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Behind the Scenes: How Conflict Photographs Come To Be
First time accepted submitter benro03 writes "Airing photojournalism's dirty secret, Italian photographer Ruben Salvadori demonstrates how conflict photography is often staged by the photographers themselves. He spent a significant amount of time in East Jerusalem studying the role that photojournalists play in what the world sees. Ruben is about to graduate with dual majors for a BA in International Relations and Anthropology/Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel." Some commenters on the linked story defend much of what's shown as ordinary aesthetic and editorial decisions; doubtless a parallel documentary could have been shot from a few hundred yards away with an opposite slant.
Do we really need "?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+PetaPixel+(PetaPixel)" at the end there, or are you getting paid for this story?
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Especially since the advent of 24 hour news networks. It existed before then, but not with the same voracious, unrelenting appetite.
Well, the Famous Photo of WWII of the flag raised on Iwo Jima was staged. Twice. The second one was the one folks have seen. Nothing new here. Move along.
All photography is staged unless the image has been captured unintentionally or accidentally.
Sometimes this kind of humour just gives people Ideas I guess..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ2bvR3BT_g
Pallywood anyone?
Life is not for the lazy.
In human matters, there is usually no such thing as objectivity. Unless you can see into the hearts of all people as well as completely understand the whole context, then everything is subjective. Even if a picture or video completely reveals exactly what visibly happens, that's only one side to the story. You can judge the actions, but you may never know all the circumstances.
This has been true since the days of the Johnstown Flood in PA. Many of the "horrific images" were actually staged. Sounds absurd but it was that the event was of a magnitude most of the world was not able to easily comprehend at that time. The photo's made it much easier for the public to really grasp and feel for the victims of the flood.
I used to frequent Medellin, Colombia in the 90's after my mother moved there to teach English. This was during the period of time where there was a large amount of violence due to Pablo Escobar and company. Lot's of bombings etc. (Side note... Bombs happen on the quarters of the Hour, thunder any other time)... We we're driving by a recently bombed, mafia owned, apt. building from night before, and noticed some of the CNN crew from our hotel in the parking lot of the building closely surrounded by about 12 people. The camera guy was on his knees. The rest of the lot was pretty much empty. A cleanup crew here or there. The reporter was on the outside of the circle directing folks around. Later that night, we happen to see the footage produced.... it was a riot... No seriously... CNN portrayed the 12 people as a massive riot of frightened locals in complete panic. They weren't even from the building.... Mafia families who pay $1,000,000 for an apt. in that building don't tend to stick around, much less dress like laborers. Nothing like being a rural mid-western teenager spending his summers in a third world country.
The Journalist observes and then writes words that try to communicate his/her understanding of the situation.
The Photojournalist observes and then takes pictures that try to capture the essence of the situation as he/she understands it.
If you don't want someone else interpreting and summarizing for you, then go there yourself.
We read and view the work of journalists because we want to understand but we don't want to do all the raw data collection and reduction ourselves. To the degree that journalists exhibit biases of one sort or another, we try to chose sources that exhibit similar biases to our own such that their interpretation and analysis will likely be the same (or at least similar) to our own. When the bias is for sensationalism, that's simply not journalism.
G.
Of course those people pose for photographers they know that that's an effective way of sending their message.
Author discusses potographers being biased, right?
There is no such thing as being objective in information. The only honest stance a medium can take is to clearly state it's bias.
A photographer is biased just for covering a situation. Why isn't he covering something else? Why did he choose to cover that event instead of another?
Author is some decades late for common sense. Maybe the only meaningful/interesting thing he states is that photographers are part of the events, modifing the way people act. Also, the way the author states it, they are modifing the way people act in relation to the photographers. Even tho i can imagine ways where things go different (e.g. cops going rampage, since there's no coverage, and such)
Also, his UNstated point is: SOME photographers are muslim, so they are probably siding with the Palestinians.
+1 for the editor for TFS.
Inane.
This is unsurprising. Consider photos of crowds of protesters. They can be framed "just so" to make the group of people fill the whole frame, giving the impression of a large protest, or they can be shot from a greater distance or a different angle, to make it seem like a small gang of losers.
In independent photojournalism, I expect the bias to be the photographer's own. In bigger news organizations, the bias is whatever the editor wants. I imagine the editor's bias depends on what he thinks his viewers want to see, because everyone loves to have his prejudice confirmed.
Cameras lie. Photography is an artform and its basically impossible to create an objective photograph.
What do you want? Do you want to feel like you're there, experiencing the action? If that's the case, then the photographer is pretty much going to have to stage everything, because real conflicts generally don't yield photogenic angles, or give the photographer a way of capturing both sides in a way that makes the conflict "real" from the perspective of someone looking at the pictures. Real war footage is boring as hell, it doesn't remotely capture the experience of being there, and the only way you can stand it or make any sense of it is with aggressive editing and narration, which has the potential to recontextualize everything.
Do you want the truth? All the photographer can tell you is what he saw, and if he only gives you the photos he took. Reporting is epistolary: somebody saw something, they are now telling you about it, you're relying on their account. Photographs are part of their account, they are not separate, "real" things that are somehow more reliable than someone's testimony.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
The pretense of the article seemed to imply that the events or photos were "staged" or something by the journalists. Nothing of the sort was happening in any of these photos.
Are we supposed to be shocked to believe that there were photojournalists on the scene when these photos were taken?
Inane.
when there is a market for conflict images, "conflict images" will be produced to satisfy that demand.
You can't handle the truth.
The issue occurs when a photojournalist comes into a situation with a per-conceived idea and then slants the photos to support that preconception. That is when they cross the line from reporting news to creating propaganda. Take a photo from the right angle and it looks like 20 soldiers are firing at a few kids when just out of frame there are a couple hundred youths with rocks and slingshots.The message the photojournalist wants to send is that the soldiers are overreacting and oppressing the kids. The reality being that they are far outnumbered and in a much more dangerous situation.
There is a huge difference between summarizing and slanting. I want the whole story so I can draw my own conclusions and not just the story the reporter/photographer wants me to see.
http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/gaza_01_07/g30_17512111.jpg
The History Channel Staged WWII
There is a huge difference between summarizing and slanting.
If you have some sort of positive evidence of this happening you absolutely should bring it up. The problem here is that the TFA author doesn't, he just sees photographers lining up shots, and talking to the subjects, and makes the leap that this is, perforce, distortion. I just don't think he understands how photography works.
I want the whole story so I can draw my own conclusions and not just the story the reporter/photographer wants me to see.
If the conflict is something like Israel/Palestine, taking place over 60 years in a country thousands of miles away, involving entire nations of people, of whom you've maybe only met two or three representatives, you're simply not going to be able to come to a useful conclusion on the basis of newspaper columns and photos. An unfortunate, and much more real, problem with mass news media is that it convinces you it can supply you with the information required to bring you to a good conclusion, simply by watching enough TV and reading enough news, when it really can't.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
the original article: http://rubensalvadori.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/presenting-photojournalism-behind-the-scenes/
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Sometimes there's a full blown Hollywood style production done for journalists.
Google the term "Pallywood"
I'll give you an example: http://youtu.be/t_B1H-1opys?t=4m15s
I can't bring myself to say adequately how dishearteningly this is. Between the two different accounts of Occupy Wallstreet I saw this weekend* and seeing this today? Why the hell did I go to school to be part of the media?
*Ranged from glorious freedom supporters to hedonistic sex crazed drug addled hoodlums that need sent off to Iraq to fight if they have nothing better to do. Dear god I wish I was joking about that last one.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
Okay now just stand real still while i pour this burning white phosphorus on you.
While you do what?!
Dont worry, the pictures are going to be totally worth it and besides i hear it washes right off with a little water. Now just stand real still, I dont want to spill any on me......
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about what happens when the money runs out. Exchange harsh words, create nice pictures, have a few of the sheep kill a few other sheep and the money starts flowing again. From the US, and from Saudi, respectively.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Actually, this has been going on since the invention of photography. Since then many photographers and "photojournalists" have publicly admitted that they have staged or created events out of thin air to film and report on. Numerous newsreels and adventure shorts depict obviously staged and obviously fake events, some of which include wanton and sometimes wholesale torture, maiming and killing of people and animals, and destruction of land and property. There are thousands more that are not so obviously faked. There isn't any profit to be made from reporting the facts. They get money and glory from spicing things up with fake and staged events to report on.
This is the dirty secret of journalism, not just "photojournalism".
Remember the Maine?
And sometimes, people will just produce whatever they get paid the most. I think that is one of the points that was being made, dramatic photos sell and photographers will stage them to make a buck.
That is a far cry from communicate one's understanding of a situation. I agree with your assessment that photographers and journalists can only report on what they understand to be the truth. But it appears that the truth isn't even being shown here, some people are justifying their existence at a non-event by creating photographs that sell. This isn't about a personal point of view, it's about creating a viewpoint that isn't even real.
Bravo to Ruben Salvadori for bringing a more accurate representation of was really going on to the public.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
There seems to be a bit of selective omission that happens as well. I know someone who was astonished when he learned that there were white kids looting alongside the brown and black kids in London. Apparently all the footage he saw in the US omitted the white kids...
Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
but going all the way back to the US Civil War and Mathew Brady is really pushing the envelope of staleness.
If you want a more comprehensive view supporting this guy's work, check out Pallywood. You'll see it's all staged.
This page shows a lot of staged "tragedies" from the adversaries of Israel:
http://zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/
Perhaps the most interesting thing is, that Reuters, Associated Press and more keep buying the pictures, apparently with no quality control.
Half the attacks on /. editors is for the same slant in editing submissions. Not sure if even posting this submission is a way for timothy to say that "everyone does it" or a lapse in judgment.
Mathew Brady (actually spelled with 1 T) in the American Civil War _is_ about as far back as photojournalism goes.
AFAIK, the cameras of the time required a long enough exposure time that one couldn't take live action shots, so he and his assistants set up some battlefield shots after the fact. Brady's work also includes non-action shots such as portrait photographs of Lincoln.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Doubtless, when you see it in use you KNOW that a person is trying to claim something that he wishes to be true but can't even be bothered to get the simplest anecdote or anon post to support it. Doubtless the other side does the same. No proof, not even a hint but we nonetheless can't doubt it.
A weasel word if ever there was one.
Remember that story about the "Kraken". That is very similar, in science an extra-ordinary claim should have extra-ordinary evidence. Doubtless is the word of religious freaks and others who think evidence is something only the other side got to bother with.
Doubtless Timothy has posted numerous slanted posts based on faked photo's and instead of questioning them with this evidence (and it is hardly the first time evidence of outright lies have been published) he just goes "oh but the other side does the same" with no evidence.
Facts... I suppose they only matter if they support your point of view.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
But that doesn't mean the photos won't remain distorted.
Reuters continually runs distorted photos from the Arab/Israeli conflicts. Sure, they were publicly shamed into ditching one photographer after two extremely public examples of image editing showed, but they continue to be caught using obviously faked, staged and misrepresented photos.
I don't mean just staged by independent photographers. I mean like Green Helmet Guy, who arranges shoots pretty much professionally, using the bodies of dead kids and such as props. Once he's set up, the photographers shoot, Reuters gobbles it up.
This only proves that they fundamentally influence the conditions of an otherwise known state simply by observing it.
Now why does that seem familiar?
I know the combatants have other things on their minds but you'd think an army would want to record things to improve itself. Also that footage could be used to vindicate yourself on the world stage.
Here's a dilemma for you... With all your honor and dignity what would you do? This test only has one question, but it's a very important one.
Please don't answer it without giving it some serious thought. By giving an honest answer you will be able to test where you stand morally.
The test features an unlikely, completely fictional situation, where you will have to make a decision one way or the other. Remember that your answer needs to be honest, yet spontaneous. Please scroll down slowly and consider each line - this is important for the test to work accurately.
You're in Florida...In Miami, to be exact. There is great chaos going on around you, caused by a hurricane and severe floods. There are huge masses of water all over you. You are a CNN photographer and you are in the middle of this great disaster. The situation is nearly hopeless. You're trying to shoot very impressive photos. There are houses and people floating around you, disappearing into the water. Nature is showing all its destructive power and is ripping everything away with it.
Suddenly you see a man in the water, he is fighting for his life, trying not to be taken away by the masses of water and mud. You move closer. Somehow the man looks familiar.
Suddenly you know who it is -- it's George W. Bush!
At the same time you notice that the raging waters are about to take him away, forever. You have two options. You can save him or you can take the best photo of your life. So you can save the life of George W. Bush, or you can shoot a Pulitzer prize winning photo, a unique photo displaying the death of one of the world's most powerful men.
And here's the question (please give an honest answer):
Would you select color film, or rather go with the simplicity of classic black and white?
A relative of mine took a well known picture in a war decades ago which appeared in a major news source. He was not only a photographer, but also helped plan the event that was photographed.
Message: "There is no occupation brutality. This is staged violence by unethical 'journalists' looking for a story".
Maybe the "scholarship" would have more credibility from a University outside of Israel?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
But Reuters is in the photo business, and Reuters has a solid history of defending and/or ignoring flat-out propaganda disguised as photojournalism.
It's true that the subjects don't have to be in on it, not all of them anyway. What's astounding is how little actual content it takes.
Top Gear faked an attack (rock-throwing) at an Alabama gas station, and convinced a lot of people that it really happened. They did it without showing a single attacker throwing a rock, without showing a single attacker threatening them, really without even showing a single attacker's face.
And if today you asked the people who were fooled by it years ago, I'm sure most would say they saw all those things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdOpKv9D7rA
It doesn't care about your feelings.
Facts are facts, and the Muslims fighting to erase Israel from the map (yes, this is the stated goal of the people you are helping) DO stage propaganda photo shoots using the bodies of children and pass it off as journalism to a world willing to be fooled by it.
They DO purposely shoot rockets into Israeli civilian areas and send their children in to dismantle the missile launchers after firing so no experienced soldiers get killed in the Israeli counter-attacks. Then they take pictures of the children they sent to their deaths for their propaganda machine.
What you are documenting and experiencing is what your Palestinian handlers are allowing you to document and experience. You will go home to pass on the staged propaganda to the rest of the world. You will not be allowed to see what happens.
Remember there is no muslim brutality either.
It's not like the constitution of Palestine specifies that every Jew should be killed. It is *NOT* the case that Palestinians execute people for the crime of choosing their own religion (or atheism), it is *NOT* the case that they cruelly execute women by stoning for "crimes" that men are simply forgiven for. It is *NOT* the case that Palestinians are publicly proud of the fact that they nearly exclusively target civilians ... hanging up posters in their city halls glorifying people who achieved the great military victory of killing a defenseless family, including 3 babies.
And please, anyone who claims Palestinian "brutality" (bestiality might be a better word) is quite a bit worse than even the worst accusations of what Israel did, is obviously a racist.
Comprende ?
The problem is that people have the idea that photojournalists are dodging gunfire to take shots as they happen. When a lot of people see these pictures they expect there is a camera man hiding under a burned out car with a zoom lens taking these photos of action as it is happening.
It is surprising that few here remember the past..
Nasir al-Sabah ?
the sleazeball Kuwait ambassador who allowed his daughter to be coached by ex foreign service H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado
to lie to the entire world creating the babies ripped from incubators stories
I will not mention his daughters name here, because she was only 15 at the time. these people probably destroyed her life.
if you want an account of the story it is at http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html
Any Americans involved in this should have a court of law determine if they are guilty of treason as defined in the US constitution "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them"
these people certainly deceived the American public, in order to sell a war, or put the american people into a war via deception, and caused many citizens to die fighting a war few wanted.
put simply it was the hijacking of american democracy for profit.
does anyone here have any idea what became of these people, and why they were not even investigated, much less prosecuted? post reply, if you want, will check back, even tho posting ac, and will read all comments
I've seen Pallywood -- for one, Pallywood was about Palestinian journalists, which TFA isn't about, and second, to be honest I didn't find a lot of the video evidence in Pallywood to be particularly convincing, and it commits a lot of the errors, decontextualization with narration, suspicious sourcing, editorializing, that it accuses news agencies of committing.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
The problem is that people have the idea that photojournalists are dodging gunfire to take shots as they happen.
"The journalist wasn't doing what I see journalists in movies do, therefore what he's reporting didn't happen."
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
You live in some distortion of reality.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
History is replete with allegations of this, including ones that persist today. Examples are the alleged Palestinians celebrating on 9/11 or the bloodied Palestinian attack victim. Is there some sort of factcheck site for these things?
Back in 2006 a number of scandals surfaced during the Israeli-Lebanese conflict. The initial incident was later nicknamed "Reutersgate" because one very obviously photoshopped picture distributed through Reuters that landed on front pages all over the world led to an investigation by Reuters that revealed almost a thousand similar pictures from a number of "well-reputed" freelance photographers, and they were subsequently 'fired' by Reuters and their contributions removed from the archives.
Then the scandal spread. Additional pictures from Reuters were brought into question, as well as pictures from other agencies, especially Associated Post. Not only were these pictures fairly obviously staged; they were staged Hollywood-style, complete with fake blood, staged ruins, actors and so on. Characters like "The World's Unluckiest Mom", "The Dead Son", "The Omnipresent Victim" and most legendary of all: "Green Helmet Guy" filled pictures reputedly from various places all over Lebanon (but in reality shot in more or less the same place). We saw the same grieving mother with or near a dead-looking child (also often the same) again and again, the same wounded civilians, the same burned-out cars, and always the same rescue party prominently featuring the legendary Green Helmet Guy. Then a series of pictures, obviously not meant for public distribution surfaced, showing the characters having a lunch break in the shade of a building. We see the 'dead child' play and later drink a soda.We see Green Helmet Guy in conversation with The Omnipresent Victim (obviously unharmed of course) and so on. Assuming all pictures featuring these characters are faked/staged, this fauxtography scandal involved thousands of pictures. Later extremely well-reputed photographers from BBC also appears to have engaged in this fakery.
Googling pictures with these tags will yield you hundreds of samples of these staged pictures, all with the obvious intent of showing how cruel and evil Israel were. As Hizbollah in Lebanon (thought to be behind this little troupe of actors) found a need for this, it is obvious that reality didn't offer anything similar so it had to be staged for the proper effect on the world audience.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
I'm not going to a place where people will hate me because of where I'm from, the Great Satan.
Even worse, I'm not even one of the supposedly protected people of the book. I'm supposed to be converted or killed by the faithful.
What a shameful piece of propaganda by slashdot...suggesting that Israels brutal occupation is somehow how a matter of perspective of camera angles? wtf?
Some facts...according to the respected human rights organization B'Tselem, exactly 753 Israeli civilians and 342 military personnel were been killed by Palestinians between September 2000 and September 2011. During that same period, the Israeli army killed6,487 Palestinians, at least half of whom were civilians. During Operation Cast Lead â" Israel's most recent illegal assault on the people of Gaza â" the Israeli military killed 1,397 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Three Israeli civilians were killed in the operation.
Clearly this is not a war between two equal parties. This is a vicious occupation against an oppressed and impoverished people, carried out by a powerful, nuclear armed state (Israel), and backed by the world's strongest military power (the U.S.). Shame on slashdot for being apologist for Israel. Shame.
mondoweiss.net