Who’d be a World Press Photo winner? Or even a juror? In recent times it’s become something of a tradition to attack both the winning photo and the contest: this year did not disappoint.
Martijn Kleppe has an excellent and growing collection of links to various articles on this year’s WPP results; two that have gained considerable attention are hit pieces by Joerg Colberg at Conscientious, and James Johnson at Politics, Theory & Photography. It’s worth noting that neither Colberg nor Johnson are press photographers: the former is an astrophysicist, fine art photography curator and writer, the latter a professor of political theory at the University of Rochester. Nor does either claim any special knowledge of Islam and the Arab world. So while Colberg and Johnson are entitled to their opinions, they don’t appear to possess any specialist skills or insights that render those opinions particularly valuable.
The heart of their objections is the apparent resemblance of Samuel Aranda’s winning photo to the Christian imagery of the Pietà, most famously by Michelangelo. Almost inevitably, this resemblance has led some to claim that Aranda faked the photo: the most extreme version of this is the theory that the whole thing was a put-up job by American imperialists.
Fortunately neither Colberg nor Johnson go quite that far. Rather, they argue that it was wrong to award a photograph that appears to reference – even inadvertently – Christian iconography; that in doing so WPP reveals its own inherent bias; and that the award also serves to obscure the political background to the image. Here’s a taste:
Joerg Colberg:
“If you have followed the news over the past decade even just tangentially, you might realize that using a visual language that could not be more Christian to depict an event in a Muslim country might pose a problem.”
James Johnson:
“Not only does it reduce politics to the personal, it does that by assimilating the stereotypical burka-clad woman to deeply Christian iconography. We don’t even get universal humanism here. We here in the west are encouraged not to appreciate the realities and particularities of another world. Instead we are encouraged to see others as essentially just like ‘we Christians.’ Aranda’s image – presented as the ‘photo of the year’ – seem to me to divert understanding, to make it more difficult.”
The problem with these criticisms and others is that they’re not really so much about Aranda’s photo as the authors’ own underlying prejudices and obsessions. But this year there was a twist to the criticisms. No sooner had Western political theorists and academics finished complaining about the blinkered Western nature of World Press Photo than another group of commentators emerged: people from the actual country where the photo has been taken, and most crucially, the two people in the photo. And those people all offer a rather different assessment of both the photo and the jury’s decision:
Nadia Abdulla, Yemeni photographer:
“We feel proud of this photo because it is very important for the world to have a new impression of Yemen. The foreign media has been presenting Yemenis as terrorists but this is the first time Yemen’s beautiful and expressive side has been shown.”
Afrah Nasser, a Yemeni blogger:
“It sums up what the Yemeni nation and the rest of Arab [and non-Arab] revolutionary nations have gone through in pursuit of democracy and freedom.”
Zayed Al-Qawas, the 18 year old man in the photo, who had been tear-gassed by government forces:
“It is a real support to the revolution. It demonstrates that Yemenis are not extremists. The picture explains everything. The picture really explains the love of the mother, and the wounded son, and what happened on that day in Yemen.”
Fatima Al-Qawas, Zayed’s mother, seen holding him in the photo:
“It makes me very happy to see this picture, to see also that it has won such a prestigious award. It makes me happy and very proud: proud for being a woman, proud for being a mother, and also for being a Yemeni woman. I’m very proud that this photo is going around the world and many people have seen it and will continue seeing it. And especially it makes me even happier because it’s Western people who have chosen that picture for the award.”
So what was the problem with the photo again?
Stop me if this sounds familiar. Professional photographer submits staged or manipulated image; newspaper or agency publishes image; reader spots manipulation; photographer is fired, much hand wringing ensues.
At first glance the weekend dismissal of long-time staff photographer Bryan Patrick by the Sacramento Bee appeared to follow the template established by Adnan Hajj Reutersgate, the Brian Walski Los Angeles Times fiasco, and numerous others. There was however one difference. The Hajj and Walski incidents concerned major news stories in war zones: Patrick’s photograph was of a bird eating a frog at a wildlife festival.
You can of course adopt the principled position – as the Bee has – that the subject of the photograph is irrelevant, and that any manipulation is forbidden in photojournalism. But if so the Bee – and you – had better start clearing bookshelves. Those precious monographs by Capa, Smith, Khaldei et al? Packed with staging and darkroom manipulation: many of the most historic and respected names in photography would get short shrift at the Bee.
You can also take the fundamentalist position – as the Bee has – that any photo manipulation, no matter how minor, is such a heinous crime that it inevitably merits only the maximum possible sentence, dismissal of the perpetrator. In that case the Bee – and you – presumably take a similarly hard-line stance regarding other more serious crimes. You’ll be in favour of execution for murderers, the chopping off of hands for pickpockets, castration for copyright infringers, that sort of thing.
What Patrick did was undoubtedly wrong, but perhaps worse than that, it was stupid. It should by now be painfully obvious to even the dimmest photographer that if you fake in Photoshop you will be caught: the whole world is watching, and somebody somewhere is waiting to pounce. And whatever they might claim, such incidents often put the news organisation concerned in a rather comfortable position. Closure – at least for the publisher – is easily achieved with an apology packed with references to ethics and core values and branding the perpographer a fraud. “We too have been betrayed dear reader,” runs the narrative, “but the guilty party has been punished: you can trust us.”
This conveniently glosses over one point obvious to anyone who has ever worked in a newspaper, but perhaps less so to the readers the Bee is addressing. Patrick did not publish the doctored image all on his own: he will have submitted a number of images to the Bee photo department, who will have made the final choice for publication. One might expect the photo department to notice any skullduggery: after all, that is in part their job, and Patrick’s handiwork was relatively crude and easy to spot. But the manipulated image sailed by the photo department: the Bee was apparently only alerted by that most reliable of sources, an anonymous e-mail from a reader.
That begs two questions. Does the Bee employ any photo editors who are awake and in possession of functioning eyeballs? And what steps has the paper taken against those editors who approved publication of the Patrick photo?
It would be interesting to hear the response to those questions, but we’re unlikely to get any. The Bee, having placed all the blame squarely on the photographer, is apparently now refusing to comment further. All in all, a neat way to evade any responsibility.
