There are several forms of favorable and unfavorable bias affecting public perception of the media in terms of digital manipulation. Here's a chart illustrating the possibilities of explicit and implicit bias in attitudes toward photojournalism.
Proof Positive: The Symbolic Meaning behind 55,000 Images of Syrian Terror
Recently, torture has crept quietly onto our moral radar once again. As peace talks begin between Syrian opposition leaders and the regime of president Bashar al-Assad, more than 55,000 images have surfaced depicting government detainees being strangled, starved to death, and horribly beaten.
Suzie Linfield, a professor at New York University, argues in a recent Op-Ed, “The photographs, which document the deaths of some 11,000 detainees, were taken not by the opposition but at the behest of Mr. Assad’s regime. Wouldn’t such a government — wouldn’t any government — want to hide its crimes rather than record them?
Well informed and written primarily from a critical/cultural perspective, Linfield’s position provides a framework for understanding how these recent images are part of a pictorial legacy of shame and moral debasement. Historically, as she points out in her essay, images of suffering, what she calls “torture porn” are not new. In this case, the images may play an important role in the Syrian negotiations as well as in the court of public discourse.
At the same time, more, much more, a conversation considering the relationship between authoritarian regimes and the atrocities they commit, must begin with an understanding of a cultural pathology of pain, apathy, anguish and the collective unconscious.
While observing schizophrenic patients at the Burgholzli psychiatric hospital in 1900, psychoanalyst Carl G. Jung began to develop theories to shine some light on why people act they way they do toward one another.
Jung’s concept of collective unconscious, in the case of photographs such as those made in Iraq, Sierra Leone, or Cambodia in the 1970s, may edify why people being tortured and killed constitute a type of archetypal layer within the human psyche.
In his essay, “The Structure of the Psyche”, Jung observes, “The collective unconscious … appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents.” Jung goes on to suggest how the collective unconscious can be examined in two ways, “either in mythology or in the analysis of the individual.”
For Jung, the collective unconscious is comprised of archetypal images - forms or representations manifest in dreams, fantasies, or cultural influences. Jung describes an archetype as a predisposition, which transforms a person’s consciousness through inherited symbolic thought and images. Archetypes such as the shadow, can affect ethical, moral religious and cultural behaviors.
As early as 1870, people have been using photographs to record the spectacle of the shadow archetype. The shadow or “black side” of a personality, in this case the perpetrators of abuse and torture project upon others repressed fantasies such as sexual conquest. Linfield’s use of the term “torture porn” certainly makes this connection. Susan In her book “Regarding the Pain of Others” Susan Sontag observes, “To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.”
In the 1870 hand-tinted postcard depicting the lynching of J. L. Compton and Joseph Wilson in Montana, a group of vigilantes pose dutifully for the photographer. As a symbol of frontier justice, torture and death reveal a form of Jung’s shadow archetype. Even though the lynching picture, as well as all images depicting suffering, demonstrate a dispassionate bearing towards the human condition, the collective unconsciousness irrevocably tied or our “dark side” prevails. Today, the image surfacing from the Syrian situation is considered by many as morally and irrevocably despicable and shameful this may not have been the case in the lynching photographs made throughout the late 1800s and through the mid-1960s.
Another difference between the Syrian images and those of public lynching is symbolic consciousness. Symbols occupy the mental images of the mind and inform attitudes and beliefs. Moreover, symbols have an implicit and explicit influence on self and national identity as well as social order and organization. The authority of pictures depicting torture and death subsume or invalidates a victim’s archetypal sense of self/being and places them in a class often dismissed by the abusers as either incomprehensible or incredulous. For example, Syrian governmental claims pronouncing how the images of brutal beatings and strangulation were digitally manipulated demonstrates both the collective conscious and unconscious state of denial and denouncement.
Illustration: Dennis Dunleavy/Credits:TIME/via Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Playing "god" in a digital age: The thin line between art and the subjectivity of photojournalism
Jarle recently commented on the post "Crazy light", in which I wrote: "We are constantly challenged to
make scenes that are less than interesting, more interesting." The question that this raises, however, is when and how are the conventions of honest visual reportage bent for the sake of making images more compelling?
Jarle continues:
Correct. We all strive to make our photos more interesting. But, ethically and philosophically speaking, isn't this in direct conflict with the "our pictures must always tell the truth" mantra?
There's often a thin line between photojournalism, "art" and subjective, commentary photography.
And, playing the devil's advocate, what's the difference between adding motion blur in Photoshop and using a slow shutter speed?
I'll start out by agreeing with much what Jarle has said here. From a purist perspective, "Straight" photography should be a style of photography that records what the eye witnesses without elaboration or embellishment. For the most part, this form of photography, what is photojournalism today, has remained pretty much true to form. At the same time, it is possible to find quite a few examples of photojournalism from the 1980s to the present day, that deviate from the normal conventions.
Photo Credit: Craig Aurness/National Geographic
As Jarle notes, "ethically and philosophically speaking, isn't this in direct conflict with the "our pictures must always tell the truth" mantra?"
Perhaps.
The image above (shown only partially scanned here) was made in 1987 by Craig Aurness and featured in National Geographic's 100 best pictures (2002).
According to the NPPA Code of Ethics, photojournalists should "Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects." The language here seems a bit vague. The language is vague because ultimately it is up to the photographer or his or her editor to determine what "accurate" and "comprehensive" really mean within a specific context. Is Aurness' image and honest, fair-minded and "accurate" representation according to National Press Photographers Association guidelines? In a sense, Aurness has created for the viewer an image that human eye is incapable of seeing. The human eye captures motion at 1/10th of a second, but it also has the capacity to follow a scene without disruption. The optics and mechanics of a camera far exceed the eye in this manner. Therefore, in a case like this, what constitutes a comprehensive and accurate representation?
This issue may actually be more about cultural tastes and values than it is about ethics. Cultural conventions and tastes change over time, but at the heart of any photographer/audience relationship is whether or not the image is deceptive and misleading. Digital manipulation has created a crisis of conscience for many photographers, simply because it has become so cheap, fast, and easy to embellish, construct, and correct images. So much depends on the context in which the picture is made. Motion blur in news photography has been an accepted practice for many photographers for decades. Motion emphases action and helps to make the reading of a scene more meaningful and comprehensive. Just as depth of field can add 3-dimensionality to a two-dimension image, adding motion is a "trompe le oile" or a photographer's way of tricking the eye. However, is it appropriate or ethical to create motion after the fact -- in PhotoShop? Most photographers would probably say no, it's unethical to manipulate images in order to produce an effect after the picture was captured.
Stephen Krasemann's 1985 award-winning picture of a leopard running with a recent kill was made before PhotoShop techniques came into vogue. Today, however, viewers are more sensitive to representations they perceive as manipulated or altered in some way. Whether, the general public perceives motion blur and panning as a manipulation remains to be resolved.
Analyzing the image above, can we say unequivocally that a breach of ethics has occurred? Has the context in which the event took place been manipulated by my choice to employ a slow shutter speed? Is the scene somehow more inaccurate and less comprehensive a representation give the fact that the human eye is limited by how much motion it can see at a given point in time? Should photojournalists be required to photograph scenes at 1/10th of a second or higher to ensure that they are more truthful to the human eye?
These questions, and so many others, evoke a great deal of thought and emotion. At the same time, this "thin line" between photojournalistic convention and subjective "artistic" approaches mentioned by Jarle remains unresolved, because ultimately the decision resides with what the photographer believes to be right or wrong. So much of our decision to frame, freeze and fix a moment in space and time depends not only on context, but also on our motivation for being there in the first place.
Play by play: The social function of news images
Photo Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
Pictures have weight -- sometimes they crush. The social function of news images reside not only
in their capacity to inform, but also in their ability to entertain. In our increasingly visual culture, pictures must draw and hold the viewer's attention. Perhaps it is for this reason that editors believe pictures must be packaged and repackaged for us.
The social function of news images is grounded in the rhetoric of persuasion. Just as a lawyer may seek to sway a jury to his or her side of an argument, a picture, through its variety of visual cues, establishes a context of understanding that shapes perception and constructs a sense of reality.
The analysis:
"Mr. Clemens" -- the subject -- the sign -- in soft-focus foregrounding leads the eye upward to a carefully framed center of Mr. Clemens.
Pictures, as David Fleming (1996) eloquently contends, cannot be in and of themselves seen as arguments, but inevitably they seem to be able to cause a few.
The pictures freezes, frames and fixes in our memory a moment in time that can conjure up other memories. With the stoppage of time the persuasive determinacy of the picture emerges. Pictures may be a species of rhetoric, as Susan Sontag (2003) claims, for the very real sense that they appear before us as rational and orderly entities of time.
In this case, Clemens' testimony before Congress on steroid use may bring to mind other high-profile hearings such as in Iran-Contra with Oliver North or Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas' appointment to the Supreme Court. The low camera angle is iconic in that it produces a recognizable perception in which the subject is made to appear larger-than-life.
The camera angle is not trivial or a trick since it modifies our sense of a normal eye-line match. In other words, speaking in terms of grammar, the camera angle acts like an adverb -- it modifies the subject. Further, the sign, in this case, "Mr. Clemens," is indexical and points toward formality, courtesy and solemnity. The gesture is wholly symbolic. Clemens' look away from those questioning him, his raised hand suggesting defense. In addition, the essential framing of Clemens with his pseudo-archangelic lawyers. The gestures of Clemens' lawyers speak louder than words. Here we have the million-dollar pitcher in the proverbial "hot seat" and is million-dollar lawyers act as his intellectual bodyguards.
As mentioned earlier, news images function to both inform and entertain, but the real objective of making pictures is to make us think. Any object in the world, and pictures are objects, that can make us think about bigger ideas and issues can't be all that bad. We shouldn't have to settle for someone else's interpretation of the world if what is represented only serves to reinforce a status quo. The ultimate objective of a news image should not only be to serve us a preconceived packaged reality, but to wrestle with convention and conscience.
The evidence:
Recently, this point was brought home on the Magnum photo site when Christopher Anderson's bare-bulb approach to photographing presidential candidate Mitt Romney came under fire from some viewers. Anderson's approach was the "anti-photo op." Tired of making the same stale and banal images that most of the press pack gets of the candidates, Anderson blasted Romney through what appears to be a rain-splattered lens. 
Click to go to Magnum's Picture of the Week
In his defense Anderson commented:
These events are rather ridiculous. they are staged and repetitive....It was a conscious decision to flash with this technique. It is as if throwing too much light on it might somehow expose these campaign photo ops for what the really are. The designers of these events want us to make a pretty picture. but a pretty picture to me felt like something that would be false to this event. I almost thought of the flash as being like an xray that would reveal what I really see at an event like this.
Anderson brings up one of the biggest challenges faces photojournalism today -- mediocrity. If news images do not seek to edify they run risk of becoming nothing more than someone else's spin. What we are tasked with here is to understand the relationship between the art of making news pictures and the larger implications of how these pictures function in society.
Picturing the emotional candidate
An inordinate amount of attention is being paid to Hillary Clinton's emotions these days as people search for ways to separate her and her Democratic contender, Barack Obama.
Headlines recounting Clinton's emotions such as, "For Crying Out Load: Hillary Turns on the Tears Again", "Hillary's Crying Campaign: The Tears of a Clown" and "Hillary Clinton's Crocodile Tears," signify how gender bias impinges on this year's presidential campaign, at least on the Democratic side. Pictures showing Clinton wiping her eyes or attempting to control her emotions in front of the cameras continues to set off a media frenzy, with bloggers leading the way.
Where is the substantive news value in repeatedly running pictures of the candidate rubbing her eyes or blowing her nose? Are we to assume that an individual would not make a good president if they cannot control their emotions publicly?
It is difficult to say conclusively that coverage focusing on Clinton's emotional displays is having a negative impact on her chances to become the next president, but in a world that remains dominated mostly by men, it doesn't seem to be helping her all that much.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Anthropologist Catherine Lutz notes that emotions are culturally constructed as signs of danger, irrationality, and weakness – characteristics commonly associated with women. Please note the term "culturally constructed" because this is where many of our interpretations come from.
When a picture captures the viewer’s attention, it puts into play cultural beliefs and values associated with gendered emotional displays. Some right wing media have jumped on Clinton for her emotional moments claiming that she is using tears to garner sympathy and votes. New York magazine, for example, began an article about Clinton with the lead, "Yep, it's official. Hillary Clinton is running to be Crybaby-in-Chief," and The New York Post, not known to be overly kind to liberals, began their reportage with "It was another two-hanky day on the campaign trail yesterday, as Hillary Rodham Clinton teared up at an event targeting female voters on the eve of the Super Tuesday." elections."
Robinson (2002) suggests, “Most work on gender and emotion has stressed how a gendered rhetoric of emotional control reinforces women’s subordination within societies that privilege rationality, self-control, and the stable boundaries between interiority and exteriority that emotions appear to breach.”
This may help explain how some media have turned on Clinton's outward expressions of emotion as a sign of weakness. But, research describes emotion not only in terms of the physiological changes of an inner-self, but also as social, cultural and linguistic operator (see Catherine Lutz's research).
The two images shown here exemplify the antithesis of the “boys don’t cry” stoicism of the American male experience -- a domain which Clinton threatens to disrupt if she were to become president. The photographs suggest a turn away from American middle-class "emotional culture" promulgated by the belief that men, not women, are obligated to control emotions for the greater good of the country.
Cultural morays and beliefs are inextricably bound to emotion. As Catherine Lutz argues, “Western discourse on emotions constitutes them as paradoxical entities that are both a sign of weakness and a powerful force.” To show emotions makes the person experiencing feelings weaker or deficient in character.
Hillary Clinton is not only running for president this year, she is challenging a male dominated paradigm which preconditions public performance and cultural outlook. Tears, in this case, threaten the stability of this paradigm because we believe that emotion is irrational and unstable. Could it be that the recesses of Hillary Clinton's inner life, through the pictures we see of her, undermine her opportunity to become our commander and chief. Perhaps, in the end, America is not mature enough to handle an emotional presidency, since individuals who wear their hearts on their sleeves are often considered unfit to serve.
Pictures, Memories and Emotions
There is little doubt that pictures affect how we not only understand the world around us, but also how we feel about it. I have been wrestling with coming to terms with the relationship between pictures and memory. I think there is a connection between what we see and what we remember. It is the memories that are stirred up by a picture that trigger emotion. In turn, emotion is closely associated with beliefs, values and norms. From our beliefs we begin to act toward something. Since pictures can be emotionally charged objects, the individual processes feelings both subjectively and objectively.
I am thinking of John Moore's image of a man reacting to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. In the image, the man's outward expression of shock and disbelief is carefully framed symmetrically, with a tangle of mangled bodies on the ground behind him. If an image could sum up the emotion of grief, this one would do well. There is little ambiguity about this image, despite attempts by mainstream broadcast media to blur out the bloody bodies.
What memories does this image trigger for us?
Photo Credit: John Moore/Getty Images
Susan Sontag, in Regarding the Pain of Others, observes, "It seems that the appetite for showing bodies in pain is as keen, almost, as the desire for ones that show bodies naked." Memories of the collapse of the World Trade Center and a century of countless images of calamities from around the globe come to mind. Memories, as Sontag suggests, alter the image, according to memory's need to confer emblematic status on things we feel worthy of remembering. The emotions associated with images depicting emotion are complex. We may feel shame, fear, anxiety, disgust, anger, sadness, and remorse. But there is also another side to emotional control -- one that conjures up relief that such events as the Bhutto assassination do not occur in our neighborhood. There may also be feelings of alienation, disconnection and disbelief. Here we find the image to activate a memory-emotion-belief cycle. This cycle assumes that for someone to experience an emotional response to an image there must be some value belief system behind it. We feel, because we believe in larger, more abstract and symbolic constructs, than physical pain. Belief systems underpin our emotional responses to the images we see. The norms and values we hold for ourselves and others are constructed by the cultural norms we share. We are taught that violence is wrong, yet wars and killing remain a reality. Images of violence do not seem to deter us. Media, from video games to Hollywood films continue to celebrate the objectification and degradation of the human body and spirit. How, then, could one picture -- such as the one John Moore has made -- move us from the belief that violence is wrong to a call for action?
This is a morally complex question since many people might argue that there is little or no connection between what we see and what we end up doing about what we see. At the same time, I believe that cultural norms are in a state of constant negotiation between the essential self and the social self. If more people took the time to reflect upon the values held closest to the center of who they think they are, the essential self, then, the possibility of changing our social self would emerge. The social self is the outward expression of who we present ourselves to be in our every day life -- who we think other people think we are. If we are truly moved in our essential self by an image to act, then our social self will change.
One way to think about the tensions between the essential and the social self is to consider symbolic behaviors. In Moore's picture, despite cultural, ethnic and religious differences, the symbolic behavior of grief and horror is clear to us. Pictures, as a visual language, transfer symbolic behaviors across the cultural and linguistic barriers that often divide us. At the same time, we remain divided and disharmonious species.
Unfortunately, the habitual ways we are conditioned to respond to violent image influences our capacity to separate reality from fantasy and fiction. Our habituated ways of seeing, understanding, and acting, also impinge on our ability to respond emotionally to images depicting violence and suffering. Pictures are indeed a form of agency, they goad us to think and act out of the feelings that they conjure up for us. But our visual culture has become so saturated with such pictures that the capacity for images of violence to shock is diminished. As Sontag contends:
"Making suffering loom larger; by globalizing it, may spur people to feel they ought to 'care' more; It also invites them to feel that the sufferings and misfortunes are too vast, too irrevocable, too epic to be much changed by any local political intervention."
We live in a world where sentiment and emotion is exploited by external forces. How much control do we really have over our feelings? From this perspective, images desensitize our capacity for compassion. In this way our memories appear to fail us as we can longer distinguish between essential experiences and socially constructed realities.
The truth hurts: "Reality is a lie"
Photo Credit: New York Times
It was only a matter of time before an increasingly number of computer scientists began wrapped their heads around digital imaging in a big way, at least in their spare time. That's exactly what Carlo Baldassi, a student in computational neuroscience did, after looking at some pictures of his girlfriend that appeared too constrained and out of proportion. Baldassi has created an automatic photo-editing software tool that always the user to stretch an image without it looking stretched. Peter Wayner's article in The New York Times quotes Baldassi as saying, "Reality is a lie." Nice quote perhaps, but the implications are much more far-reaching as software such as the one Baldassi has made becomes commonplace.
Wayner observes:
Automated tools like Mr. Baldassi’s are changing the editing of photography by making it possible for anyone to tweak a picture, delete unwanted items or even combine the best aspects of several similar pictures into one.
The tools are giving everyone the ability of the Stalin-era propagandists, who edited the photographic record of history by deleting people who fell out of favor.
Wayner's last statement is a bit troubling. Sure, we have the tools now to seamlessly stretch the truth, but do we need to? In my on-going survey on digital manipulation more than 40 percent of respondents indicated that they could tell when a picture had been altered. 
2007-2008 snapshot of the photo manipulation survey related to whether people can tell if a picture has been altered.
2006-2007: Note that the sample sizes differ considerably.
During my time surveying people about digital photo manipulation, a fairly high percentage of people report they can tell when a picture has been altered. I find this opinion interesting, because in my own experience I am not as skillful.
In my own experience, I find myself having less time to carefully scrutinize pictures. I do assume, though, that there is an increase in altered images in the media with the introduction of digital technologies, but because of the volume of pictures flooding our consciousness, I tend, like many people, to just scan images quickly. I tend to judge the authenticity of a picture on the context and source in which it is disseminated. For example, I would tend to trust the authority of a news image in The New York Times over an advertising image any day. This means that I wouldn't typically spend time looking for manipulated images in The New York Times, while I just assume that most advertising images have been altered to varying degrees.
Getting back to Baldassi's software, which is based on the seam carving work of Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir, it makes sense that many of these tools will become commonly accepted by people over time. In the future, we will just expect that the images we see have been enhanced in some way and that the notion of objective reality is nothing more than a passing fancy.
Photo of WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle resurfaces after more than 60 years
Photo Credit: Alexander Roberts/ Via AP/ Richard Strasser
He is among the most venerated war correspondents in American History. When Ernie Pyle died in April 1945, covering the battle of Okinawa, the country mourned his loss. Pyle was in the prime of his journalistic career and had developed a style of war-reporting that was riveting and heart-felt. Richard Pyle of the Associated Press reports that pictures showing Pyle's death were censored by the government and then lost to memory for more than six decades. Recently, Alexander Roberts' image of Pyle's body resurfaced. Historically, the image is important in that it reminds us of the sacrifice people pay for freedom. Pyle knew the risk he was taking in covering the war, but this picture reminds us of what that risk would ultimately mean.
Ways of Seeing
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.
Photojournalist as humanitarian: Bringing the message home
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.
Oh! Baby: Obama does the baby lift -- long live the photo cliché
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.
Caught: Can apologies excuse bad judgment?
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.
iJournalism: stop the presses, reporters with cell phone cameras
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.
On the politics of emotions
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.
Emotional encounters
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.
Handshakes, hugs and hoopla -- What pictures don't tell us
Photo Credit: Jim Young/Reuters
In a political cycle of relentless photo-ops, countless handshakes, hugs and flag-waving hoopla, it is refreshing to see beyond the candidates to the more human side of life. Young's picture, showing two tired children holding campaign signs in Winterset, Iowa on December 22, offers some comic relief at a time when everything we see and hear out of Iowa or New Hampshire these days seems to little more than create more apathy toward the political process. Thousands of images are transmitted to news organizations each day, but what do they really say about a candidate?
One assumption is that the pictures say very little about the candidate's ability to lead a nation. Instead, what most of the images represent are more about the what the campaigns and media thinks the audience wants to see. At times, there is a glimpse of a human side of a candidate, but for the overwhelming majority of pictures just tastes like a spoonful of cold canned peas. The candidates attempt to project and protect his or her political image, something often proscribed by media handlers. The media, for their part, dutifully carry the message and image, out in the public domain. But increasingly, the message lands flat or is met with incredulity and suspicion.
Pictures frame, freeze and fix a moment in time -- a moment, which has traditionally been grated a lot of credit as a faithful representation of reality and truth. In a political climate where there seems to be more similarities than differences between those seeking power in this country, pictures become a form of mind-numbing anesthesia.
The same thing could be said for other events. How many images have we seen now of President Bush visiting the hospital beds of soldiers injured in Iraq. Is there anything significant in Bush's patting the head of a bed-ridden Army Sgt. John Wayne Cornell of Lansing, Mich., and posing for a photo-op?
Photo Credit: White House
One way of looking at the image is that president would like us to see how much he really cares about the soldiers fighting in the Middle East. Another way of looking at the picture is as propaganda: Go to Iraq, get hurt, get a pat on the head from the Commander-In-Chief.
It's hard not to be a little disrespectful or cynical at times when photo-ops masquerade as reality. In fact, this critique should not be viewed as another Bush-bashing ploy. It doesn't matter who's in office -- the response, and the pictures that represent the response, are almost always predictable.
Nice Jubi and picturing human emotions
This year, in a refreshing way, you won't find any pictures of a sports super hero dancing into the end zone, nor will you find pictures of the baseball steroids scandal gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated's Pictures of the Year issue.
Instead, the popular sports magazine captures the true spirit of sport -- the jubilation of a college football player in a moment of great joy.
Photo Credit: John Russell/AP
Russell's image of Carroll University junior linebacker Brandon Day celebrating in the mud after his team won the NAIA football championship recently is a perfect example of a decisive moment. Everything, all the game action leading up Russell's picture seems inconsequential. Not only is the moment decisive, but it is also iconic. In 1979 and 1980, tennis great Bjorn Borg went to his knees after celebrating wins at Wimbledon, and in 1999, Brandi Chastain dropped to her knees with her shirt off in celebration of the Women Soccer World Cup victory of China.
Photo Credit: Sports Illustrated
Photo Credit: AP/Via BBC
What separates these moments, as well as firmly etches them in our collective memories, is the physical gesture of kneeling. The emotional association between kneeling in victory and praying cannot be missed or understated. This is what this genre of sports photography is all about -- capturing quintessential and universal gestures that every audience can relate to. Kneeling, according to a 1912 article on medieval hymns in the New York Times, was a "manifestation of the emotions..." One picture editor's "nice jubi" is another person's quaint and self-sacrificial gesture. Editors know that what makes people respond most are pictures that stir human emotions. That's why pictures of animals and children are perennial favorites with audiences.
It's not surprising that Russell's image would strike a chord with the SI editors. Many of the classic visual tropes that trigger an emotional appeal are clearly present -- mud, rain, pumping fists and bended knee.
People respond to not only context, but also aesthetic content. In this case, what the makes the picture significant is not necessarily Carroll's victory in the NAIA championships, but the universal emotional connections made between victory and sport.
Images, Symbols and Power
Photo Credits: Jim Cole/AP, Jose Luis Magana/AP
What can we learn from looking at pictures? The signification of these two recent images of presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is striking. On the left, we see a close-up of Clinton caught in a "real" and unflattering moment, while on the right, we get what one might expect from most media managed events -- the santized moment, flags, the powerful gesture.
Human beings are symbol-making animals. We use symbols to make sense of the world and photographs increasingly contribute to meaning and consciousness. When we think of objects, ideas, and constructs, our brain transforms these things into symbols so that we can share our experiences with others. Symbols connect us through language. When we use the words such as reality, love, peace, justice, terror, poverty, pride, or patriotism, images come to mind – images associated through convention with the words we choose to describe our every day experiences. Kenneth Burke reminds us that when we think of reality, what we are relying on has been built up for us through our “symbol systems.” Burke observes, “What is our ‘reality’ for today (beyond the paper-thin line of our own particular lives) but all this clutter of symbols about the past combined with whatever things we know mainly through maps, magazines, newspapers, and the like about the present?”
When we view an image in the media we are given to substituting the meaning of the image with something connotative and symbolic. A presidential candidate stands before a giant American flag, which in turn produces a symbolic relationship. The candidate is by proximity of the flag immediately associated with notions of patriotism, loyalty, duty, public service and sacrifice. The flag is reduces to a backdrop – a symbol that condenses and naturalizes how the viewer should look upon the candidate. Symbolicity is emphasized through the shape, size and colors of the flag. Burke may argue that the language (words) used to describe this scene act as a sort of screen or filter on meaning.
Many years ago, in a cathedral in Texas, there was a wall covered with pictures and petitions from the faithful. The first Gulf War was underway and people used the wall as a commonplace for pictures of loved ones, alive and deceased – a symbolic collective prayer. Images hold within their frames many symbols.
Looking again at the variety of images made during Hillary Clinton's campaign stops, it is hard not to imagine the intensity and determination of the candidates as they are beseiged under the glare of the media. At the same time, we are inudated by "the clutter" of symbols and struggle to understand and draw meaning from one picture to the next.
Why study attitudes toward doctoring images digitally?
Can you tell if this picture was digitally altered?
In it's second year, the annual survey on digital photo manipulation seeks the participation of photojournalists and photographers, professionals and enthusiasts, from around the world to help us understand how attitudes toward digitally altered images may be changing.
Last year, more than 745 respondents participated in the annual survey on digital photo manipulation. Part of the study seeks to clarify how photographers define photo manipulation and another part explores how attitudes toward image altering my be changing over time. The study is part of a long-term evaluation of attitudes people have toward accepting digitally altered images in the media and elsewhere.
For example when asked, "I can tell when a photograph has been digitally altered," 42 percent of respondents (n=738) agreed or strongly agreed that they could tell the difference last year. However, 58 percent either disagreed or were undecided about whether they could tell a picture has been altered. Could it be possible that over time, given advances in image editing software, more people will be unable to tell. The survey encourages the participation of both professionals and amateurs photographers and explores other issues such as if it is okay for images of Hollywood celebrities to be altered but not okay for images of politicians.
In terms of defining what constitutes digital photo manipulation four questions were presented:
1) I define photo digital manipulation as changes to the content of a picture after it is made through electronic means.
2) I define photo digital manipulation as a process that helps to make the picture better aesthetically.
3) I define photo digital manipulation as a process that helps to make the objects in the picture more visually interesting.
4) I define photo digital manipulation as a process that changes the content of a picture by adding or removing visual elements from the original.
Other areas worthy of tracking over a long period of time include how photo digital manipulation is defined and whether the issue remains important in the public sphere.
More than 87 percent of respondents agreed to define photo digital manipulation as changes to the content of an image through electronic means, while 44.9 percent believed it to be process that helps to make the objects in the picture more visually interesting. When asked if photo digital manipulation helps to make the picture better aesthetically, 37. 8 percent disagreed, 23 percent had no opinion, and 38 percent showed agreement. In the last question, "I define photo digital manipulation as a process that changes the content of a picture by adding or removing visual elements from the original," more than 85 percent expressed agreement with the statement.
Although these results do not reflect any true surprises, it is important to help clarify how people define the terms they use to describe phenomena. When polled about whether participants feel photo digital manipulation is an increasingly important issue in society today, more than 85 percent agreed that it was.
(Answer: Nothing was altered on the picture above, but it sure looks like it could be. I made this picture at a home leisure booth at a county fair and there were a lot of odd things around the girl taking a nap.)
The irony of art in a culture of appropriation
Appropriation artist Richard Prince has made a fortune in the art world by copying the work of other photographers in magazine advertisements and blowing the images up for exhibition. Call it post-modern whatever -- but is it art?
Randy Kennedy's article, "If the copy is an artwork, then what's the original?" in The New York Times provides insight into how photographers who have had their work ripped-off by Prince feel about appropriation as an art form. According to a blurb from Prince's exhibition now showing at the Guggenheim Museum of Art:
Prince's technique involves appropriation; he pilfers freely from the vast image bank of popular culture to create works that simultaneously embrace and critique a quintessentially American sensibility: the Marlboro Man, muscle cars, biker chicks, off-color jokes, gag cartoons, and pulp fiction.
Photo Credits: Jim Krantz (left), Richard Prince (right):The New York Times/Guggenheim Museum of Art
On the left is Jim Krantz's 1997 photograph called "Stretching Out", which was used in a Marlboro ad. To the right is Prince's appropriation of the same picture blown up to 61 x 32 inches. Nowhere does Prince credit the original work or the photographer. Perhaps one reason for this oversight is that in doing so Prince would have to share credit with the creative force he mocks in his own art. In other words, Prince doesn't have a very high opinion of the commercial images he appropriates from magazines because he only sees this form of art as an extension of capitalism, and not as a form of expression. This then brings up the whole "high art" or "low art" debate.
What makes Prince's appropriation interesting is that the iconic nature of the Marlboro pictures signify the cultural pathology of a society obsessed with self-indulgences, individualism, identity and consumption. By appropriating the images, Prince is taking a poke at the very same "high-art" culture that is willing to fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars for his work.
Prince has taken a once negatively viewed practice, the reworking of well-known art and images, and has turned it into his own celebrated art form -- one that demands its own value as a commodity. See any irony here?
Where this practice leaves those photographers who work to produce pictures for commercial purposes is anyone's guess. However, in the end, we can assume that in the eyes of Richard Prince, the status these photographers occupy is pretty low on the food chain of public perception in terms of what counts as art in America. Yet, these are the very pictures that have shaped the culture we have today.
Another Day, Another Slam on Journalistic Integrity
Jack Shafer's article yesterday in Slate Magazine explores the dangers publishers have been encountering with their reliance on using stock photos. Shafer points out that with today's access to web-based stock picture agencies it has become increasingly difficult to make sure the context in which pictures are used match the words. This happened recently when Nature Medicine ran a picture accompanying a story about foster children in Harlem being used as human guinea pigs for HIV drugs. The stock photo used to illustrate the article turned out to be from an orphanage in Ethiopia. Ooops.
Photo Credit: Slate
Stuff happens, but at what cost?
In an age of instant
communication, as well as the pressures of commerce, design decisions
run the risk of further encouraging the common public perception that
the media cares more about shock value and making money than it does
about getting the story straight. All apologies aside, the damage is what it is -- people aren't always buying into the notion that what they see and read can be trusted.
Shafer notes:
Picking the "wrong" photo for a magazine story was a lot harder back in the old days, before the Web-based photo agencies got going. The job of picking images usually went to experienced photo editors, people who possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of photography and photographers. They had to assign photos or know how to find the picture they needed in the fat books of stock pix they kept on their shelves.
In the juggernaut of public opinion: Candidates to the Media -- 'Keep your Distance'
Photo Credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters
Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham at a campaign stop
in Iowa. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post writes about
how candidates are keeping their distance from the media.
Media critic, Howard Kurtz, has an insightful piece from inside the machine today. Kurtz suggests that media following Hillary Clinton's campaign are kept at arm's length from the candidate. The Clinton campaign apparently fears being sidetracked from off the "daily sound byte" message or from doing a Howard Dean. What is clear, is that the political process as well as the media's role in it continues to disintegrate. The cultural condition of spinning and spoon feeding pictures and words to Americans is alive and well on the campaign trail. Clinton has apparently mastered the great media brush-off.
Kurtz notes:
"Such is life spent trailing the Clinton juggernaut, where reporters can generally get close enough to watch but no further, as if separated from the candidate by an invisible sheet of glass."
Picturing Resignation
Photo Credit: Lauren Victoria Burke/AP
There are poignant moments in the life of a politician which become iconic -- even if it is for a moment -- a moment before it fades from public consciousness.
Each day photojournalists seek out images of the powerful, and even the not so powerful -- images that tell stories beyond the typical sound byte and the banal rhetoric of politics.
Even though this image was made more than a month ago, it has been given legs again because of Lott's decision to resign his seat in the Senate before the end of the year. Lott, the Republican Senate Minority Whip from Mississippi, is ending a 35-year-long career in Congress and plans to start a new career as a lobbyist.
The image was made by the Associated Press on Capitol Hill on Oct. 24, 2007, after the Senate confirmed Judge Leslie Southwick to the federal appeals court in Mississippi. The picture was also used by the Washington Post.
To believe in storytelling is to believe in journalism
Photo Credit: James Estrin/The New York Times
At a time when it has become extremely easy to climb on board the media-bashing express, there is still a lot of great journalism left in the world.
James Estrin's coverage of the life of Jeffrey Deskovic, a man vindicated by a DNA test in a rape case, epitomizes the importance of journalism in American society. Estrin's images are thoughtfully layered with bits of information or cues about a world Deskovic has stepped back into after 16 years in prison.
What makes Estrin's photography so powerful is the ability to capture, with great patience and detail, the moral and emotional complexities of one man's struggle to persevere despite the hardships he has endured. There are no camera gimmicks -- chopped up frames and off-kilter horizons -- in Estrin's work. There's no reason to employ anything less than straight up visual reporting -- the sort of work that takes a lot of time and understanding to complete. Estrin does not appear to try to make something more than what he sees as an eyewitness to the human condition. There is value to his work because it comes across as compelling and insightful.
In Estrin's frame we see Deskovic riding the subway, head down, fingers barely grasping the support above him. To the right, there are two couples -- one kissing, and the other, appearing to be looking down at Deskovic. What does such a scene signify? Are we to infer that the image represents or symbolizes, in some important way, a lost soul trying to make sense out of a shattered existence?
We look toward the image as proof that what we hear and read or even see for yourselves is true. The signification of a human life, however, can rarely be captured in one frame. The frame is just one moment among countless moments. But nevertheless, there it is -- life -- 1/60th of a second -- in a subway car -- in one of the biggest cities in the world. It is easy to underestimate the commitment journalists like Estrin engage in to share such stories with others.
You can read the NY Times story here.
An interactive feature on exonerated prisoners can also be found here.
In the line of fire: Military wants photojournalist to be tried in Iraq
For nearly 19 months, the U.S. military has held Bilal Hussein, right, an Iraqi Associated Press photographer, in detention for allededly taking part in insurgent activities, including making bombs.
Hussein, who was seized by the military in April of 2006, is now caught in a battle not only for his freedom, but for the rights of a free press. The government alleges that Hussein had links to terrorists and that an Iraqi court to decide his fate. AP, meanwhile, feels they have sufficient evidence to counter the allegations.
The ramifications of Hussein's trial will be far-reaching. At issue here, beyond the photographer's life and livelihood, is how the U.S. press has become so extraordinarily dependent upon native in-country staffers and stringers for its news. It's not clear how well Americans really understand how much of the news is actually produced by foreign journalists. Typically, wire services, in places like Iraq, have to outsource their news gathering capabilities, especially photojournalism, to people with better command of the language and the culture.
The at the core of this issue is one of trust and credibility. In August 2006, for instance, Reuters discovered that one of its stringers, Adnan Hajj, had manipulated images during the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebannon. The Hajj incident has had the effect of placing doubt in the minds of an already skeptical public about the authenticity and credibility of the news we receive from overseas. Utlimately, it is hoped that justice and truth will prevail -- however, in times of war -- both of these ideals are at risk when power and politics are at stake.
Photo-Op: Bush and the Irony of a Can of Beans
Photo Credit: Jason Reed/Reuters
This picture reminds me of one of those famous credit card commercials:
The scene: A food bank in Anywhere, USA
Roll Camera: The President, with a sour expression, stands before the camera.
Voice Over: The melodious baritone voice of the announcer comes in.
- Oxxford hand-tailored suit: $2,000 - $14,000
- Haircut: $30 - $60
- Bush's Best Beans: $1.59
- Cost of the War in Iraq: $200 million a day
The Irony of a Presidential Photo-Op: Priceless
Is the president really mugging for the camera with a can of beans? Could the visual metaphor be any more perfect at this time of year?
As Americans prepare to gobble up more than 1.6 billion pounds of turkey, 1 billion pounds of pumpkin, and more than 800,000 tons of beans this Thanksgiving, the photo-op signifies what appears to be another surreal moment for the Bush presidency.
While, Bush symbolically pardoned the White House turkey this week while more than 35 million Americans, including 12.6 million children, will experience hunger. Further, more than 38 million Americans will be eligible to receive Food Stamps. In 2006, The U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that requests for emergency food assistance increase by 7 percent across the country.
There is a significant different between how images denote and connote meaning. As cultural theorist Stuart Hall suggests, pictures are encoded with symbolic meaning. But it is ultimately up to the viewer to "unpack" or decode what the symbols mean. Much of this decoding is determined by context, convention, as well as the disposition of the viewer. Ultimately, the ability to make sense of a picture becomes contingent upon how that picture resonates in every day life for the viewer. For me, the expression "full of beans" comes to mind. Originally, "full of beans" originally meant to be full of energy and high spirits, but over time the phrase has come to represent something more akin to someone who is being less than genuine or honest -- basically someone who is "full of it."
Ultimately, any analysis of this sort probably won't amount a "hill of beans."
Nevertheless, pictures should provoke thoughts, and in turn, hopefully, thoughts will lead to action.
When photojournalists turn to Art for Inspiration Some Cry Foul
Photo Credit: Elissa Eubanks, Atlanta Journal-Constituition
When photojournalist Elissa Eubanks' picture of Atlanta's Veterans Day parade ran on the front page, some readers were less than impressed with her attempt to turn a run-of-the-mill assignment into something a little different. Unfortunately, some folks didn't see the art in cutting Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the parade's grand marshal, head in half. The effect did please Constitution-Journal editors, but some readers have expressed outraged -- claiming that the picture was demeaning and disrespectful.
Are photojournalists working too hard to make images more appealing and interesting?
Are photojournalists becoming overly focused on making "art" rather than practicing bread and butter visual reports of everyday events?
I am not suggesting a return to the days of the "shin-plaster" or the "grip and grin," but there is obviously a line between the science and art of doing visual journalism.
Eubank's picture raises issues about how the public perceives the role of journalists in covering civic events. Photographers appear to be making aesthetic choices that take them further away from the realm of journalism and more into the realm of art. Maybe it's not that big of deal. Photojournalism, as a form of artistic expression, is certainly better than it has ever been and there is some great work being done today. However, many readers don't want or even expect their news to be artsy. Readers want and expect their news to be delivered with without embellishment or panache -- that what journalism should be about. Unfortunately, in today's hyper-media world the pressure is on not only to inform but to also entertain.
When a news picture is treated as art in order to distinguish it from other media, the public may actually see the effort as a gimmick, or even worse, as a disingenuous attempt to sensationalize the news.
In fact, the framing technique used in Eubank's picture is a relatively recent addition to the photojournalist's bag of aesthetic techniques. A few decades ago, a photographer turning in such an image would be given a ton of grief over the approach. Just like shooting pictures at odd angles with slanting horizons, the technique of cutting into a subject's face has emerged as convention only since the 1980s, when news moved away from its antecedent "hard" format to one that is much softer.
The stylistic conventions applied to many news pictures today are infused with artistic sensibilities that were discouraged just a few decades ago. Today, photojournalism, as an art form, has evolved, even if readers don't always appreciate the difference.
BLOGROLL
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Signs and Symbol Resources
- Symbols | The Art of Wonder
- Symbols and Symbolism, Symbolic Images, Meanings, Interpretations - Ready Reference Center at Middletown Thrall Library - Web Research, Websites, Internet Resources
- State Symbols USA | Official State and National Symbols, Emblems, Icons
- Ancient Symbols, meanings of symbols from Ancient Egyptian,Celtic, Greek, etc.
- ANCIENT WISDOM
- Signs, Symbols, Meanings
- Online Symbolism Dictionary
- Geek Lore
- Mircea Eliade
- Merlin Donald
- Sapolsky Metaphors Are Us
- James Howe MIT course Myth, Ritual, and Symbolism
- Peter Russell
- List of Stone Age art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- How Symbols are Created
- Language & Symbols | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program
- Symbolism | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Enrich Your LIfe with Symbols
- Geometry in Art & Architecture: The Circle Symbol
- The Meaning Of A Pentagram
- The Secret Language of Symbols
- The Circle is a Universal Symbol
- Circles and Symbols
- Cultural Color
- Symbolism of Color: Using Color for Meaning