Tuesday, September 16, 2008

A Tempest in a Teapot?

Rob Haggart's blog, A Photo Editor, has quite a brouhaha going on over the Jill Greenberg/McCain controversy. The many commenters seem divided into two camps: Those lauding Greenberg for courageousness and those slamming her for irresponsibility or worse. Blue photographers and red photographers? Ahh, but it's not as simple as that.

I injected a comment, one not especially bold or thought-provoking I'll admit, and it didn't seem heard above the clamor. No big deal. I wasn't trying to stir up anything with my words. Others were and are doing a fine job of that. BTW, Haggart's update which sparked the debate seemingly places the former photo editor of Men's Journal (and elsewhere) in the "irresponsible" camp as it applies to Jill Greenberg. No, it's not that Haggart is irresponsible for writing what he wrote but that Greenberg is irresponsible by virtue of her actions. (Sorry. You probably knew what I meant without the 'splayning.)

The APE controversy isn't much surprising. My long history participating on photographer forums has taught me that photographers, in general, rarely agree on much, whether it's another shooter's photo or a political POV. I can't help but wonder if the verbal melee on the APE site is little more than a tempest in a teapot. Photographers, after all, are supposed to be better suited to expressing themselves with pictures rather than words. That's not to say some of the comments on Rob's blog aren't articulate and thought-provoking. But still...

If you're more than mildly interested in the Greenberg story, a few of APE's commenters posted some interesting links to even more debate on the subject. They might be worth your time to read.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The bottom image of John McCain that I saw on the PDNPulse page reminds me of Arnold Newman's portrait of Alfried Krupp, although not as well done.

jimmyd said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Yup. Others have made the same comparison, Bill. They've also noted that Greenberg's image is not as well done as Newman's.