Photojournalism and Bias

Photo by: Ed Clark

Subject's Expression: The subject, Graham Jackson, is obviously displaying sadness, but at the same time a sense of pride. He is so enthralled by what he is doing that he is certainly not acting for the camera. His expression helps set the emotional level of the photograph as very deep, and is the reason for why it is a powerful image.

Background compliments or detracts from composition: In the background there are a lot of people who are obviously grieving. The important factor is that they are not looking at the camera, but at Graham Jackson. It helps point towards Jackson as being the subject, and brings all attention to him.

Abstraction: The photograph depicts a very sad moment for all who are involved. But the contrast in emotions between Graham Jackson and the people in the background help show that although sad, the event was not a tragedy or natural disaster. The military uniform Jackson is wearing helps show that it was a person of power that passed. 

 When I look at this picture by Ed Clark, I see a true moment of despair, it is etched on the faces of everyone present in the photograph. However, the grieving is different when you compare the looks on the faces of the people in the background to the look on the face of the man in front. The man in front, Graham Jackson, is certainly grieving, but the look on his face is more of a proud look rather than a hopeless one. He appears proud to have served under Franklin D. Roosevelt, and that he is not afraid to show his tears during the overwhelming occasion. Despite the presence of the photojournalist, none of the people in the picture are exhibiting camera-specific behavior, which is highly important in a strong, emotional photograph like this. "Apart from the ghost of objectivity, there is also that ghost of distance, to not be involved, to actually be the invisible camera that only takes the picture and you're pretending you're not even there." Although they are talking about a completely different topic, the idea here still applies to photojournalism and photojournalists as a whole. As previously stated, the importance of the fact that none of the people in the photograph are paying attention to the camera helps to not take away from the image, but more importantly they are directing the viewer's attention to the man playing the instrument. There is always a moment in time for a photojournalist that is the best time to capture the action, it is when the subjects are enthralled by the emotion of the events around them that they are not exhibiting camera-specific behavior. It may only last for a few seconds, or even a few minutes. To come up with a term to help describe this moment, I would call it the "golden moment". The golden moment is essentially what was captured by Ed Clark above, which is what helps make this photograph such a powerful one. 

Photo by: Manuel Balce Ceneta 

In our out of focus: The subject is the only part of the image which is in focus. The background is completely out of focus. It helps by highlighting the subject, which brings all attention to the subject so that there is nothing else to detract from the subject.

Keep it simple: In the photograph there is nothing else but the subject. It helps to maintain a clutter-less feel when looking at the photograph. Without any clutter to detract from the image, the subject becomes the main and only attention-grabber, which is the intention.

Obvious main subject: With nothing else in the image, and the background being blurred, the main subject is obvious. The main subject is large, and takes up most of the photograph. The main subject is dead-center in the image, which helps make it the main attention grabber.

Why did I choose this image? I chose this image because it is a truthful representation of President Barack Obama, it does not have any odd angles, lighting, or editing to make him seem greater or worse than he really is. His expression is not one of too much joy or what would be considered a stupid look. It is very much a photograph that President Barack Obama would want to use his as a front-cover for his representation.

I chose this image because it genuinely represents the truth, and in politics it can be easy to find plenty of photographs that although they are not edited, they are still manipulated in the way they are taken in order to present a different aspect that is not entirely truthful. I know this image to be truthful due to applying sense perception, by simply looking at the photograph I know that Obama is not trying to over exaggerate his facial expression or his body language, in short he is being entirely genuine. Also, emotion/intuition can be applied to this image since by the same way of reading Obama's facial expression and body language. One of the easiest ways to measure the truthfulness of a photo is by how it would compare to most other photos. These days you often see pictures of politicians where they look stupid, this is because those images sell more. "The photographer is rarely employed, nowadays, to tell the story as he or she sees it — the photographer is merely called upon to illustrate another’s account. Such images fail to engage the viewer and fail the larger purpose of the photographer." There is unfortunately, a large wave of photographs these days that attempt to portray a scenario or aspect that does not actually exist. This advent of fake pictures and stories stems from the digital age, and how easy it is to form articles in a way that will make them seem real, and make the readers/viewers believe that what is being written is actually reality. It is an unfortunate truth, but there are websites out there that are trying to fight this new wave of falsified information. Stopfake.org is an example of one such website, one of whose articles talks about a German town trying to advocate for the Crimea being recognized as Russian. "Quakenbrück is a town of less than 13,000 residents. Its legislative body is not a parliament but a council of 31 people whose purpose is to look after the social, business and infrastructure needs of the town. The council has no foreign policy powers to recognize Crimea as part of Russia nor, to lift EU sanctions." Battling this wave of false information and biased photography will take educating the public on how to hold an unbiased view of things, and knowing how to spot images that are obviously made in a way to look the subject look greater or worse than they really are. 

Photo by: Michael M. Levin

Rule of thirds: The subject is dead-center in the photograph. This helps the subject be the main attraction so the viewer only focuses on the subject. The photographer's intention was to have Donald Trump squarely in the middle of the picture.

What feelings does the image create? The image gives me the feeling that the subject is not very intelligent. The picture makes me not want to rely on the subject as a potential future president. There are certainly no good feelings created by the image's subject.

Quality of light: The light in the photo is perfectly set on the face of the subject. The light illuminates the subjects face making it easy to see every detail. The lighting is certainly bold in order to highlight the subject's face.

Why did I choose this image? I chose this image because it clearly highlights the media's intention to pick out photographs that do not portray the candidate as a suitable future president. Politics is all about defamation of character in an attempt to make voters stray away from them. This image of Donald Trump is definitely not a flattering one, and if this was my first sighting of Donald Trump, it would not make me want to vote for him.

As previously stated, politics has always been about making the other candidates look bad, to look for any sort of information that would make them seem like a poor choice for the office they are campaigning for. It is easy to tell that this image has tons of bias behind the scenes, the photographer specifically chose the photo due to the way that it turned out, which is more than likely what they were employed to do. Based on the four ways of knowing, sense perception and emotion/intuition are again the two that I used to help figure out the photograph. Donald Trump's facial expression is not a pretty one, and that was the goal here. Quite frankly he looks like an idiot, which, due to the selective nature of the media covering him and harboring a dislike of him, they have made it so most of the American people share the same feelings for him. As Professor John Nordell describes one of his assignments early in his career, working at the Boston Phoenix he was sent to take pictures of the state Republican convention, in his video, Photojournalism and Bias - Part 1: "I took some images of some of the Republican candidates that were very unflattering. When I submitted them to my editors at the liberal newspaper they were delighted by them." With the technology available these days in photojournalism, it is quite easy to take pictures of candidates and politicians who are in the middle of a speech or some gesture, to take a photo of them that looks unappealing, it is almost like a subsection of photojournalism with how often it can be found these days. Professor John Nordell showed just how easy it was to do so in his video, Photojournalism and Bias - Part 2: "One of my early mentors, Jerry Barent, he was a photojournalist and a teacher, he would give his students an assignment to take a picture of a politician that made them look heroic, and a picture that made them look like a bum. So I took these two pictures a few minutes apart, and you know, maybe an image like this, maybe some candidate who opposes Deval Patrick in another election might use this in one of their adds saying how terrible Patrick's policies are." As said before, it really is an unfortunate truth that photojournalists are hired sometimes simply to help further the claims of an author, and not to tell the story of how it actually is. Especially with digital age photography now, it is much easier to do so.