{"id":31924,"date":"2016-06-01T23:45:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T03:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/?p=31924"},"modified":"2016-06-09T20:16:29","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T00:16:29","slug":"the-visual-storyteller-mantra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/2016\/06\/01\/the-visual-storyteller-mantra\/","title":{"rendered":"The “Visual Storyteller” Mantra"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A.<\/a>When the falsification of a photograph comes to light in the context of what I refer to cumulatively as informationally oriented imagery \u2014 the modes we call documentary photography, photojournalism, and press photography \u2014 it has consequences. Quite aside from whatever professional and public censure and penalties result, a broader issue of credibility arises, affecting not just that photographer’s future work but also whatever he or she has produced and published in the past. For example:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Once even Robert Capa’s staunchest public defender, Richard Whelan, admits that the best-case scenario for the context of Capa’s iconic 1937 image “Falling Soldier” is that it represents a real death occurring unexpectedly in the midst of a staged combat scene<\/a>, and that Capa allowed it to be misleadingly captioned thenceforth, we reasonably look back at all Capa’s war photographs for indicators of inauthenticity.<\/p>\n

\"Jean-Claude<\/a>

Jean-Claude Gautrand, “Robert_Doisneau” (2012), cover<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2022 After Robert Doisneau, in\u00a0presenting evidence to a French civil court in 1993, admitted that he had staged his most famous (and profitable) photograph<\/a>, the 1950 “Kiss in front of the Hotel de Ville,” with hired actors, thereafter allowing its frequent republication as a perceptive cultural insider’s documentation of spontaneous public behavior, that forced confession calls into question not just this one image but all of Doisneau’s purportedly sociological observation of French life. (Certainly it forever changed the way I experience that photograph, converting it instantly and irrevocably from reportage into theater.)<\/p>\n

\u2022 And as soon as a fellow professional outed Magnum Photos member Steve McCurry for digital manipulation<\/a> of an image he placed on public exhibition, others began, predictably, searching for \u2014 and, not surprisingly, finding \u2014 that McCurry has made a habit of such fakery for many years, which not only affects the way one views those specific images but suggests that one should approach the entirety of this photographer’s body of work with caution.<\/p>\n

This constitutes the absolutely appropriate and commendable work of concerned and committed citizens watchdogging the journalistic sources on which they depend for reliable information, keeping them honest and shaming them when they lie. It is not witch-hunting, or the malicious destruction of reputation for the thrill of the kill. (The fact that the ensuing debate has attracted anonymous commentary from trolls proves nothing. Everything online potentially attracts trolls; they don’t need the smell of blood to start feasting.)<\/p>\n

The Story So Far<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 This uproar got started by photographer Paolo Viglione, who went to a show of McCurry’s work,\u00a0The World of Steve McCurry<\/a>, in Turin, Italy, noted a digital artifact that resulted from image manipulation in one of the prints of an image from Cuba, and posted about what he saw on his blog (in Italian only, alas): “Quando steve McCurry etc etc,”<\/a> April 29, 2016.<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/a>

Steve McCurry’s Photoshopped image, Cuba (detail)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2022 Petapixel picked up on the resulting buzz, publishing D. L. Cade’s report, “Botched Steve McCurry Print Leads to Photoshop Scandal,”<\/a> on May 6, 2016. They published the full image spotted by\u00a0Viglione, and the relevant detail thereof. (See detail at right.) The print in the exhibition was in fact itself a detail of a much larger image, since deleted<\/a> from McCurry’s website.<\/p>\n

In addition, Petapixel included variants of two more published McCurry photographs that crowdsourcing had revealed as clearly altered digitally, so as to remove and\/or replace some of the pictorial content.<\/p>\n

This Petapixel story includes a response from McCurry that reads, in part,<\/p>\n

“… [L]ike other artists, my career has gone through many stages.<\/em><\/p>\n

Today I would define my work as <\/em>visual storytelling, because the pictures have been shot in many places, for many reasons, and in many situations.<\/em> …
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

My photography is my art, and it\u2019s gratifying when people enjoy and appreciate it. …”<\/em><\/p>\n

Note, for the record, that the tagline for McCurry’s website<\/a>, where sharp-eyed viewers found these digitally manipulated images, states, “Steve McCurry, photojournalist, displays his recent work in essay form as well as offering a gallery of well-known work.<\/span>” Not “visual storyteller” \u2014 photojournalist<\/em>.<\/p>\n

At the end of his statement, McCurry blames the manipulation of the photo on an unnamed assistant, operating at a time when the photographer was not in his studio. Cade writes, “He said the issue in the Cuba image was, ‘a change that I would have never authorized,’ and ‘the lab technician who made the mistake does not work with me anymore.'”<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/a>

Steve McCurry, WordPress blog, screenshot, 6-1-16<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2022 Petapixel followed up with a May 26 story by editor-in-chief Michael Zhang, “More Photoshopped Photos Emerge in the Steve McCurry Scandal.”<\/a> Not only does this website continue to define the situation as a “scandal,” but they present a selection of 7 images posted at McCurry’s blog between 2009 and 2015 for which the located significant variants. They have turned these into GIFs (using Giphy) that show the differences.<\/p>\n

In most cases, I see these as acceptable color corrections and lighting adjustments. And I don’t consider it editorially objectionable to print a color image as black & white. Be that as it may, McCurry has since taken down his blog<\/a> in its entirety, which will make it a bit more difficult for those probing into his practices. (But not impossible; the entire site is well archived at The Wayback Machine<\/a>, bless their hearts.)<\/p>\n

\u2022 On May 25 my old friends, the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA)<\/a>, chimed in with “ETHICS MATTERS: A commentary from NPPA’s Ethics Committee regarding the photographs of Steve McCurry,”<\/a> written by Steve Raymer. Raymer, a member of NPPA’s Ethics Committee, forthrightly declares himself compromised in his response to the situation:<\/p>\n

“As a long-time colleague of McCurry\u2019s at <\/em>National Geographic and, more recently, a professor who has authored five books of documentary photography, I have struggled with creating images for sale as exhibition prints and how to ensure that gallery-goers and buyers understood my esthetic motivation for an alteration \u2014 to create a work of beauty that goes beyond the strict limitations of journalism.”<\/em><\/p>\n

He then goes into the evasive dance of the slipperiness of the concept of truth:<\/p>\n

“In the meantime, the McCurry controversy also has drawn attention to the subjectivity of all photography, photojournalism included. There is the subjectivity of the viewfinder \u2014 what is left in and what is left out of the picture is an emphatic decision made by the photographer. There is the old aphorism that says no two photographers will ever see the same subject in the same way.”<\/em><\/p>\n

As if this in any way justifies image alterations that revise the situation described in the original photograph. I don’t know where Raymer has kept himself for the past four decades, but “the subjectivity of all photography, photojournalism included” hardly needed any attention drawn to it \u2014 it has had constant attention focused on it since the late 1960s by many, myself among them.<\/p>\n

(To his credit, despite his obvious anguish over having to say unpleasant things about a friend, toward the end of the article Raymer does write, “And it’s fair to note that in the last 10 years, several high-profile newspaper photojournalists have been fired for transgressions lesser than McCurry’s<\/a>.” I’d have put that it the lede graph, but then I’m not McCurry’s chum.)<\/p>\n

\"NPPA-Grady<\/a>Along the line, Raymer mentions that, among McCurry’s professional laurels, “He also was named NPPA’s Magazine Photographer of the Year in 1984.” So McCurry’s ethical fall from grace reflects badly on the organization. That doesn’t stop NPPA Ethics Committee chairman Sean D. Elliot from condemning McCurry’s actions in no uncertain terms, as quoted in Raymer’s piece:<\/p>\n

Elliott says that no matter what McCurry calls himself today, “He bears the responsibility to uphold the ethical standards of his peers and the public, who see him as a photojournalist.” Elliot, the chief photojournalist and assignment editor for <\/em>The Day in New London, Connecticut, says this means that “Any alteration of the journalistic truth of his images, any manipulation of the facts, regardless of how relevant he or others might feel they are to the deeper ‘truth,’ constitutes an ethical lapse.” Elliot also called McCurry’s attempt to blame an assistant “disingenuous” and questions the professional standards of a studio in which a lab assistant “feels they have the authority to radically alter the work of Steve McCurry.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 Petapixel returned to the brouhaha on May 30 with a third story, the second one by editor-in-chief Michael Zhang: “Steve McCurry Says He Will ‘Rein in His Use of Photoshop.'”<\/a> Therein McCurry “responded to the recent hoopla surrounding his Photoshopped photos. The famed photographer explains that he’s now a ‘visual storyteller’ rather than a photojournalist, but says he will ‘rein in his use of Photoshop’ going forward to remove any confusion.”<\/p>\n

\"TIME<\/a>

TIME Lightbox, Olivier Laurent on Steve McCurry, 5-30-16, screenshot<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2022 That same day, May 30, Olivier Laurent, editor of the TIME feature “Lightbox,” took this well beyond the confines of insider baseball with “Steve McCurry: I\u2019m a Visual Storyteller Not a Photojournalist.”<\/a> Laurent (whose headline noticeably lacks a comma) writes:<\/p>\n

“I’ve always let my pictures do the talking, but now I understand that people want me to describe the category into which I would put myself, and so I would say that today I am a visual storyteller,” McCurry tells TIME. “The years of covering conflict zones are in the distant past.”<\/em><\/p>\n

… He adds: “Reflecting on the situation\u2026 even though I felt that I could do what I wanted to my own pictures in an aesthetic and compositional sense, I now understand how confusing it must be for people who think I’m still a photojournalist.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Especially confusing to those poor, befuddled, slow-on-the-uptake people who haven’t evolved along with him because, as noted above, McCurry continues to describe himself as a photojournalist at his own website.<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/a>

Steve McCurry, National Geographic, December 1984, cover<\/p><\/div>\n

I agree with Sean Elliott of NPPA on this, especially because, even in the period where he claimed the status of a photojournalist, and profited from that claim, McCurry willingly played fast and loose with the veracity of his images. Consider his December 1984 cover for National Geographic<\/em>, of which he says, according to the TIME<\/em> article,<\/p>\n

“I recall when my horizontal picture of the tailor in India’s monsoon was published on a <\/em>National Geographic magazine cover, the water was extended down to fit the vertical format,” he says. “That use of Photoshop ensured that a powerful image wouldn’t be rejected because it was a horizontal orientation. Some would say that was wrong, but I thought it was appropriate because the truth and integrity of the picture were maintained.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Which, loosely translated, means “So long as the publisher approved, why should I have given up the money and prestige and audience attention that comes with a National Geographic<\/em> cover simply because my photo couldn’t be adjusted to fit the format without digitally altering it?”<\/p>\n

… a\/k\/a the Steve McCurry Defense<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though it may surprise my readers, I’m actually less interested in the state of Steve McCurry’s ethics \u2014 already thoroughly exposed in the debate over this incident \u2014 than I am in the argument he musters in his own defense: That, because he self-defines himself anew as a “visual storyteller,” he thereby becomes an artist, and that either of those rubrics (and especially both of them in combination) entitles him to exchange any pesky obligation to factual accuracy in his imagery for what Stephen Colbert so eloquently named “truthiness.”<\/p>\n

Not that McCurry came by it this way, but they must have started inculcating this “I’m a visual storyteller” mantra in photojournalism school \u2014 and in photography programs in colleges, universities, and art schools \u2014 awhile back. Because it has begun reproducing itself with startling rapidity. I’ve noticed it cropping up with increasing frequency in the bios and artists’ statements of young photographers. Google that catchphrase<\/a> (“About 1,410,000 results”) and you’ll find it used as a self-definition by hundreds of photographers, all of whom you can bet your life didn’t spontaneously come up with it on their lonesomes.<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/a>

Google Images search results for “visual storyteller,” screenshot, 6-1-16<\/p><\/div>\n

Google “visual storytelling”<\/a> (“About 3,780,000 results”) and you find the same thing, deployed not just by photojournalists<\/a> and documentary photographers<\/a> but by commercial photographers<\/a>, wedding photographers<\/a>, food photographers<\/a>, corporate-report photographers<\/a>, travel photographers<\/a>, real-estate photographers<\/a> \u2014 not to mention art directors<\/a> and picture editors<\/a>, graphic designers<\/a>, book designers<\/a>, infographic designers<\/a>, children’s-book illustrators<\/a>, comic-book artists<\/a>, filmmakers<\/a>, videographers<\/a> … basically, anyone and everyone who deals with images in any way.<\/p>\n

Visit enough of those sites, read the mantra often enough, and you could start to think you’ve wandered into some 12-step rehab meeting: “Hi, my name is Sandra, and I’m a visual storyteller.” Hello, Sandra. Or you can find yourself imagining a roomful of them at some cocktail party mixer for young creatives: “Hi, I’m Dwayne. I’m a visual storyteller.” “How interesting. I’m Ashley, and I’m a visual storyteller. Let me introduce you to my friend Dylan. He’s a visual storyteller too.”<\/p>\n

I’ll hazard a guess that this unintentionally comical mantra didn’t originate in photo programs, but got adopted by photo teachers who heard it from colleagues in filmmaking and the graphic arts and passed it along to their students because it just sounds so much more resonant than the humdrum, workaday “photographer.” It pretends to function as a one-size-fits-all descriptor, but in fact it doesn’t describe anything at all; what this phrase actually denotes it keeps intentionally vague. But its connotation is clear: Hey, I don’t just practice this or that specialized craft in the field of visual communication. I have a higher calling, as a member of the ancient caste of griots.<\/p>\n

In short, since it carefully avoids specifying particular skills it has only self-praise and self-promotion as its purpose.<\/p>\n

\""PR<\/a>

“PR Trends for 2015: Focus on Visual Storytelling,” PR Newswire slide<\/p><\/div>\n

From where I sit, the most important consequence of this scandal (aside from reminding us that photographers, like most people, will do anything that benefits them, ethics be damned) lies in the fact that the vapid phrase “visual storyteller” has suddenly become highlighted \u2014 while acquiring a darker meaning \u2014 with the revelation that Magnum photographer Steve McCurry deploys it as a both a rationale and a magic charm that, he seems to think, immunizes him from the charges of bad faith and breach of professional ethics that accrue nowadays to a photojournalist who gets caught doing the same things.<\/p>\n

So, next time you hear someone say “I’m a visual storyteller,” remember that you’re listening to the Steve McCurry Defense.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

To conclude, a word of advice to McCurry: Long ago, in a book whose title and author I can’t remember, I read that during the Edo period (1603-1868) Japanese woodblock artists would work for years perfecting a particular combination of technique and style that would make them famous. Then they would change not only the technique and style but also their names, starting again at the beginning.<\/p>\n

I haven’t had time to source that, so it may prove apocryphal. Still, it’s a model worth pondering for anyone seriously considering a transition from one mode of visual communication to another.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

[As a curious historical footnote, in 2011, by special arrangement with Kodak, McCurry — who had gone digital years before, like so many of his colleagues \u2014 persuaded Kodak to give him the very last roll of Kodachrome to roll off the production line in Rochester, NY. You can read about the exposures he made in “The Last Roll of Kodachrome\u2014Frame by Frame!”<\/a> by David Friend, published in the January 2012 issue of Vanity Fair<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

[Postscript, June 9, 2016: See Robert Dannin’s response to this post, published at this blog as a Guest Post. See also the article “Eyes of the Afghan Girl: A Critical Take on the ‘Steve McCurry Scandal'”<\/a> by Indian photographer Kshitij Nagar, published at Petapixel on June 7, 2016, which goes into considerable detail in re McCurry’s practice.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

\"A.<\/a>Special offer:<\/strong> If you want me to either continue pursuing a particular subject or give you a break and (for one post) write on a topic \u2014 my choice \u2014 other than the current main story, make a donation of $50 via the PayPal widget below<\/strong>, indicating your preference in a note accompanying your donation. I’ll credit you as that new post’s sponsor, and link to a website of your choosing. Include\u00a0 a note with your snail-mail address (or email it to me separately) for a free signed copy of my 1995 book <\/a><\/em>Critical Focus!<\/em><\/p>\n

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From where I sit, the most important consequence of this scandal (aside from reminding us that photographers, like most people, will do anything that benefits them, ethics be damned) lies in the fact that the vapid phrase “visual storyteller” has suddenly become highlighted \u2014 while acquiring a darker meaning \u2014 with the revelation that Magnum photographer Steve McCurry deploys it as a both a rationale and a magic charm that, he seems to think, immunizes him from the charges of bad faith and breach of professional ethics that accrue nowadays to a photojournalist who gets caught doing the same things. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,15,946],"tags":[731,1265,1264],"class_list":["post-31924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital-technology","category-news-commentary","category-photojournalism-2","tag-national-press-photographers-association-nppa","tag-sean-d-elliot","tag-steve-mccurry","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}