Jill Greenburg and John McCain

Many people have commented and blogged about the photos Commerical Photographer Jill Greenburg took of Senator John McCain for the Atlantic magazine and especially what she did with the outakes on her own website manipulator.com. For those who have been living under a rock and don't know the story. Jill Greenburg was hired to shoot a portrait of John McCain for Atlantic Monthly magazine. Greenburg a notorious anti-Republican and anti-Bush photographer used the 15 minutes of shooting time to take some personal photos of John McCain which she then manipulated using photoshop to add sharks teeth and blood and put a title of Warmonger on top of the photo and then posted this and several other photoshop manipulated photos of John McCain on her personal website. maniuplator.com

She was then interviewed by Photo District News about the photoshoot and told how she purposely tried to make McCain look bad etc. This has caused an uproar in the photo community and the media, as it should have.

I have read most of the comments and diatribes written about this unfortunate situation and I think the comments of Mark Tucker on his blog: http://marktucker.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/what-ive-learned-from-this-greenbergmccain-fiasco/ pretty much some up my feelings on the whole incident.

Here is a brief excerpt of one of his points. "You don’t pee in the pool. If you’re a commercial photographer, your actions can affect every other working photographer out there. Imagine the paranoia right now, if you were McCain or Obama, and you were walking into a cover shoot, as we get nearer to the election. Can you imagine the trepidation and doubt? And what about celebrities too — it’s hard enough to pull off a shoot like that. So when you go off and pull something like Greenberg did, if affects EVERYONE after you. The Ripple Factor is massive."

This was a selfish act of self expression by an immature photographer who obviously did not or doesn't care about anyone else in her profession. One of my "pet peeves" is about all the people who lump all us into two single words "The Media". And mostly when they want to point out something negative or that they don't agree with. The media is far more complex than this. The media includes, screenwriters, novelists, journalists, television executives, musicians, radio personalities, cable, bloggers, youtube, presidential speechwriters, actors, directors, advertising copy writers and on and on and on.

There are as many different types of photographers as there are different types of writers. One final thought on this whole mess. Some have blamed McCain's camp for not vetting the photographer, but that isn't fair. That's not their job. That's the job of the magazine photo editor.

A quick google search of Jill Greenburg would have alerted the photo editor at The Atlantic that hiring her could have been problematic and maybe a bad idea. So much of the blame in my opinion goes to the magazine that hired her in the first place. There are many fine ethical and qualified portrait photographers who could have done the job.

John McCain, however you feel about his politics, had every right to believe he was stepping into a 15 minute photo shoot for a magazine cover and nothing else.