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There is something exciting about a new snow fall. The things I take for granted on my walks suddenly come in to focus so much more clearly. My ways of seeing the world change. It's too bad we couldn't see the world around us the same we see the world covered in snow. I would imagine that if you live in a snowy place and suddenly find yourself in the tropics, the experience might be the same.
Nathaniel Hayden passes other skiers Sunday afternoon
in Ashland, Ore. as a snow storm blanketed the region.
U.S. I-5 was closed north of Grants Pass, Ore. after power-
lines fell across the highway.
Social networking sites afford people the chance to create profiles that offer a personal perspective on who they feel they are. Sites such as MySpace allow people to express themselves and share photos with whomever is interested. However, once the thoughts and images of a person's private life go public, they take on a new dynamic. Any recent college graduate knows that potential employers often surf the web to find out information that is not presented on a candidate's resume. Now, it is not unusual for many young people entering the job market to their delete MySpace and Facebook profiles before a job search.
Recently, Carmen Kontur-Gronquist, the 42-year-old mayor of Arlington, Ore., found this out the hard way when she posted pictures of herself on her MySpace profile clad in black lingerie while posing on a fire truck. Kontur-Gronquist insists that the have nothing to do with her abilities as mayor. Maybe not, but that not what this town of 600 is thinking. The general assumption is that Kontur-Gronquist's exposure (pun intended) draws negative attention to the community. Today, it appears easier to become a celebrity whether you intend to be or not. Anyone with an ax to grind can dig around on the web and probably find something to complain about.
We are living in a time where the line between public and private selves seems to be vanishing. More than that, what seems to be changing is how we define "public" when considering the socio-cultural relationship between social networking and the larger public sphere. Social networking sites fall within the public domain, but when images are appropriated to ridicule an elected official or humiliate someone in the media, a fuzzy line gets crossed.
This happened last year when a local newspaper appropriated a picture without permission of high school students posing for a dance. The newspaper lifted the picture from the student's MySpace profile in order to illustrate a story they were running on teenage drinking and sexual promiscuity. Never mind that the pictures and the story had no direct connection. During the following weeks, a great deal of negative attention was directed at the students, even though they had little to do its usage. Taking the image out of context seemed inappropriate and harmful, but not illegal.
One of the primary social behaviors we find with the Internet is that it caters to our attention-seeking nature. People like to feel good about themselves and find ways to separate themselves from others in any number of ways. The culture of social networking enables and encourages attention-seeking behaviors in ways never before experienced in culture. In Victorian times, a fancy hat might suffice, but in an age of instant communication people differentiate themselves through public disclosures that are far-reaching and sometimes perilous.
In our rush to adopt new skill sets in photojournalism -- that is, adding video, audio and the web to our bag of tricks -- we sometimes miss the point that whatever we do, we are still telling stories.
Richard Koci Hernandez's new book "Multimedia Journal" inspires photojournalists to explore the rich and layered world of multimedia in compelling ways. The idea for the book came after nearly a year's worth of conference presentations across the country about how the San Jose Mercury News photojournalists are generating multimedia stories for the Web. Koci Hernandez explained that many journalists expressed fear and reservations about using new technologies to tell stories.
"From top to bottom there is a huge debilitating fear about multimeda and video," he said.
In his book, which features more than 50 exercises, Koci Hernandez explores ways for journalists to tap into their creative energies and translate stories through words and images in new and dynamic ways. One thing he discovered during his travels was that many journalists were afraid to think of themselves as artists. However, in his approach to teaching multimedia, Koci Hernandez tries to convince people that they can still tell stories effectively and be creative at the same time.
From the traditional perspective, he says, "It’s like trying to paint with the same brush with the same color all the time."
"Journalists are afraid to fail and they never want to feel like their approach was wrong. I think that right now is the most exciting time in journalism ever.
"We have an opportunity to do things in ways that we never had before. If people don’t seize the opportunity we are going to miss out," Koci Hernandez said.
For photojournalists, multimedia can re-energize them and make them better journalists,
"What multimedia does is make you think in a longer format. It makes you ask more questions and makes you slow down more," he said.
"It has made my storytelling better. The words "creative" and "artist" are being infused into my work."
"Previously all we had as a journalist was the printed page – that was the only vehicle we had – and we did try to make emotional connections. But now, the platform has completely changed," Koci Hernandez said.
Photo Credit: Dean Forbes/Flickr
Getty Images headquarters in Seattle.
The New York Times is reporting that Getty Images, the world's largest stock photo agency will be auctioned off for a possible $1.5 billion in the next few weeks to months. According to the Times, "Getty’s shares have declined more than 47 percent in the last year." The company is blaming the decline in the market on stiff Internet competition and an explosion of images coming from amateur photographers and cell phone images.
Marcus Bleasdale/VII on Media Storm
Recenlty, I showed some of the multimedia journalism being produced and presented by Brian Storm at the MediaStorm Web site. Halfway through a slideshow on drug abuse one student got up to leave the room. I stopped the presentation in anticipation of such a strong response as a way of emphasizing how important the work being presented online is becoming. One question that was raised in class, was why we don't see this sort of work on television, especially cable. On cable television there is no shortage of violence or sex, but when it's real and presented in both still and video, with a photojournalist's voice narrating the story the message is different. Many of the projects one might watch on MediaStorm fail to be commercially viable. The content is either too close-to-the-bone disturbing or it doesn't appeal to the wider target audiences commercial interest covet.
Marcus Bleasdale's recent work on Media Storm about the Democratic Republic of Congo is a case in point. If we didn't know or care about what is happening to this African nation before Bleasdale's voice and pictures, it's time we did. Advocacy photojournalism has a strong tradition in our culture and there is no reason why it should go away, even if every thing seems to be about making money and consumption. The main reason why so many people go into photojournalism is that they can tell stories that make other people care.
Bleasdale's photography wrenches reality into our consciousness in ways other media cannot do. The images speak to the powerlessness of a people, especially the children, that are forced into lives of desperation and despair so that leaders in government and the warlords can reap enormous profits. According to Human Rights Watch, more than 5 million have died in the DRC since 1998. The country seems to be feeding off its own flesh, yet international outrage about the conditions there seldom enter our world view.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Hail to the cliché.
Just when pictures of Barack Obama on the campaign trail were all looking about the same -- like they could have been taken in Iowa or New Hampshire -- up pops Jonathan Ernst's picture of the candidate holding a baby. Candidates holding and kissing babies is a widely accepted trope in visual arsenal of political campaigns. Babies make good props for the media. Babies aren't controversial and they show the candidate in as a compassionate human being. That said, this picture may tell us something more about Obama then anything he says from up on the soap box. First and foremost, even though candidates and babies are cultural commodities, this picture shows some genuine emotion. It's not the usual display of stoicism we've become accustomed to.
Photo Credit: CBS/via AP
Political campaigns increasingly rely as much on depicting a candidate's personality as much as they do on getting substantiative messages across to voters. It's all part of the package.
Making candidates appear affable and emotional in public is a major part of a campaign's strategy. Of course, it is difficult to always manage how a politician will appear in the media and the reactions they engender, but one thing remains constant -- the universality of the visual cliché.
It's more than ironic that the flap over Golfweek's controversial race-bating cover would fall around the same time our nation takes a moment to remember civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Despite the suspension of a Golf Channel announcer who made a racist comment on air, as well as the sacking of the Golfweek editor who approved the illustration above, nothing seems to escape the fact that our predominantly white-controlled media remains, at times, clueless when it comes to reproducing offensive stereotypes. Playing fast and loose with stereotypes, and in this case a visual metaphor, only serves to remind us how much work we need to do in order to come to terms with our legacy of cruelty and inhumanity toward blacks and peoples of color in this country.
From a Piercean semiotic perspective, it is possible to see the relationship between icon, index, and symbol in action as they construct meaning. The icon, a swinging noose, points toward a powerful symbol -- one that resonates memory and emotion. The visual language operates through symbolic action -- pictures trigger emotion, and emotions trigger beliefs. This explains some of the failings of Golfweek's editorial process. The editors knew they were working with a powerful symbol by selecting a noose to illustrate the TV commentator's lynching remarks, but they failed to make the deeper connections between the symbol, the emotions this symbol conjures up for people, and the belief systems behind the emotions.
I wonder what Dr. King would have to say about the controversy?
Clearly some strides toward reconcile and reform have been made since Dr. King's day, but the sad truth is that we still have a lot work to do in understanding just how powerful words and images are in shaping public perception and constructing our social reality.
Photo Credit: David Corn/Mother Jones
They're convenient, cool, and irresistible - iPhones on the campaign trail. Mother Jones magazine Washington Bureau Chief, David Corn recently posted an essay of pictures he made with an iPhone while covering the New Hampshire primary. Hardly a photojournalistic coup, Corn's access to the candidates, his infatuation with the new technology, and his status as a bureau chief at the magazine give him an inside track on publishing pictures that probably wouldn't make it beyond the picture desk at our local newspaper.
Corn isn't a photojournalist, but having an iPhone might makes him one -- well, almost. It seems to me that the pictures shot from ringside at many of the campaign stops in New Hampshire count more as novelty and curiosity then they do as serious visual reportage. Nevertheless, Corn's approach is most likely something that will remain with us in an age where anyone with a camera phone can snap away a kilter and publish the results instantly. This certainly doesn't suggest that photojournalism is doomed or ever dead, it simply indicates that the field is rapidly changing. Even if the pictures aren't perfect, they still count as a visual record of events. The more people like Corn remain enthusiastic enough to play around with the iPhone at major events, the more extensive the visual reportage becomes. And that isn't all that bad.
In the theater of political campaigning, emotions play a prominent role in a media frenzy always hungry for ways in which to distinguish between candidates. When so much of the mind-numbing campaign rhetoric floods the consciousness, the coverare turns personal. How Hillary Clinton does her hair all of a sudden becomes "big news." For example, Clinton's recent "soft" moment, a welling up with a few tears, reverses the perception that she is a cold-hearted, calculating political machinist.
In Hendrik Hertzberg's recent commentary, "Second those Emotions," in The New Yorker goes a good ways in describing how politicians have banked on emotional displays to humanize themselves in the court of public opinion. Pictures reproduce cultural values and beliefs by capturing emotional displays. The stereotypes of "boys don't cry" and women are emotional beings play increasingly important in the horse-race of campaign politics.
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Jim Cole
It appears that many of the pictures showing Clinton have presented her as an intense individual -- something less-than-womanly. It could be argued that these sorts of images accumulate in the collective memory of the public to negatively shape perception. Pictures do elicit emotional responses from readers and news images have a significant role to play.
Sometimes the simplest representational concepts are the most compelling and effective. A recent cover of the Economist is a case in point. Instead of revisiting the carnage of the Bhutto assassination, the magazine opted to use a strong rhetorical declarative statement juxtaposed against a simple but explicit visual. The message is emphatic because there is little ambiguity in either words and image. The symbolism of the grenade, Pakistani flag, and the headline solidify opinion through figurative elements. The rhetoric implied as such does appear to not only further alienate the Muslim world from the Judeo-Christian West, but it also constructs an increasingly limited world view -- one that oversimplifies the complexities of the current crisis.
There are things that are best left said not with words but with pictures. A quiet Sunday morning, working the moments away at a local coffee shop, watching the day unfold. Typically, as a photographer, I do not attempt to create "art" -- a rather strange disclaimer I admit. I do not typically mess around with desaturating pictures or shooting at odd angles. Sometimes, though, pictures call attention to themselves in wonderful ways and they speak to us differently than we are accustomed to. But pictures can be objects of the fancy and they speak to us on many levels, especially metaphorically.
Photo Credit: AFP/File/Ronaldo Schemidt
This weekend, Bill Gates outlined his vision for the next digital decade at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The projection of Gate's image juxtaposed against his normal stature suggests that pictures visually prop up the rhetoric. Pictures now take on the role of the exclamation mark prevalent in text. Gates' image, seemingly several stories tall, commands our attention -- it says "look here" this is important.
In a world of techno-theater showmanship -- a world where announcements of new technologies often trump other news -- the relationship between signifier and what is signified becomes emphatic.
It is hard to ignore Bill Gates' promise that "technology will make our lives richer, more connected, more productive and more fulfilling in profound and exciting ways.” At the same time, there is always a feeling that much of the drive toward technological innovative in driven by making money for shareholders.
Larger-than-life images used to project a speaker's presence serves the immediate purpose of letting a large audience see the presenter. However, when redacted to a still image, the picture fulfills a second purpose -- one that amplifies and magnifies the significance and relevance of the event.
Photo Credit: Staff Sgt. Russell Klika, U.S. Army.DoD
In their book, No Caption Needed, Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites argue that images convey emotions by "activating vital repertoires of social behavior." People respond to images in which a universal human condition, such as sorrow, joy, or anger, is captured for the viewer to experience. For example, when we examine the image here the narrative being played out is persuasive because it activates feelings within us. As Hariman and Lucaites explain, "These emotional signs and responses operate reliably and powerfully because they are already presented within the society's conventions of display...." (p.35).
There are a wide array of emotions that may be triggered for us in such an image. The emotions that come to mind here are anxiety followed by sadness, disinhibition, and guilt. Although the natural way to analyze such an image is to describe or explain what is being shown, I liked go beyond this to explore the relationship I have with the image. It is through the relationship of the objects and emotions signified in the image that leads to meaning making for me, the viewer. We interpret the event through our feelings and beliefs based on our own experiences and cultural understandings. Even those the photographer plays a role in constructing the substance of our experience, it is still up to us to select out and make sense of the image. There is a powerful relationship between the image, the event, and our beliefs, emotions, and behaviors.
Now I should explain further how these emotional responses register within. The constructs of anxiety and guilt are to be found within the contextually broader framework in which the picture is displayed. Anxiety, sadness, and disinhibition, however, are more immediate, personal and visceral interpretations. These are my own emotions, which are projected through my interpretation of the image. The image cannot stand alone. It must be recognized has having several layers of meaning. First, there is the personal layer of meaning made -- the feelings I have concerning family and leaving home for the uncertainty of war. Secondly, there is the larger ideological context in when the image resides. After more than five years of war in Iraq, I have become desensitized to seeing such images. The pictures have become a naturalized aspects of my media landscape -- they are ordinary and predictable. It is through the naturalization of these images in my visual repository (my brain), that feelings of guilt and powerlessness emerge.
