telenous
Well-known
A fascinating read and an accompanying slideshow by Maurice Berger in the NYT lensblog, on Gordon Parks' first photoessay for Life Magazine and the way editorial choice of material and image cropping subverted its meaning.
"...If the magazine’s aim in publishing it was to inform its readers about a pressing social dilemma — and boost sales through dramatic and controversial images — it did so by perpetuating stereotypes. While the photo essay focused on a community beset by racism and poverty, its view of Harlem was narrow, a foreboding and stifling cityscape shrouded in mist and shadows..."
Here's the link: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/gordon-parkss-harlem-argument/?smid=fb-share&_r=0#
(It's worth remembering in relation to this that black borders were used by some photojournalists, in particular those who had the clout to demand it from editors, as Gordon Parks at the time of the Harlem essay couldn't, in order to safeguard the intended purpose of their photographs. Clearly this was not a stylistic choice, although it later became an aesthetic excrescence even for work that had no real photojournalistic purpose to serve.)
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"...If the magazine’s aim in publishing it was to inform its readers about a pressing social dilemma — and boost sales through dramatic and controversial images — it did so by perpetuating stereotypes. While the photo essay focused on a community beset by racism and poverty, its view of Harlem was narrow, a foreboding and stifling cityscape shrouded in mist and shadows..."
Here's the link: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/gordon-parkss-harlem-argument/?smid=fb-share&_r=0#
(It's worth remembering in relation to this that black borders were used by some photojournalists, in particular those who had the clout to demand it from editors, as Gordon Parks at the time of the Harlem essay couldn't, in order to safeguard the intended purpose of their photographs. Clearly this was not a stylistic choice, although it later became an aesthetic excrescence even for work that had no real photojournalistic purpose to serve.)
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