Jill Greenberg makes some pretty interesting pictures, to be sure. Yet, if she wanted to commit professional suicide by slamming her clients, she should have just kept mum. In the David Walker’s PDN Piece How Jill Greenberg Really Feels About John McCain (9/12/08), Greenburg is reported by PDN to have “rubbed her hands with glee” at the prospect of a portrait session of John McCain, since she’s a hardcore Democrat.Greenberg followed the “one for thee, one for me” approach, shooting her trademark style (see cover above), and then setting up (literally) McCain in another lighting setup (see the PDN piece for that image). PDN quotes her as saying
“He had no idea he was being lit from below,” Greenberg says. And his handlers didn’t seem to notice it either. “I guess they’re not very sophisticated,” she adds.I say “Damn, she’s not very bright to be admitting that. Good luck with your future high-profile portrait subjects who will now look at you with skeptical and critical eyes, Democrat OR Republican, since you’re bringing your agenda to the shoots you do.”
Here’s where I bristled at what she had to say:
(Continued after the Jump)
Given her strong feelings about John McCain, we asked whether she had any reservations about taking the assignment in the first place…“I didn’t,” she says. …Some of my artwork has been pretty anti-Bush, so maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for them [The Atlantic] to hire me.”Really? Are you really that dense that you would call your client “irresponsible”? What were you thinking? Surely, not that the Atlantic, or that art director wherever they end up, or other art directors who will be concerned about the activist approach you bring to your work, will hire you again.
Next time, you might want to follow the “engage brain, THEN engage mouth” approach. Oh, and good luck on that audit.
UPDATE:
Greenberg’s client has weighed in (via the New York Post):
“We stand by the picture we are running on our cover,” said Atlantic editor James Bennet. “We feel it’s a respectful portrait. We hope we’ll be judged by that picture.”More images and commentary: Out-Takes: Behind The Atlantic’s McCain Cover
But Bennet was appalled by Greenberg saying she tried to portray McCain in an unflattering way.
“We feel totally blind-sided,” he said. “Her behavior is outrageous. Incredibly unprofessional.”
The author of the story weighs in here:
“I don’t know Greenberg (I count this as a blessing) and I can add nothing to what James Bennet told the Post except to say that Greenberg is quite obviously an indecent person who should not be working in magazine journalism. Every so often, journalists become deranged at the sight of certain candidates, and lose their bearings. Why, this has even happened in the case of John McCain once or twice. What I find truly astonishing is the blithe way in which she has tried to hurt this magazine.”And the PR Agency for the magazine issued yet another statement by the editor:
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. Based on the portraits she had done of politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger and her work for publications like Time, Wired, and Portfolio, we expected Jill Greenberg, 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.”
RELATED: On Jill Greenberg – “I don’t think what she did was wrong”
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Originally published on Photo Business News & Forum on September 12, 2008. Comments are closed; this post is part of the archive.
Did you happen to catch these on her website front page?:
http://xs130.xs.to/xs130/08340/greenbergmccain02400.jpg
http://xs130.xs.to/xs130/08340/greenbergmccain01486.jpg
seriously, photographers like to tear each other down worse than any other artists i’ve ever heard of. it’s amazing. a peer of yours took her own copyrighted image (not the atlantics, who chose a different image for their cover) and did what she wanted with them.
no wonder photographers don’t have a union.
Personally if I were the editor I probably would have killed it as the cover story and gone with something else. Just because this is what the photographer turns in, by no means it has to run.
I am however blown away by this statement: “”He had no idea he was being lit from below,” Greenberg says. And his handlers didn’t seem to notice it either. “I guess they’re not very sophisticated,” she adds.”
A: How do you not notice?
B: Unwarranted character assault.
I’ve photographed several people with backgrounds I’m not in agreement with but I’d never tank an assignment or photograph them in an unflattering way because A: I’m an unbiased journalist (one of a dying breed) and B: I’m not catty.
Even if a Democrat gets into office she may be denied access for an assignment given her public comments. PR Flaks don’t like getting blind sided, especially when they set up the shoot.
-Fish
Strangeness aside…the interesting thing is that there is a history of photographers manipulating light (jill’s aka: the manipulator) and images of politicians and others for their personal views.
What comes to mind is Gregory Heisler’s image of the double-faced George Bush 1 for Time (in this case, I think it was Time’s view), Arnold Newman’s photo of Alfried Krupp for Newsweek and Steichen’s portrait of JP Morgan.
Actually, it would make an interesting book.
it is not only her statements.. but take a look at her main page
http://www.manipulator.com/
I, as well as many photographers, are called on to photograph people running for office all the time.
Having recently finished a larger shoot with a candidate from the “opposite party” from my views, doing something like that was never a thought.
The team from DC even asked me if the shoot would be an issue for me. Of course not. I’m a professional and I gave them my all.
Again, very unprofessional and sad.
Rosh
http://i33.tinypic.com/23rqxar.jpg
Between the crying babies thing, the ‘manipulator’ tagline, and everything else, I think she’s intentionally exploiting the power of controversy as a marketing tool. It seems unlikely, but I guess marketing yourself as a professional sociopath is a lot more effective than most people would have guessed.
She will do alright. 🙂
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.12thpress.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/newman.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.12thpress.com/blog/%3Fp%3D174&h=416&w=339&sz=91&tbnid=BlEX591gUqgJ::&tbnh=125&tbnw=102&prev=/images%3Fq%3Darnold%2Bnewman%2Bkrupp%2Bportrait&hl=en&usg=__gR-xcyvfEOfQfVlb7DTP4cggFrw=&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&cd=1
I drive threw RISD every day and see her kind, rejects from the normal world. Mistreated little kids.
As a professional in her same field, people like her make us all look bad.
The modeling lights were on for strobes that did not fire. Anyone who was not familiar with how studio strobes work, while they might have noticed that the downside one got brighter and the topside one didn’t, might not have realized what this meant. If she was stopped way down, she could have had the modeling light for the dish at full power and the one for the downside light off or very low, and to the casual observer, the lighting balance would have looked exactly opposite what it really was.
M
Who really cares?
Attention whore; maybe……….or just another photographer marketing themselves.
Next year it will be someone else who does something similar to promote themselves.
I guess it’s cheaper than the Black Book or mailers.
Yawn………….
Would anyone remember her if it weren’t for this and the crying babies?
http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp67/slantslasher/jillgreenberg-1.jpg
All of her inner beauty seems to POP through…
but also asks the question of whether she had the talent to achieve the desired result in a much more subtle manner.
She was hired to do this shoot as a professional. She had a duty to her client to provide a useable image. But she also had a duty to her subject, no? Didn’t Sen. McCain have a reasonable expectation to be treated professionally? If he didn’t notice that he was being lit in an unflattering manner, could it be because he put his trust in her as a professional?
Sorry, there is no justification for what she did. Even “artists” have to adhere to some principles of common decency.
Lighting from below in order to make McCain look more sinister.
Photographer Arnold Newman shot Nazi factory owner Alfried Krupp in one of his factories with green lighting in order to make him look more demonic.
The difference–Alfried Krupp really was a Nazi at some point in his career. He tortured people. McCain on the other hand endured extra years of torture in a communist camp in order to stand by his fellow troops.
My question would be how would everyone react if a professional photographer had done this same thing to Obama?
Unprofessional anyway you look at it.
The photo the Atlantic Monthly used is far better than the one she made for herself, which is the kind of lifeless and characterless photograph a first year photo student at a community college has to do as a lighting exercise.
The Atlantic Magazine’s art director and editor’s choice tells us a lot about what McCain has been through, it’s physical toll on him, and how that experience ( torture as a POW and malignant skin cancer) has shaped his thinking. By comparison Greenberg’s personal choice tells us nothing about him. It is simply a bad photo.
Why is her personal photo so weak? Weak direction on top of bad lighting. Compare it for example to Arnold Newman’s portrait of Alfred Krupp — http://tinyurl.com/krupp-newman — which was made basically the same way: in the last frames at the end of a longer portrait session, he had Herr Krupp lean slightly forward to get the ominous effect. ( Krupp had greatly increased his family’s fortunes by aligning himself with Hitler and his Nazi cronies and was a big time user of slave labor in his factories.)
Like Greenburg, Newman made his photo as an emotional response to the subject but it is propelled by Newman’s fierce intellect and intelligence while Greenberg’s personal photo is driven by a shallow and snarky cynicism (the same thing that drives the McCain and Palin campaign to repeat the same obviously obviously disprovable lie ( even GOP master strategist Karl Rove says ” “McCain has gone in his ads one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test,” and of course there is Palin’s continually deliberate mis-statements on the the infamous Bridge-to-Nowhere earmarks) repeatedly — they both Greenberg and McCain’s campaign think you are gullible enough to fall for the Big Lies.
Jill Greenburg thrives on generating controversy. The more McCain supporters gin this thing up, the more she’ll thrive.
Was what she did unprofessional? Sure, but not by making the photo she wanted to make, but in the way she has behaved afterwards.
We know about Newman’s manipulations but they weren’t public knowledge for years afterward. If Greenberg wanted her personal photo to be effective she should have just started circulating the photo without the brass ball clanking braggadocio.
But maybe that is the problem with blogs: you have to fill them up with something and you have to draw attention to their existence.
Will hurt photographers in the long run/ Tighter embargoes, shooting tethered, approval of every frame, more approval and rights to control from the get-go.
She is an idiot!
Thanks a lot Jill! Fine example of the profession you a re not!
Dems save talk about ethics for after the election. We’ve lost two because of our Pollyannish attitude.
Let’s assume (since we don’t know) that she had rights to the outtakes when she reworked the captures into her posted images. Since it is known that she took the cover photo, and can be deduced that this was her only session with McCain, everyone will know that she took these Atlantic outtakes to make her revised images. Did she ever show those outtakes to the magazine? Again, let’s assume so, and that the magazine had no comments to her about those images or restrictions on their use.
Regardless of any bias of the magazine, she has connected her rework with The Atlantic, and bragged at how stupid the magazine and the subject were. Who will want to hire a photographer who may make a fool of the client and the client’s subjects?
It’s one thing to use controversy to fuel your business. In many ways, controversy works. However, Greenberg let her emotions undue her professionalism, and in effect defrauded The Atlantic and McCain for her own agenda. She jumped at the chance to photograph someone she wanted to denigrate, clearly not something The Atlantic hired her to do.
The only clients she’ll be able to get now are ones who want to tie themselves to her controversy, or who have a blatant political message and would like her to manipulate subjects the way she has. But what subjects will agree to let her photograph them?
I think she’ll find a lot fewer jobs for magazines and especially her advertising gigs, if any. Advertisers tend to avoid politicization of their products, and (mostly) want to avoid controversy that can affect their sales. Magazines don’t want to lose their advertisers.
And don’t be surprised if we all see stricter work for hire contracts and fewer rights on outtakes, at least for a while. Jill Greenberg clearly did not take into consideration the effects on her future employability, or how it would affect the photographic industry.
How will you, as part of the photographic industry, treat her, when your rights are restricted on future assignments?
I feel bad for our Country. Instead of weighing out our candidates as we should, we have been hypnotised into acting like we are voting on the next winner for American Idol. C’mon America, I don’t care who each of you votes for, but educate yourselves and do it for the right reasons.
Sincerely,
MinnesotaBoone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-juHi5Zxik
Is anyone else disturbed by her dispassionate description of how to make toddlers cry? She’s not just a bad photojournalist, she’s just bad.
I hope that after this episode she gets audited by the IRS.
I beat my brains out on a regular basis to prove my high level of professionalism to clients to justify my rates; now she goes out and does this………
Jill you’re a dumb c**t.
Before her huge error in judgment; I ran my business as straight and honest as I could and always made sure that my clients needs were taken care of in the most professional of manners. I would never have had to worry about what she did “on her side of the street” nor did I ever worry about any competitive situations with her.
What I am bothered about; is what Ms. Greenberg did to all working editorial photographers by putting herself first and not thinking what impact her selfish actions would have on photographers. Her actions will most definitely have an impact on how editorial clients will be treating us in the future.
What will become more troubling and what will damage more photographers businesses will be the contracts and rights grabs that clients will rain down upon us as a direct result of her actions.
Jill calm down; you need to get laid more often.
from anon above.
Just like work for hire jobs spoil it for a few, I believe everyone, including myself, will still have the ability to negotiate and present ourselves as a professional and adult. People are blowing this way out of proportion. I wish there was this much wrath aimed at the low ballers and bottom feeding scum who do work for hire jobs. I think they have done more collectively to damage our industry than one particular individual who blew HER chances at continuing a professionally tailored service.
From Anon above.
Sorry; Avedon was an artist, Greenberg is an idiot.
Also, the comments of how could they not know… Come on, most people are clueless about professional photography. It’s really stupid to simply assume that what is common knowledge for you is common knowledge for someone untrained in your profession.
HOW ABOUT MCCAIN SUPPORTING BUSH AND KILLING OVER 800,000 INNOCENT IRAQIS?
HOW ABOUT 100 YRS IN IRAQ?
HOW ABOUT ALL OUR GI’S BEEN KILLED IN IRAQ?
HOW ABOUT $5 BUCKS PER GAS?
HOW ABOUT ALL THE LIES FROM THE WHITE HOUSE AND AND THEN MORE LIES TO COVER THE ONES BEFORE?
HOW ABOUT OUR POOR POOR ECONOMIC?
HOW ABOUT WANTING A VP THAT HAS EXPERIENCE FOR SHE IS ABLE TO SEE RUSSIA FROM HER BACKYARD?
PLEASE THIS AINT NOTHING! AND IF A CLIENT WANTS TO GIVE YOU LESS MONEY AND TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS JUST SAY NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
Bush and the reps in less than 5 yrs had killed more innocent Iraqis than Saddam did in 50 yrs.
OBAMA ALL THE WAY!
Otherwise more Bush policies, more Iraq, more $6 gas, more Katrina, more trouble with the economic.
I am sure you were distusted with the invasion of Iraq and the death of over 800,000 innocent Iraqis. Now that is a lot much worse than a stupid picture of a hateful man.
If you guys are so DUMBE and CANT SAY NOOOOO to bad deals then go ahead give up your rights and sign all those ONE-WAY contracts. She did her job and the cover looks great. McCain is an old man, with yellow teeth and red eyes. He aint a movie star. The outakes is something else and none of that ran or were given to the magazine.
And if some of you would vote for McCain, who wants more of Bush and 100 yrs in Iraq, then dont cry once he becomes the president and be glad to have a VP that as credential is saying, “I can see Russia from my backyard.” For reals folks, all photographers have got more experience than Palin. Most of us had traveled a lot more around the world and understand how people think and how they feel about us. Palin is great at shooting a deer here and a sad looking Moose there.
Looks like Jill has different priorities now that she’s a mom. I’m sure she’ll do just fine.
H. R. Haldeman describing the situation to Richard Nixon.
Who among us is infallible? Is Jill Greenberg an Artist or political activist or both? Personally I think she let her own sophomoric feelings impede her judgement. A rational person would have handled their own career a bit more delicately. At what point does the importance or your message exceed your need to survive?
Cain was to see her career go up in smoke. Every editor is going to see this and think twice against hiring her.
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You, my friend, will be the first one to go. Fuck off and die.
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