There is big news in the Photo world this week about Jill Greenbergs photos of John McCain. She was even blogged here before by Matt, and I left a comment on that post about how great her work is. You can see the controversial shots at Jill's site, http://www.manipulator.com. Her total lack of professionalism in using photos of McCain for her own agenda is pretty sad. Her own bragging about it just makes it even worse.
"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.”
I'm sure she'll be fine with her multi-million dollar a year contract with Vanity Fair, that is of course if none of her clients refuse her to photograph them for fear of her trying to blacken their image, but she single handedly cheapened the public's perception of editorial photographers in one day. Vincent Laforet said it best:
"what is terrible is the impact that this will have on every single photographer that ever takes a portrait or photo from hereon out - you can expect PR people to be more diligent than ever, hold the media back with even tighter leashes, and as a result often kill our chance towards original photography."
She was hired as a professional to offer her service and I'm sure that's what the magazine was expecting to get. A signature Greenberg image which I'm sure they paid thousands for, but instead Jill thought it would be better to crap on the magazine and the industry as a whole. If you've read this far you can check out the original story at PDN, and John Harrington's post about it HERE.
1 comment:
wow man, she really went too far. People are pretty venerable when they get their photos taken. Can you imagine how wild the media would go if something like this was done to Obama!? I found some more photos that are even "sillier". She has a monkey peeing/pooping on his head.
It cheapens all her work, and reminds me of doodles I'd do to a newspaper when I was in 5th grade. Its too bad. I liked her bear photos, but now they seem to loose some of their appeal.
I'm not pro-McCain, but its stuff like this that makes me so turned off to artists involvement in politics.
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