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Monday, September 15, 2008
Jill Greenberg made editors of the Atlantic and 37 babies cry
(UPDATED with video of Atlantic editor on Fox News, below the fold)
Jill Greenberg was hired to take photos of John McCain for their latest issue of The Atlantic. The photo they selected seems all right. But it's what Greenberg did with the other photos that is causing a big ruckus.
Greenberg is a "big time Democrat." She became famous after one of her photo series made it big. She got 37 babies, stripped off their clothes, then managed to make them cry by, for instance, taking away their lollipop. When the babies were busy ballin' their eyes out, she snapped away. The end result was called "End Times" and it had something to do with George W. Bush and the war.
It prompted this fierce reaction from Thomas Hawk:
"Don't get me wrong. I am not opposed to a photographer capturing all
emotions of humans. I think that capturing the tears of a child that
naturally take place all the time (believe me, as a father of four I
know) is one thing. But for her to say that she "manipulates her
subjects to evoke an emotion," and then citing things like giving them
a lollipop and then taking it away from them just to see them cry and
get angry and then shoot them, this is just wrong.
Irrespective
of her statement as an artist this is evil. And it is evil to collect
these images of children who through the bad judgment of their parents
ultimately have no say."
You can see Greenberg's portfolio on her agency's website (it's flash, so look for her name at the bottom). Here's a video about the controversy:
And now Greenberg is busy making The Atlantic editors cry. Hired to take photos of John McCain, she admits to putting a strobe at his feet to make McCain look scary, while making him and his handlers think that McCain was being lit by a separate light that wasn't firing. She plans to sell that photo to some other magazine.
She also told Photo District News, that she was thinking of replacing McCain's mouth with "bloody shark teeth" to send the message that he's a "bloodthirsty war monger." She put those thoughts into practice, and put together a pile of extra images for her website, which is going through them regularly. Here are two examples:
The Atlantic's editor, James Bennet, left the following note on the website:
"We stand by the respectful image of John McCain that we used on our cover, and we expect to be judged by it. We were not aware of the manipulated and dishonest images Jill Greenberg had taken until this past Friday.
When we contract with photographers for portraits, we don't vet them for their politics—instead, we assess their professional track records. We had never worked with Jill Greenberg before (and, obviously, we will not work with her again). Based on the portraits she had done of politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger and her work for publications like Time, Wired, and Portfolio, we expected her, like the other photographers we work with, to behave professionally.
Jill Greenberg has obviously not done that. She has, in fact, disgraced herself, and we are appalled by the manipulated images she has created for her Web site of John McCain."
Jill Greenberg is, I'm sorry to say, a Canadian.
UPDATE: Here's James Bennet on Fox News:
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on September 15, 2008 in International Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
Sounds like an evil liberal slut with a camera and an attitude.
Posted by: John V | 2008-09-15 7:23:23 PM
Jill Greenberg is, I'm sorry to say, a Canadian.
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on September 15, 2008
Greenberg was born in Canada but grew up in Detroit and is now an American. So don't feel sorry.
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-09-15 7:32:44 PM
First the lipstick on a pig "controversy". Now this nonsense non-story.
When did the Republicans become such pissy little whiners? Oh yeah, it was when they figured out it was their last chance to hang on to power.
Posted by: truewest | 2008-09-15 8:03:07 PM
Pissy little whiners? It's not the republicans who were damaged. It was The Atlantic magazine. Mrs thing was contracted to do a job. The results of that job became the property of those who contracted her to do it. She manipulated that property in such a way as to publicly embarrass her employer. Political issues aside, why shouldn't The Atlantic seek redress? It's damaged their business.
Posted by: Richard Evans | 2008-09-15 9:28:26 PM
"...it was very quickly done because I didn't want to labour it, I didn't want to torment the kids" ...wow, you can just feel the compassion flowing out of this woman. Personally I feel more anger toward the parents suckered into letting their kids be used as a tool. It's stories like this that remind me why I hate liberals.
Posted by: Condor | 2008-09-15 10:11:31 PM
I don't have anythign to say about this story, so let me give you these:
Hillary: http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/yugiohmygod/Scary20Hillary20Clinton.jpg
McCain: http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/yugiohmygod/mccain.jpg
Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-09-15 10:33:13 PM
Bush: http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/yugiohmygod/ngbbs476af3f6eaed9.jpg
Cheney: http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/yugiohmygod/369521152_478cfe28ca_o.jpg
Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-09-15 10:33:49 PM
Your AWESOME Obama picture of the day: http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/yugiohmygod/barak-obama.jpg
And finally, "BARACKUA: The Musical": http://www.myspace.com/barackula
Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-09-15 10:35:16 PM
Dick,
Does your intellectual dishonety know no limits? (No need to answer.)
The Atlantic may have a beef with the photographer based on their contract - or it may not. You don't know the terms of their deal, or who owns the photos, so why pretend that you do?
However, The Atlantic's unhappiness with Greenberg isn't what made this the stupid story du jour. And it wasn't concern about the magazine's reputation that led the cheerleaders at FoxNews and other right-wing outlets to suggest that The Atlantic's editors should vet the politics of the freelance photographers they hire to shoot celebrity politicians. It was the same bleating conservative-as-victim nonsense that drove the lipstick on the pig non-story.
Posted by: truewest | 2008-09-15 10:40:39 PM
Is this retributive justice, or what? Egg all over their faces looks good on them--both the photog and the mag.
This is called giving the lib-left enough rope to hang itself. What's gratifying about this so-called "non-story" ('guess it depends on what side of the aisle you're sitting on or taking photos from) is that the left is beginning to tear itself apart.
This story has the editors of The (left-leaning) Atlantic at the throat of their (rabidly left-leaning) cover photographer and vice versa. Sweet.
I didn't hear John McCain whimpering about this. I am hearing James Bennet, the Atlantic's editor, being very, very angry. He and his magazine have been taken by this brazen and sadistic opportunist.
'Looks good on all of them.
Posted by: batb | 2008-09-16 6:17:04 AM
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