationships formed between the government's war efforts and the people that make that the effort possible.

The Dark Arts: Photography in the age of algorithms and the new realities of digital manipulation

Credit: Carnegie Mellon Graphics

Photography and the Dark Arts? Look out Harry Potter.

James Hays and Jexei Efros are really smart people. Hays and Efros, computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon, report they have invented a whole new way of patching up pictures by "borrowing" pieces of other pictures from the web. They call the method "scene completion", but others will differ them, especially when it comes to how the "scene" gets completed -- by taking content from other pictures off the web.

Credit: Carnegie Mellon Graphics 
Scene Completion Using Millions of Photographs

By using the data base of the World Web, with millions of images to pick from, Hays and Efros, have figured out that they can splice slices of reality in a seamless process that differ from previous methods.

The interesting point here is how science, which seeks to solve a problem, often complicates and creates even more problems.

 

As the image engineers explain:

"Our chief insight is that while the space of images is effectively infinite, the space of semantically differentiable scenes is actually not that large. For many image completion tasks we are able to find similar scenes which contain image fragments that will convincingly complete the image. Our algorithm is entirely data-driven, requiring no annotations or labeling by the user. Unlike existing image completion methods, our algorithm can generate a diverse set of image completions and we allow users to select among them.  We demonstrate the superiority of our algorithm over existing image completion approaches."

To their credit, Hays and Efros, have just moved electronic photo manipulation to a whole new level -- they have given the photo industry a bigger gun in which to pass off composites, fakes, and illustrations as wondrous illusions of reality. Not that photography hasn't been dealing with these issues since its inception. It is just that this new process contributes to already growing ways in which digital shenanigans get passed off as "truthful" representations of reality. I can see the Pentagon, politicians, advertising industry, and even more conventional mainstream news operations clamoring for the software.  It's all part of the slippery slope of image production in the 21th Century.

Not only are the possibilities of digital manipulation so much greater with this process, there is also the very big question as to what will constitute copyright infringement. Even if Hays and Efros use 1/1,000,000 th of a picture made by someone else, even if they borrow a few pixels here and there without asking permission or paying the owner for that 1/1,000,000th, would they be infringing on someone's copyright? What is fair use when there's a program out scanning images on the web in order to make a whole new image? 

It should not come as no great surprise that science would eventually figure out a way to semantically and seamlessly reconstruct images. We already have these processes in place.

However, the implications of this new method add fuel to the already burning argument that pictures could never be trusted as faithful reflections of reality. What you get is not what was seen, but rather only a few pixels here and there of possibly millions of other images.

Thanks to Daniel Sato for the inspiration and the link.

Inspiration from the eyes of the young

A few weeks back, in my High School Journalism Workshop, I had a student who made images that inspire me to think more carefully about how young people see the world differently than I do. In particular, I think young photographers have a different perspective on how we should consider the relationships we have with our subjects.

Atiana's images are complex because they speak to something that often is ignored or underestimated in the discourse about the role of photography and society.  Atiana's images seem to confront, honestly and naturally, the role of "self" in the picture making process.

There is no escaping the reading of this picture (above) as an image of a child's quirky expression. However, this is also a self-portrait of Atiana with her family.

The layering and juxtaposition of "self" against a tightly composed frame of the "other" makes me think how much of the photographer comes out in the image -- visible or invisible.

In fact, every image we make has as much to do with our own sense of place in the world -- our own sense of "self" -- as it does with the subjects we choose to capture.

Interestingly, much of what we consider the "best" photography seems to attempt to avoid any overt display of conscious of "self" in the process of constructing an image.  There is this feeling that the subject must be somehow "out there" and not "in here" -- referring to how the camera tries to act as an omniscient eye on the world.  The camera is often used as a tool to distance ourselves from the reality we are trying to capture. The emotions we desperately attempt to convey are therefore not our own but those of the subject, victim, or object of desire.

When young people are learning to make images, it is clear that there is a lot more sense of self in the pictures than when compared to someone who has been around a while.

The young look to photography as an exploration of who they are in the world -- they have yet to comprehend fully the aesthetics how the outside world is formally framed by the conventions of art and culture. What we get to see, then, is a rare and refreshing perspective of the photographer as who they are in relationship to their environments and experiences. What we get to see is a reflection, in this case literally, of the photographer as interloper and trespasser on time -- the stealing of moments and the capturing of fleeting whimsy.  At the same time, we also get the sense that the picture also speaks directly to the discovery of "self" in an innocent and refreshing way.

 

Sell newspapers, pictures, and legs

What do leggy women, newspapers, and sexual attraction have in common?

Editor & Publisher, the newspaper industry's leading trade publication, may need a little sensitivity training these days after people concerned with the objectification of women take a look at their latest promotion.

In an announcement for a photo contest, the organization ran an ad (see above) that can read in several different ways. Signification is the process of making sense of the things we see by interrogating the visual cues and associations represented. What we have here are faceless women, sets of legs, and newspapers without pictures.

The image is accompanied by the headline, "Papers without pictures just aren't very sexy." The associations implied suggest a relationship between newspaper photos, women and sex. We can assume that the people who approved such an advertisement were probably male, although it is hard to say with any assurance.

A perspective on how young people learn journalism today

There is a very large gap between having to learn a skill and wanting to learn it. Young people, even if they no longer wait with anticipation for the arrival of the day's daily newspaper, often show extraordinary interest in the basic foundations of journalism -- writing, photography and design. During our second annual High School Journalism Workshop, student come in with a rudimentary understanding of how news gathering, photojournalism and page layout work together in the process of effectively communicating to messages. The most exciting and encouraging aspect of working with high school age students is to see how motivated, enthusiastic, and dedicated they are to learning new things. This also suggests that there is a general misconception about teens having short attention spans and a general lack of interest.

The greatest -- perhaps even the most requisite -- attitude educators can pass along to future generations of journalists, especially middle and high school students, is a unconditional passion and faith in the craft, along with the conventions and tenets that make it so powerful and important in society. Despite all the misgivings people may express about the future of journalism in this country and around the world, or, despite the  common feeling that journalistic belief values such as accuracy, balance, fair-mindedness and truthful reporting are retreating into the shadows of corporate self-interests, hope resides in the hearts of young people.

Teaching students early on about the differences between hard facts and personal opinion is not only good for journalism, it is good for a culture that often appears explicity shallow and reactionary. Our rising YouTube, MySpace culture -- a culture appearing to be a mile wide and an inch deep in terms of understanding the complexities and contiguities of times in which we live -- must be placed within a greater context.  Journalism affords students the opportunity to understand the relationships of power and knowledge in ways few fields do. Journalism affords young people an opportunity to grasp the moral complexities of our digital age in terms of ethical and common sense reasoning.   

For journalism educators and professionals, it is imperative to reach out to younger generations. The message must be clear, a free press is built upon the energy and persistence of individuals who believe factual reporting and depth is at the core democratic values.

The role of the image on the Social Web

The ability to share pictures with each other immediately through the Internet and e-mail may not be considered as revolutionary as it did a few years ago, but the impact of these changes is becoming increasingly clear.

Today, technological innovation is building and binding new communities of like-minded individuals that could not have existed prior to the development of the Internet. In this way, people are navigating through a maze of social relationships afforded to them by the choices they make Online and off. At the center of this trend is the construction of social identities -- how people conceive of themselves and how others inevitably perceive them.

Digital photography increasingly plays a significant role in the process of how people define and redefine themselves Online. In the construction of  social web identities people often must decide who will eventually perceive them through the images they select to place Online. The choices people make in disclosing aspects of personality through photographs may have significant and unknown consequences later in life.

At the same, images, as social and cultural artifacts, eventually become part of a larger, more substantiative collective memory. The pictures shared with  friends on the social web, through sites such as Facebook, MySpace, or Flickr, extend meaning beyond an original occurrence by moving from a private identity to a more public display of self.  Does interest in public displays of self through photography on the social web suggest that society is becoming even more self-absorbed, self-centered, and self-aggrandizing than it already often appears to be?

For example, a young Muslim woman posts a picture of herself on MySpace. The picture shows the woman exposing a tattoo on the small of her back showing her allegiance to an Islamic political party. Within days, the picture begins to circulate around the world through e-mail and the Internet. The original motive behind the making of the photograph quickly gets lost in Cyberspace as others add to its meaning. The identity of the woman, known only to some, disappears in the ensuing discourse over not who she is as a person, but what she ultimately comes to represent.

There is always the potential for abuse and misrepresentation on the social web as there is in any other form of communication. What is strikingly different, however, is the speed and intensity of the visual messages. To understand our motivation for moving between a private and public notion on and away from the Internet is a fascinating consequence of our increasing need to feel connected, centered, gratified, and in some ways, important. There is little doubt that the popularity and attraction of the social web is about feelings toward establishing and maintaining a public self that moves beyond our initial conceptions of our private self.

Photographs on the social web extend the informational/representational system we are most notably familiar -- that of print media. However, on the social web, the use of photographs may affect how an individual feels about their status and value within self-selected groups, such as with having pictures associated with a Facebook or MySpace profile.

Rethinking Portfolios in a Digital Age: Content and Organization Still Count

I wrote about portfolio development more than a year ago, but I find the information still applicable to students and developing photographers. I being this up because I was recently interviewed by Dale Mayer, author of “How to Write and Design a Professional Resume to Get the Job", which will come out sometimes in the first months of next year.

Ultimately, your portfolio, resume and cover letter are what will open doors for you -- no matter how good you may believe your work to be. This about the job process as a series of stair steps you need to take with a gate blocking your entrance at each level.  Once you have discovered an opportunity it is your responsibility to optimize your chances for success. No one is waiting to seek you out if you don't initiate the process with clarity and purpose.

Thoughts on Picture Editing and Student Portfolios

I have been thinking a great deal about how students put together portfolios for internships and jobs. What I have learned over the past few years is that there is perhaps no single activity more vexing and stress producing than editing a portfolio.

Emotionally and intellectually, students looking to land an internship or their first job must understand what they are up against in photojournalism today.

In a word -- competition.

Frankly, it is no secret that the number of candidates seeking internships and jobs far out number available opportunities. There is nothing particularly new about this revelation, especially for the so-called premium spots at larger and mid-sized "picture-friendly" newspapers.

However, to be more competitive there are a few things students should take to heart.

Recently, I read about a list of 25 words that can hurt your resume. According to Scott Bennett, author of "The Elements of Résumé Style" (AMACOM), potential employers are turned off when vague phrases and buzz words are used in a resume. Although we tend to think of a resume in terms of words, we can also extend the idea to images in a portfolio as well. Your portfolio, in fact, is a visual resume. Every image that weakens a portfolio through poor technique, composition or ambiguous content sends a message to the viewer.

Bennett's list of 25 words that can hurt your resume include the terms:

Aggressive
Ambitious
Competent
Creative
Detail-oriented
Determined
Efficient
Experienced
Flexible
Goal-oriented
Hard-working
Independent
Innovative
Knowledgeable
Logical
Motivated
Meticulous
People person
Professional
Reliable
Resourceful
Self-motivated
Successful
Team player
Well-organized

What this list suggests is that employers don't need you to tell them that you are a resourceful person,they want you show them that you are a resourceful person.

This works as well for images as it does for words.

My list of images that can hurt a portfolio include:

Ambiguous meaning
Confusing center of impact
Lack of Focus
Cliches
Stereotypes
Missing the moment
Assuming that the viewer can see what you see
Poor composition
Poor technique
Misreading light
Misreading the moment
Poor taste
Inability to tell a story with one frame
Context-driven images over impact-driving images
Images without immediacy
Images without intensity
Images without intimacy

The words and images that work in the resume or portfolio are those that shows not tell the viewer about your strengths, attributes and qualities.

For me, the power of an image is in its ability to communicate universal human meaning with immediacy, intensity and intimacy.

If you have ever been in one of my classes, you've heard all of this before so many it will make you throw up. Sorry. Consider this a refresher.

Images have to appeal emotionally and intellectually to a viewer. It is your job to figure out what these appeals mean to your audience.

As an editor, even before the cover letter is open and the CD drops accidentally on the floor, you need to know a few things.

Don't Assume Anything

Do not assume that editors are not busy people. Do not assume than an editor has been standing in the mail room all day waiting for the arrival of your portfolio.

The operative word here is that editors are people -- busy busy people. Editors have many obligations to attend to beyond opening dozens of portfolios, reviewing thousands of images and writing batches of rejection letters.

Do not assume that unless your work stands out immediately you will get any more time than just a few minutes to convince an editor that you are the real deal.

If, for some reason, an editor has to struggle to read a CD or catches grammatical errors on a cover letter, you may have lost your chance.

Do not assume that a shot gun approach to sending out work is acceptable. Do not assume that following a formula for putting together a portfolio will always work for you.

In my opinion, shotguns and formulas are less successful than those efforts which take the extra time to individualize a cover letter, resume and portfolio.

Less is more.

Editors who receive a generic mass-produced body of work with a generic few words can see this coming a mile away. Do not assume that an editor will spend a lot of time looking at your work when it is not created for their eyes, minds and hearts.

Let me repeat myself here:

Do not assume that an editor will overlook a few typos or stylistic problems in your cover letter or resume.

Do not assume that the editor is going to have a ton of time to spend with your images. Don't go there, it doesn't work.

Do not assume that it is okay to think that quantity is better than quality.

Rules of the Road

I. Be honest with yourself.

Edit your work ruthlessly, but humanely. Ask yourself why an editor would think a particular image is interesting or powerful?

Don't assume that because a bunch of people liked a particular image that it will make the final cut.

If you don't know what an editor is looking for, do your homework. Find out about the newspaper, magazine, website or other media and figure out what sorts of images they use. Is the publication big on sports, features, hard news? Does the publication run picture packages? Build your portfolio with a particular audience in mind. Do not assume that there is a one size fits all preference to editing your work. Take editing seriously. Spend the time it takes to really ask yourself some hard questions about the images you are submitting.

II. Every image you include in your portfolio should say something about who you are and speak to your strengths with integrity and truth-telling.

Your pictures should speak from your head as well as your heart.

What makes your way of seeing different from the next candidate?

Edit images down because they carry specific messages you want to send to the potential employer. Edit images because they express a particular feeling, mood, moment, and concept.

Ideas are carried by moments of truth, captured by light and arranged in time and space. If your images speak to me about your relationship to the world, to your relationship to light, to your relationship with people in time and space, then, you are communicating honestly. Your portfolio is what you have to say for yourself.

III. Understand the limitations of ambiguity in a frame.

This is a tough concept to get across to students. People read and see what they want to read and see in a frame.

People have certain tolerances for ambiguity.

The image has a moment but there are ambiguities in the frame that distract from getting a message and feeling across, then it might not be right for the final portfolio.

Even if an image appears to be busy it still can have a strong central story and focus. These images are usually layered with information. I think often of Sam Abell's famous "red bucket" image of cowboys roping cattle. Although there is a lot going on in the frame, there are few ambiguities about the message. In fact, the secret to this sort of image, what gives it legs, is that you can look at the frame a dozen times and still discover something interesting in it. Mary Ellen Mark, Susan Meiselas, Diane Arbus, Eugene Richards, Alex Webb and so many others possess the skill of editing for layers of meaning in a frame.

IV. Don't edit to the weakest frame.

If you don't have the best images in any specific category why include them?

So many students think that they have it all. We think we have to have four fantastic sports action pictures, four amazing breaking and general news images, four graphically appealing features, four of this and four of that, and then a picture story to top it all off in our portfolios.

It would be ideal if a portfolio showed excellence in all these areas, but this is not always realistic. Don't overshoot your mark. Select the media that matches your ability. If you have never had an internship before, sending your work to a major daily may be problematic.

Traditionally, portfolios have been designed to show editors that a candidate can do it all, sports, news, features, picture stories.

This may still be true to some extent, but what I think editors are really looking for today is a bit more complex.

First and foremost, your work must show technical and compositional competence. Clear focus, ability to read and capture light, movement, and the decisive moment are givens. If you have fifteen or twenty pictures in a portfolio and only six or eight images show these competencies what message are you sending to an editor? The message you are sending is that more than half your portfolio actually shows incompetence.

V. Be a people person.

I know, I know that the term "people person" is on the list of 25 word not to include in your resume, but interpersonal skills go a very long way with editors.

Being a good photographer is important, but being a good human people is even more important.

Take care that the images you select speak to who you are as a human being.

Being a "people person" means that you demonstrate a unique insight, vision and empathy for the people, places and things you photograph. I think editors are looking for individuals that are going to fit in with the established culture in the newsroom.

Character Counts

If the editor, by looking at your pictures and reading your cover letter and resume, gets the sense that you won't quite fit in with the culture and climate of the news organization, then your success may limited.

VI. Get good advice.

Listen, look and learn from others.

If you are looking at a particular newspaper for an internship or job, why not track down someone who has been there. It's okay to have everybody and their brother see your work and offer opinions, but the final judgment is not yours or theirs.

Understand what you need and where you want to be.

Clarify your goals and ambitions before going to the expense of burning a zillion CD-Roms or print a zillion images. Find people that have "been there and done that" and ask them for a favor. Ask people you respect to help you edit your work.

Ask people you know who have experience with hiring interns or first-time hires. Use intelligence, common sense and discretion in applying any advice to where you want to do in your life.

VII. Edit for your audience.

Do not fool yourself into thinking you know what a good image is. Everyone has a different opinion when it comes to evaluating what a "good image" is.

Understand that there are certain conventions, standards, ideals, expectations, characteristics, and attributes good images share. Do your homework to see how your images compare with others that are winning awards and getting published.

You must understand all of these aspects and then acquire a mindset and attitude that will help you make the right choices. Your job in editing your portfolio is to communicate clearly and effectively with your audience.

The audience, in this case, is the person who wants to hire you. The audience is the person who needs you, but you have to do your part.

Don't assume that just because you send them some images, that you are automatically the right fit.

If you think every image you make is "good" or that there is nothing more to learn about making pictures, then you could very well be missing the point. Not every image is a "good image."

However, what does seem to help in evaluating pictures is what I call the test of the (i)s -- Immediacy, Intensity and Intimacy.

The three (i)s can help you to evaluate various characteristics of the images you are thinking about for your portfolio.

For example, if an image as a busy background with no clear and distinct center of impact in the frame, then it is probably lacking immediacy.

Immediacy

Immediacy is the first level of the (i). Immediacy refers to the speed and comprehension in which meaning is conveyed in a frame. In typography and design we talk a lot about immediacy in terms of legibility and readability. In photography, these qualities translate to immediacy. Immediacy hooks the reader like a good lead on a news story. Immediacy suggests that there is a direction and trueness of course to the meaning of an image. Immediacy can also suggest importance and directness. Immediacy is about the expected response and the contract you have with your audience to communicate and convey a message.

Intensity

The second level of the (i) is intensity. Intensity refers to the qualities in an image that appeal to me emotionally and intellectually. When you have immediacy in a frame with intensity the image appears contextual. A mug shot or real estate picture may have immediacy -- we get it -- this is a face -- this is a house -- but what it is missing is intensity. Intensity in a frame means there is a forcefulness of expression. Intensity means power and force. Your images should have power and force in order to communicate with your audience, the editor, clearly and immediately. Decisive moment images, especially in the context of sports action, usually have intensity. Nevertheless, every image in your edit must tell a story with some sort of intensity. The images, even in implicit and subtle ways, must have power, hold focus, or possess some degree of strength.

Intimacy

Finally, there is the third level (i) of evaluating images -- intimacy.

Pictures that possess immediacy and intensity usually have some impact, but what really makes images stick is intimacy. Intimacy is a feeling of closeness with what we experience in looking at a picture. It is a visual encounter that indicates a deep connection with some feeling or thoughts we have. If a picture in a portfolio has intimacy it expresses some essential and innermost feeling and brings the viewer into it. Eugene Richards makes intimate images for me, as does Mary Ellen Mark. Larry Burrows' images from Vietnam are intimate in many ways.

I do not have a tried and true formula for editing, but I do know that if images have immediacy, intensity and intimacy they will have a pretty good chance of standing out. Through the three (i)s we can let our pictures speak for not only what we do, but who we are as human beings.

A word of caution about all of this. Rubrics like my three (i)s are simply ways for organizing our thoughts and images. There are many ways to be successful at picture editing and each individual must discover what works for them over time.

The art of cover letter writing

Many students spend a lot of energy and money putting together the perfect portfolio for internships and jobs. We take hours, days and weeks to select, tweak and prepare our digital portfolios. Once they are done, we burn the images to CDs or DVDs, find an interesting internship or job to apply for, and get ready to ship. The last thing, and perhaps the least thought of element to go along with the images, is the cover letter.

People have differing philosophies about cover letters. In one camp, there are those who think that it is always the body of images that will ultimately land them an internship or job not the quality of the writing in a cover letter. There is another camp, perhaps a smaller one, that believes in the whole package. We cannot escape dealing with words when we try to pitch ourselves and our work to the world. Words and pictures must work together.

I believe that the cover letter in an integral part of how a student can best promote themselves as a journalist and as a photographer.

Obviously, grammar, style, accuracy, and all those mechanistic processes must be attended to, but it is the content and the ideas that will win people over.

Errors and sloppy sentence correction in a cover letter may not help our chances very much. At the same time, a perfectly clean, coherent, and clearly written cover letter will get us onto the dance floor. I think much of this is also dependent on the individual editor or director. How much of a difference a well-constructed cover letter will make in nailing down an internship or job depends on the integrity of the employer.

Nevertheless, writing deserves as much attention to detail and selecting and toning our images. The cover letter along with the portfolio of images is part of a promotional package that will speak for or against you in the decision-making process.

What do editors and directors of photography want to know about you that they will not find in your images?

I have never been a great fan of sending out a million portfolios all with the same letter and images. I like to personalize every letter and portfolio to match the interests of a prospective employer. Time consuming? Yes, but I think the trouble is worth it.

At the same time, I can understand the logic behind the blanket approach, however, I maintain that for the most part it is a waste of time and money.

Editors want to know that we understand what the internship is about. They want us to know about the community and the newspaper, Web site or magazine we are applying to. Editors need to feel comfortable that they will be hiring an individual that is a team player, good communicator, careful thinker, curious and committed person and a "quick-on-their feet" resourceful photojournalist. Editors want to get the sense from a cover letter that the photojournalist is concerned as much about relationships as they are about making pictures.

All of this must be articulated in a one page cover letter that avoids trite and cliche language. Our sentences must be carefully written and organized to express our interests and talents in a way that does not smack of hubris. Sentences should be kept short and to the point.

Before sitting down to draft the cover letter, make a list of the major points that interest you about the internship or job. Evaluate the points which attract you the most. Know the history of the newspaper or the paper and the photojournalists who have worked their in the past. Take time with the publication to make sure it is right for you.

Make a short list of the things you feel you can contribute to the institution and community as a photojournalist. Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses. Continue with your list by adding some of the things that you would like to see come out of the internship or job.

Once you have the two lists -- (1) a list of things that are most attractive about the internship or job, and (2) a list of things you feel you could learn and contribute to the institution and community when you are there -- start writing to incorporate the best points on the list into letter form.

Once you have written a first draft, put it aside for a day. Don't just take your first attempt and stick it into the portfolio. Let what you have written stew a little in your head. When you go back to it later, you will see things much more clearly. Edit this first draft carefully and start another. By the time you have reached the final draft you should be able to read the piece out loud in your head. Ask yourself if the letter flows from one main idea to the next. Are you saying what you really want to say or just writing to please the editor?

Finally, have people you trust read your letters. Make sure to read everything out loud to check for flow and accuracy.

Sometimes it is helpful to bring in an anecdote about why you were drawn to apply for the internship. Anecdotes or little stories are helpful because they make the writing seem more personal and real. Making the reader feel comfortable with who you are becomes an important part of the cover letter. The cover letter is a place where you get to share a bit more of your world view with an editor than may be apparent in a picture portfolio. Take this part of your portfolio development seriously and come things will come of it.

Photo Powerhouse PDN launches new blog

Photo District News' new blog PDN Pulse is now online and it's loaded with current and useful news concerning the photo industry. 

Although it may have taken a while for PDN parent company Nielsen Business Media to enter the blogosphere, PDN Pulse brings a lot of street cred and integrity to the Web 2.0. 

The PDN Pulse blog is a welcome addition to a host of other Online photo resources such as Popular Photography's Pop Photo blog and Andy Goetz' Stock Photo Talk. Similar to the mission of Pop Photo and Stock Photo, PDN Pulse provides a current summary and informational links to some of the more important issues happening in the industry today. 

According to Laura Nathan, a photo editor at PDN, "For us, the blog means finally having the ability for readers to comment and hopefully spark a dialogue within the professional photography community about things that matter to us."  Connecting with its readership will pay off for PDN, because the opportunity to post commentary on a blog tends to build a strong core community.

In addition, the blog will allow PDN to publish even more stories than it can in a traditional print or web formats. Nathan suggests that the blog will allow PDN to publish shorter pieces that aren't wouldn't otherwise be published, either on PDN Online or in the print version of PDN.

"I think there's a lot of news or funny or interesting but not pressing things that are of interest to our readers that we'd miss out on if we confined ourselves solely to print or if we were focused just on putting together weekly content for our e-newsletter. An added bonus is that it leaves readers always ready for more, and with the Internet, that's very easy--both for them to see if there's anything new, but also give their feedback," said Nathan.

Ultimately, the goal of PDN Pulse is to get as many voices heard from the photo community as possible. Knowing how well respected PDN and PDN Online are in the industry, there is little doubt that their blog will follow in the tradition quite nicely.   

A rare and generous gift

Journalism, at its best, is about telling stories that move us emotionally and intellectually. At its worst, journalism is shamelessly invasive and self-absorbed. Recently, the Oregonian launched a video diary of a woman living and dying with cancer. Clearly, this project firmly falls within the sphere of the former -- journalism at its best.

Rob Finch and Don Colburn have been documenting the life and inevitable demise of Lovelle Svart, a 57 year-old women, and retired Oregonian employee, living with cancer.

The series is called “Living to the End” and chronicles the thoughts of Svart as she moves toward the end of life after being notified by doctors that she may have less than six months to live. A dignified women of integrity and depth, this is a "Living to the End" is a story for our times – one that bears witness to our common fears and misconceptions about death and dying.

"Living to the End" is not a story about death -- it is a story of coming to terms with our all too short time here on earth. The Oregonian’s commitment to the story and Lovelle's strength, make this all too clear for us.

In the end, the message is crystalline -- cherish the living and the dying, make peace with yourself and others, strive to make intelligent choices in life and understand the fragile gift of our relationship with our earth.

Finch and Colburn work carefully to capture Lovelle’s insight on a subject that has often been regarded in American culture as taboo.

According to Finch, “In my opinion, the value of the story is not impacted by her decision to either take the lethal medicine or not. I hope it turns out to be a story about life – not about death. I have great hope that people will get to know Lovelle. She is really an amazing person to talk to – very smart and very kind.”

It takes a great deal of courage to walk, what some consider to be the voyeuristic or sensational line that has become the bane of today's mainstream popular media. This project is far from sensational or voyeuristic as it avoids exploitation and coercion at the core of its straight-forward narrative.

Finch comments:

“I am very interested in this form of storytelling. It is the first time that I will be able to tell the story of a journey. Usually we tell stories after they are over. That way we “get” the story and look back on the events to see what was meaningful. This time, we are committing to telling a story in progress. We know it will have an ending, and we kind of already know what the ending is…but how we get there is unknown.”

Death in our society is typically considered a private matter. It is not uncommon to keep our feeling about death to ourselves, yet when Oregon voters went to the polls in 1997, for the second time, they overwhelming supported a person’s right to make end of life decisions.

According to Oregon's Department of Human Services, The Death with Dignity Act “was a citizens’ initiative passed twice by Oregon voters. The first time was in a general election in November 1994 when it passed by a margin of 51% to 49%.  An injunction delayed implementation of the Act until it was lifted on October 27, 1997. In November 1997, a measure was placed on the general election ballot to repeal the Act. Voters chose to retain the Act by a margin of 60% to 40%.

Ten years after the Act’s passage, Lovelle considers her final options under a law that continues to stir emotions and controversies.  Throughout the series Lovelle does what many of us would be afraid to do – make her own very personal death and very public matter.  Meanwhile, Rob documents the tribulations with sensitivity and grace.

The highest form of journalism is always about sacrifice, courage and social responsibility.  “Living to the End” not only piques our curiosity about death but also challenges our consciousness about what it means to live.

Around the world, thousands to stories like Lovelle’s are played out each day. Yet, Lovelle story stands out because of its clarity.

In the late 1980s, I worked as a volunteer in a hospice that cared for hundreds of HIV-AIDS patients. A once clandestine operation, the hospice housed more than 124 souls, men and women, -- all struggling with different stages of the disease.

For six months, I put my camera down and assisted the living with dying. I never took a single image of anything or anyone while I volunteered there, and to this day I feel it was the best photojournalism education I could have given myself.  During this time, I learned the art of compassionate listening and seeing. I learned to observe the human condition with empathic eyes. I learned to give and not take, to get over my fears of "otherness", and to understand how I could become a better photographer by simply being in a space with others as a human being first and a journalist second.

I put the camera down because at that time the media was running countless stories about people dying of AIDS. Yet, despite the abundance of AIDS stories, we rarely received deeper insight into what it is like to live before we died.

I also learned that with every act of taking a picture there is a price to pay emotionally and intellectually. As journalists we often rationalize our invasive actions as doing something meaningful or important for our readers without understanding that, as Annie Dillard writes in her book Holy the Firm, "Do we really need more victims to remind us that we're all victims?

At the hospice, I shaved, bathed, cooked, massaged, and read to those who requested accompaniment. I listened, nearly daily, to bittersweet stories of life's joys, sufferings and regrets. While witnessing more than 40 young men and a few women die of the disease during the course of my stay, I learned to put aside my mind's instinctively programmed judgments and embrace my brothers and sisters for who they were -- human beings on a journey. I learned to accept their often lonely deaths as I would someday begin to anticipate and accept my own.

As Finch suggests about his story with Lovelle, "In my opinion, the value of the story is not impacted by her decision to either take the lethal medicine or not. I hope it turns out to be a story about life - not about death. I have great hope that people will get to know Lovelle."

Getting to know Lovelle. Understanding a life shared with others as she comes to terms with the end of one journey and the beginning of another is a rare gift to be cherished and nurtured.

Not too long ago, a photographer in Kansas called me to ask if I would be willing to photograph a woman giving birth to a baby that would be still born or die shortly after birth. The woman had recently moved back to the West Coast from Kansas in order to be closer to her family after learning that the baby would die.

I called the woman and agreed to make pictures of the birth for her.  My challenge was to record, with impartiality, a moment in this woman's life that might otherwise be forgotten. It was a strange request, but not unexpected.  I understand the need for grieving. I understand how pictures can hurt us as much as they can heal and bring comfort.  Toward the end of the second day of photographing, after the birth, I realized how important the pictures had become.  I began to realize that there was a connection between this baby's birth and death and an experience our family had a few years earlier with a planned adoption. Shortly after the birth of the baby we had hoped to adopt, the baby died. We were at a great loss, but somehow having a visual record of the times we were together helped us get through it.

Perhaps this is what I see in Lovelle's story -- a way of making sense of things in a very special way.  And there is one thing more -- silence. Often times we seemed programmed by the media to expect action and constant voice and sound in a narrative. We are programmed to believe that words (voice over) accompanying the images must always be present. But sometimes silence speaks much louder than words.

Silence speaks volumes. Lovelle, in the beautiful way she speaks about her life, must have times of meaningful silence to compose her thoughts.  The image of Lovelle silently collecting her strength and courage to speak as she does about death and life is meaningful.  Unfortunately, people often perceive silence as "dead air" or "dead space." Some think that silence is a waste of time. What is missed, however, by this sentiment is that in the space between the words and actions -- in the silence -- meanings are formed and hope springs forth.

iPhone mania

Southern Oregon sunset made with the new iPhone.

It didn't take all that long to succumb to the power of the new iPhone. I've always been a little skeptical of new fads in technology, but this thing is something else all together. With all the hype about the device in the media I wasn't all that convinced that the phone could live up to the all-in-one personal media device label. It was a pleasant surprise.

Earlier in the day, I asked one of the technicians at school if he had purchased the phone yet. He paused, looked up at me with a smile, and said, "I was on the line the day the phone arrived. I got number 42."

I couldn't tell him that he was a little crazy waiting for hours for a piece of technology, but I can understand the passion.

After only a day, it seems clear that the phone has a lot of built-in potential to stay even more connected than ever. With a calendar, iPod, camera phone, email and the Internet, the only thing it seems to not do is make coffee. Maybe that will be coming with the first upgrade.

Ashland, for a small town, is a pretty wired place and it was easy to maintain access to the Internet and email all day. Now, it's only a matter of time before these device get cheaper, smaller and even more efficient.