Calame is getting on the NYT for hiring the "Piss Christ" photographer and using his staged photos. Good!
The New York Times
July 3, 2005
Pictures, Labels, Perception and Reality
By BYRON CALAME
TO be truly worth a thousand words, some pictures need just a few more.
I'm referring to labeling images in The New York Times - the words that explain who made the image and how it was created. This credit usually appears in smaller type below the image, and is distinct from the caption.
The credit line has become increasingly complex as technology has enabled visual journalists - photographers, illustrators, graphic designers and cartoonists - to alter their work with greater ease. Because of this wider variety of images, I believe Times readers deserve more precise and consistent explanations of the images put before them. Making the wording and explanations uniform across all sections of the paper would help ensure that readers know whether they are looking at news or at art, no matter what part of The Times they are reading.
Few sections deal with this issue more than The New York Times Magazine, which regularly goes beyond using standard news pictures and portraits by using montages, digital manipulation and staged photographs to grab readers' attention or capture a mood that helps buttress an article. It was an article there that brought the labeling issue into focus for me.
The "Interrogating Ourselves" cover article by the former executive editor Joseph Lelyveld in the June 12 magazine discussed the "lies, threats and highly coercive force" being used to pry information out of detainees held in military custody. What caught my attention was the full-page photograph across from the title page of the article.
It was a color photograph with a mid-torso view from the rear of a person with wrists handcuffed. Below the plastic handcuffs, a red stain ran down from one wrist across the soiled palm onto the fingers. The credit at the bottom of the facing page: "Photographs by Andres Serrano."
But there wasn't any explanation that the photograph had been staged. There was no caption. Four pages later, the same was true for the full-page staged photograph of water torture. The cover picture of a person with a sandbag hood also was identified only as a photograph by Mr. Serrano.
For those who scrutinized the photographs, there was one possible clue that they were posed. The coloring of the backdrop in each photograph was similar. And a note in small type at the bottom of the contents page identified the artist who painted the backdrop for Mr. Serrano's cover photograph.
Torture is "a provocative topic," Kathleen Ryan, the magazine's photography editor, said of her decision to hire Mr. Serrano, and "this is a provocative photographer." Mr. Serrano's artistic works include a controversial 1989 photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine and blood.
The initial idea was to photograph the implements of torture for the cover article, Ms. Ryan recalled. But there was concern that readers wouldn't understand the "still life" photographs of handcuffs, for instance. "We decided the cuffs had to go on a hand," she said. It was decided that the hood needed to go on the head of a real person, she said, and a special effort was made to get the kind of sandbag actually used in interrogation. The pose for the water torture picture was based on a Vietnam-era news photograph, according to Ms. Ryan.
Magazine editor Gerald Marzorati and Ms. Ryan were understandably focused on coming up with bold images - especially for the cover - that would draw readers into the magazine and to the article by Mr. Lelyveld. To compete in the magazine world, they often seek photographs and illustrations with an edge or attitude that ranges well beyond what appears in the news columns of the newspaper. "In prose terms," Mr. Marzorati said, "it's like comparing breaking news to a poem."
So how did they decide on what kind of explanation to give readers? Mr. Marzorati said the "conceptual" photographs were so "over the top that I didn't think someone would say this is a real photograph." He continues to believe he was right. "The vast, vast majority of readers realized it wasn't real," he said.
The Times's "Guidelines on Our Integrity," which apply to all parts of the paper, emphasize the question of whether an image is intended to portray reality. "Images in our pages that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way," the section on photography and images begins. Basically, the guidelines say any image that doesn't depict reality should be explained, "if the slightest doubt is possible."
It's clear to me that the slightest doubt was possible, especially in the case of the handcuff photograph. And I don't believe that the visual impact of the full-page photographs would have suffered from a credit that said "Depiction by Andres Serrano" or something similar.
A more sophisticated view came in a letter from David Travis, curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago: "Because photographs by themselves cannot clearly separate reality from appearance, it is good to know as much as possible about how, when, where, and for what reason they were made. This is especially necessary for subjects that may be part of a national debate about the practices and direction of a country at war. The photographs by Andres Serrano that accompanied your recent Sunday magazine article 'Interrogating Ourselves' would have been better described by the simple credit line: 'Photographic illustrations by Andres Serrano.' "
I found the lack of labeling especially disturbing when the handcuff photograph ran in a more obvious news context at the top of the front page of the Times Web site. The credit said only, "Andres Serrano for The New York Times." Although the editors were aware the photograph was posed, the newsy tone of the summary below the photograph offered no clues: "Detainees in the war on terrorism will be subjected to lies, threats and coercive force. Can rules be set about techniques and approaches? Go to Article."
Interestingly, the manipulated images published with the cover article in today's magazine are accompanied by a quite detailed credit: "Photomontages by Jason Fulford for The New York Times. Digital manipulation by Statik Digital." (I had chatted with the editors about the labeling of the torture photographs during the week before the current issue went to the presses, but I don't know if that affected the decision on the credit.) And nytimes.com ran the complete credit, taking up three lines of type under each image, when it posted the cover article earlier this week.
While the details in such credits for images can be valuable to readers, one result can be multiple terms and phrases that vary from one part of the paper to another. From the news columns, for example, a recent credit for an altered image of the state Capitol in Albany said: "Illustration by The New York Times; Photograph by The Associated Press." (The Times's customary style bans the term "photo-illustration.")
So I urge The Times to consider establishing a standardized set of simple labels to be used across all parts of the paper and online to describe various categories for images, depending on the way they have been created or manipulated.
This look at the handling of images forces a fledgling public editor to ponder the extent to which journalistic practices can legitimately differ among the news columns of a newspaper, its editorial pages, a magazine, a book review section and a Web site, all bearing the New York Times imprimatur. The magazine, for instance, can reinforce the impact of a given article by deciding it wants a portrait that makes the subject look pious, or powerful, or gritty. Editors of the news columns, traditionally obligated to be impartial, aren't supposed to do that.
Even though all this landed on your doorstep this morning with each page labeled "The New York Times," top editors seem confident that readers can sort out - and allow for - differences in journalistic tone and practice from one section to another. Readers have long understood the difference between the news columns and the editorial pages, these editors reason, and the Magazine and Book Review are just other distinct parts of the package.
I've got many months to ponder these broader journalistic issues, but I think the torture photographs are a reminder that more attention needs to be devoted now to the clear and consistent labeling of images. The ideal: readers confident that whichever section they pick up on Sunday, it will be readily apparent whether images are real or manipulated - all with the help of just a few more words.
The public editor serves as the readers' representative. His opinions and conclusions are his own. His column appears at least twice monthly in this section. |
