How disheartening that a professional photographer contracted by a national magazine, put in less than her usual 100% effort to photograph the subject she was paid to capture as best as possible. She then went on to take some extra photographic shots, for herself. Photographer, Jill Greenberg, self-admitted “pretty hard core Democrat.” Subject, John McCain, Republican presidential nominee. Magazine cover, October 2008, The Atlantic.
Newsbusters and PDNPulse provide fascinating information on this professional photographer who apparently does not know how to keep her personal political leanings separate from her work. She took the photograph of McCain that was selected for the cover alright. She delivered the heroic image of McCain, but she significantly minimized the retouching. “I left his eyes red, and his skin looking bad,” she says. Not like her since she is well known for highly retouching her photographs. Perhaps this may not strike someone as anything significant.
It is what she did after she got her shots of McCain that makes one question why anyone would want her professional services, with her self aligned motives, and not the job at hand.
After getting that shot, Greenberg asked McCain to “please come over here” for one more set-up before the 15-minute shoot was over. There, she had a beauty dish with a modeling light set up. “That’s what he thought he was being lit by,” Greenberg says. “But that wasn’t firing.”
What was firing was a strobe positioned below him, which cast the horror movie shadows across his face and on the wall right behind him. “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.
She actually was aiming for this photo as the mag cover selection, a diabolical, sinister potrayal. But she sees nothing wrong with taking the assignment. She believes it ”was somewhat irresponsible for them [The Atlantic] to hire me.”
“Greenberg is hoping to license that image to some other magazine (she negotiated a two-week embargo with The Atlantic so she could re-license images from the shoot before the election).”
Expectant of the heated questions that could arise from using the image elsewhere,
“Good. I want to stir stuff up, but not to the point where I get audited if he becomes president.”
That said, she goes on to explain that she’s thought about replacing McCain’s mouth with bloody shark teeth and displaying the image on a billboard with the message that the candidate is a bloodthirsty war monger.
Her images and captions of McCain can be seen at The Manipulator. With repeated hits of the refresh button at the front page of her website, the McCain shark image will appear.
Be careful if Jill Greenburg ever takes your picture.
Image courtesy of http://www.cinevegas.com/cv/index.php?option=com_myblog&Itemid=292&limit=20&limitstart=80/.
“Jill Greenberg’s depiction of John McCain for The Atlantic magazine, and for her business as ’I am a bloodthirsty, warmongerer,’ at www.manipulator.com”
Image courtesy of http://www.nypost.com/seven/09142008/photos/mccain914.jpg.
The New York Post notes the following
Greenberg later decided to use some of the images she was assigned to take to make a political statement.
Her Web site now features a series of Photoshopped pics of McCain in some highly unflattering poses – including one that has a monkey squirting dung onto the Republican candidate’s head.
Another one reads “I am a bloodthirsty warmongerer,” with McCain retouched to have needle-sharp shark teeth and a vicious grin, while licking blood-smeared lips.
Greenberg was unapologetic about the assignment.
“Some of my artwork has been pretty anti-Bush, so maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for [The Atlantic] to hire me.”
[Atlantic editor James] Bennet said, “We don’t vet our photographers by their politics.”
In a statement yesterday, Greenberg added, “The pictures speak for themselves. I took the opportunity to create an image which shows my feelings about the Republican administration and possible continuation of the policies of the Bush/Cheny White House.”
Yikes! Looks like someone has a grudge and desperately seeks public approval! At the cost of her professional reputation, unfortunately.
**Update**
Thanks to Newsbusters for updated information that gives this sad story another twist. Read on. Sorry.
*****Update: NBer CyberNorris has found a website that has Greenberg’s disgraceful McCain pictures.
*****Update II: The Senior Vice President of the public relations firm that represents The Atlantic sent me the following e-mail message Sunday (with permission):
Following up on your post about Jill Greenberg’s photos of John McCain, I wanted to share the following statement from James Bennet, editor of The Atlantic:
“We stand by the respectful image of John McCain that we used on our cover, and we expect to be judged by it. 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.“
**Update**
This follow-up story at Newsbusters adds another dimension. Photos have been moved and can be viewed at this site.
Shannon Love over at Chicago Boyz offered this salient opinion Sunday (h/t Instapundit):
The important thing here is not that Greenberg took and altered the pictures. The import thing is that she felt comfortable bragging about what she did! She expected to receive accolades and approval from the Left for her dirty trick. This tells us a lot about what kind of ethics Greenberg believes the Left approves of. Given her immersion in the upper class, urban, articulate intellectual culture of the far Left, her assessment is probably correct.
The far Left has long since adopted the world view of the radical Marxist in which political utility equals truth. Incapable of believing themselves capable of intellectual error or moral failing, they see themselves obligated to acquire power by any means necessary. They view democracy as only a means of acquiring the legitimacy to use that power. If they must do so under false pretenses, then they will. They believe that the enormous benefits of their enlightened rule outweigh any consequences of the dishonest acts that bring about that rule.
Politics is an ugly business and dirty tricks abound. Individuals from every part of the political spectrum stoop to low tactics to win. What we see on the contemporary far Left, however, is a lack of shame about doing so and complete unwillingness to punish those who go too far.
We should worry if that mindset really does gain power.
**Update**
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more surprising, Michelle Malkin reveals that Jill Greenberg actually has a provocative reputation. For example, making children cry for the dramatic effects that would lend themselves to sensationalistic captions or headlines deriding George Bush for an exhibit in 2006. Malkin calls this, “the child abuse-for-art controversy.” Her article is illuminating along with the supporting links.
A simple Google search would have turned up my post and posts by many professional photographers disgusted by what she did in 2004 and put on exhibit in 2006. This woman deliberately terrorized children, stripped them, ordered parents to “step out of the studio for a couple minutes” in concerted attempts to make children cry who were not cooperating, and then captioned the photos of the children with anti-Bush slogans.
It remains to be seen what comes out of this leftist agenda, both the photographer and The Atlantic. Their surprise at this reputation is hard to fathom, considering Greenberg’s well known reputation, and The Atlantic’s well known anti-McCain/Palin recent reputation.
This is the same magazine that pays the salary of that cretin demanding Trig Palin’s birth records.
This is the same magazine that captioned a photo of McCain “McCainloser.jpg” just five months ago.
And now they say they were “blindsided?”
Malkin goes on to note how The Atlantic will extend an apology to McCain. Maybe even a lawsuit.
Newsbusters noted on a September 16, 2008 post, that the Atlantic Magazine has apologized to John McCain, and it will not hire Jill Greenberg again.
2. http://www.pdnpulse.com/2008/09/how-jill-greenb.html.
3. http://www.manipulator.com/.
4. http://www.nypost.com/seven/09142008/news/politics/mac_hater_has_a_lousy_image_129007.htm.
6. http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/024323.php.
7. http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6217.html.
8. http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/bad_americans/the_atlantic_mo.php. More details and the photographs (Greenberg’s moved them off her home page and deeper into the site).
2 responses so far ↓
Digital Photography » Blog Archive » Professional Photographer Sabotages McCain // September 14, 2008 at 10:08 am
[...] Digital photography by thetownecrier [...]
John McCain // September 14, 2008 at 10:29 am
Yeah, that was a mean guy.
He surely is an Obama fan. Yuck!
But I already enjoy my revenge.
Vote for me.
Thank you for support.