RDW said:
Walker, we will just agree to disagree. A big part of any photojournalist's job, and especially the newspaper guys is the meet and greet shots, staged and posed shots for the daily metro section, etc. But most hard core, spot news shots are not posed and if they are, they are not being faithful to the very core of photojournalism- to simply show what happened- to report the news as it happens photographically.
Read my reply to Brett. I've been reading newspapers for over 50 years and my distrust of the writers grows every year. They slant their stories according to their personal beliefs which makes them unreliable. Only be reading numerous sources can one gain a feel for the actual "facts".
The Photographers, OTOH, may well take events as they unfold but if they are sympathetic to a cause, they may take only those shots that favor their beliefs. There are times when an event can be manipulated as rally organizers try to do all the time. How does a Photographer then take pictures of the "facts" if everything is orchestrated? If the Photographer sympathizes with one side or the other, what prevents them from cooperating with "their" side?
Even if the Photographer does their best to present an even, unbiased set of prints, they are still at the mercy of the Editor who may have an agenda of their own.
Possibly the best Photographer who ever took a picture for the "Baltimore Sun" was A. Aubrey Bodine. Some of his work was photo-journalism at it's finest while at other times he did single shots not intended to be anything other than a stand-alone image. He was a superb Photographer and often waited long periods of time for exactly the right light to take his picture. In some instances he waited months or took seasonal images of the same scene. That's manipulation of a sort but not what I'm talking about. There were times, though, that he was known to have had a shed or other structure removed because it interferred with his picture. He manipulated his image by removing obstructions. Not 100% "honest" but it no doubt improved his pictures.
Bodine, of course, doesn't illustrate my point as well as I'd like but it's the same principle. BTW, I have great admiration and respect for Bodine's work. Anyone who hasn't seen his images should look for them. They are superb.
Most Photo-journalists will report faithfully what they see. But if they missed a shot and can stage it after the fact, most would IMO. That's being practical if they don't change the context or what actually happened.
Anyway, the world ain't perfect and neither are all Photographers.
😉
Walker
