BAGnewsNotes

More "Staginess"

About two weeks back, there was an interesting discussion here in response to Alan Chin's reaction to covering Clinton and Obama in New Hampshire.  The topic was media staging, and part of the conversation had to do with how the presidential campaigns "hyper-control" what we see.

In response -- and to also introduce and welcome The BAG's newest contributer, German photographer, Heinrich Voelkel -- I offer you this "slightly tongue-in-cheek" slideshow of out-takes Heinrich captured last month. 

The occasion was a meeting between President Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Angela Merkel at Schloss Meseberg, the German's newly-renovated government guest house about 40 miles north of Berlin. 

According to Heinrich -- and in response to the New Hampshire photos -- his thinks the Europeans are even more controlling and visually calculated than the Americans.  At Schloss Meseberg, for example, four "photo stations" were laid out with pre-arranged scenes to be staged at each one.  (Heinrich managed to get to two, explaining that it's impossible to cover anymore ground.)

The result of "the show" was that Merkel and Chirac not only presented themselves to the press, as if incidentally, four separate times (the way newlyweds might jump from photo spot to photo spot at a wedding), but Chirac and Merkel actually staged four separate kissing scenes.

(If it comes through, I'm expecting a "third" kiss from still another "station," through the courtesy of a colleague of Heinrich's.  If I receive it, I'll post it as an update.)

As I've said previously, the knowledge that political photos are staged is certainly unique.  What is more so is the opportunity, and the ability, for us to see, and to visually begin to strip off the scaffolding.

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Update 3/28/07:  I just received a version of  kiss #3."  Thanks to Carsten Koall.  Used by permission.

I invite your comments in general, as well as analysis of any particular image (which you review, as a group, by clicking the icon to the right of the "double right" arrow.  To see any single photo in full size, first click  "photo options," then "view larger photo."  This won't work from a text slide, however.)

(images:   Heinrich Voelkel.  Used by permission.  Schloss Meseberg. February 23, 2007.)

Vote Different

"Guerilla politics."  "Citizen ads."  If anything, it make the vision of 1984 something of a fallacy.

From a strictly political standpoint, however, I'm interested in the frame ad man Phil De Vellis hung around Hillary Clinton.  If the fear regarding Hillary (or, "Clinton Inc.," as she is sometimes derogatorily referred to) is that she's a corporate shill and a hopeless "triangulator," this indie/pro-Obama "Vote Different" ad hits some powerful buttons.

The code on the screen reduces each of us to a number. The "big brother" analogy levels out any unique impact of Hillary's gender.  (Not lost, of course, is the fact a woman destroys the icon.) While being invited to engage in a conversation, our casting -- as lobotomized campaign drones -- puts a bitter twist on the subliminal exhortation to "be part of the team."

And then, the logo at the end cues all kinds of distinctions evoking innovative versus the routine, the vibrant versus the colorless, and tomorrow versus yesterday.

If the early days of the campaign involve the shaping and counter-programming of personal images, I'd say Phil did Clinton and her media team a favor.  Unless they are so myopic and fixed in their ways that they just (either technologically or thematically) ignore this (which would prove this "one man" guerilla ad not just clever, but prophetic), they need to seriously channel the meme of their candidate (including themselves, too) as a "machine."

(click all pics for full sizes)

It's curious how, in responding to the video, Obama told last-generation media relic Larry King:

"Frankly, given what it looks like, we don't have the technical capacity to create something like this... "It's pretty extraordinary."

Of course, that's a lot of b.s. -- at least from a financial and technical standpoint.  If what he's talking about, however, is the ability to think, act, and conduct oneself in a more freely creative way, that projects almost as much about his own mechanistic tendencies.

View the video here.

(video frames:  Apple iPod ad/Phil De Vellis via YouTube)

Our Own Media: Going Forward

Two weeks ago, I launched an effort to help bring political imagery directly into the public sphere.

The purpose of "Our Own Media" fund is to help support and subsidize the socially committed, traditionally underpaid and inherently visionary photojournalist.  The goal of the effort -- in addition to bringing more political content to the site -- is to establish a precedent for the grassroots, independent support of social/political photojournalism and to strengthen the progressive blogosphere as a platform and forum for this vital imagery.

I want to thank Digby for his support, as well as several progressive blogs -- including Crooks and Liars, Brad Blog, Majikthise, Tattered Coat and Hughes for America  -- that have donated free advertising space to promote the fund.  (If you're interested in supporting Majikthise, by the way, which you can contribute here.)

Primarily, though, I want to thank the over 100 of you who have already donated.  So far, we have raised over $8,500 out of what I consider an achievable goal of $30,000. 

If you are part of the 90% of The BAG's regular, daily readership that hasn't donated yet (or just a fan), and you're capable, I ask that you please go to the "Our Own Media" fund page and click on one of the contribution buttons (or mail in a check to the address) at the bottom of the post.   

So, what kind of impact is the fund already having on The BAG?

Besides increasing my coverage of original ("non-newswire") imagery,  I'm now working with a handful of photographers to adapt extended material for the site.  In the next six to eight months, I'm especially interested in testing how far one can push the blog format as a story-telling medium. 

Also, your help is enabling me to work more closely with existing contributers, Tim Fadek and Alan Chin, and also invite a few more regular contributers to the site. 

If you hang out at The BAG, I'm sure you remember the "Oh (Chinese) Christmas Tree" post from this past December.  That entry, dealing with how the Chinese market Christmas in Africa, featured the work of a talented young Spanish photographer named Héctor Mediavilla. 

While teaching photography in Congo several years ago, Héctor came upon a subculture of men who derive their lifestyle and sense of well-being from elegant comportment along with the import of fine French clothing.  This subculture -- known as the "Sape" (which stands for the Society of Ambiance's and Elegant People)-- extends back more than four generations.  Until Héctor came upon the society, however, it was virtually unheard of outside Congo, even in France. 

Because the Sape look up to Western culture and many Sape have immigrated to France (with mixed results), their story offers a compelling and practical lens through which to view the larger issues of globalization, migration, identity and race.  Looking at the Sape historically, at present, as well as forward, into the future, I'm excited to offer this story in extended and serialized fashion along with my welcome new contributor, Héctor Mediavilla.

(Regarding the show:  This presentation was adapted from "Le Parisian Kiboba" (The Old Parisian), a video by Héctor Mediavilla.  The slide show was created by The BAG as part of an ongoing experiment into visual, blogospheric storytelling.  If you wish to comment on particular stills, you can refer to them by number.)

Your Turn: Demobilized

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I was interested in your take on the cover, as well as the inside and multimedia images, of this latest NYT Mag feature.

On this fourth anniversary of the Iraq campaign, my sense is that public tolerance -- as conveyed through the tone and stance of widely-circulated and current political visuals -- has reached a tipping point.  An image like this is an example of the blowback, framing the war/occupation -- both figuratively as well as literally -- as an assault on women.

I leave it to you to put words to image, including the way trust and service is narrated through stage, act and form of dress.
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Update (3/21/07)

Majikthise has an interesting analysis of the NYT visuals.

Check out her take concerning the sexualized nature of the photographs, especially the "inside lead" image of Suzanne Swift posing on the beach.  The discussion thread is also interesting, especially the observation that these women -- particularly in the multimedia offering -- are framed in exceedingly domestic, as opposed to "soldiering" situations.

Looking further, my question is, were these soldiers taken advantage of (once again) given the decision to employ an art photographer with a reputation for erotic portraits?

Multimedia piece.

(caption 1: Keri Christensen, a former Wisconsin Army National Guardswoman who has post-traumatic stress disorder. "This was my career," she says, "and they stole it from me."  caption 2: Suzanne Swift. Just before she was to leave for her second tour in Iraq, she told her mother: "I can't do this. I can't go back there." caption 3: Amorita Randall. “Saying something was looked down upon,” says the naval construction worker who served in Iraq in 2004 and says she was raped.image: Katy Grannan for The New York Times.  March 18, 2006.  NYT Magazine. nytimes.com)

Looking More Like It

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No, I'm not advocating civil disobedience.  "It," in this case, refers to a more determined and evocative opposition -- which comes through in the images of this weekend's antiwar protest in D.C.

If you're looking for fervor, take this image that accompanied the absolutely trivial and condescending article in the NYT as an example.

It's a shot that contains news value as well as historical allusions.  The gas masks and the show of manpower speaks of current confrontation or threat -- as well as the memory of it from the Vietnam era.  If you take the Code Pink protesters out of the background, the protester's jeans, jacket and long hair, paired with the policeman with the crew cut, makes it look like, well, 1967.

Compared to the demonstration in Washington this past February, this one was considerably smaller.  Reading the images, however, I'd say this one was much more significant.  (For a summary of the event -- and a a rare piece of MSM protest coverage that is nostalgic, informative and inspired, check out WAPO's profile, "Theater of Battle With A Familiar Script.")

So, what made this weekend's protest more effective and significant than previous events?

The Conservatives' Undertaker

Four years ago, shifting the focus of The BAG to concentrate solely on news images, my sense was that pictures would soon take on a much higher role in political media and advocacy.

On Friday, Pentagram had a wonderful spread on the TIME redesign.  Reviewing the pages, we see how the magazine is cutting back the words;  morphing more into a web adjunct; and delivering a larger part of the story in a form we're more regularly familiar with around here.

Design notwithstanding, however, let's not overlook the visual dynamics of this particular issue.

How pathetic for McCain.  The campaign hasn't even gotten going yet, and he's framed as the poster boy for a suddenly drowning movement.  Given the comparative size and symmetric relationship between the "How The Right Went Wrong" title and the candidate himself, McCain gets slammed as both product and culprit.

If you view the lead article (also on the cover, and referenced in the McCain caption), however, the candidate is visually dealt a more devastating blow.  Noting how Reagan, himself, held up McCain to the nation as a conservative model, TIME has specifically turned McCain (looking akin to an undertaker) into the Gipper's crying shame.

(image 1: Joe Pugliese.  TIME via Pentagram.com  image 2: David Hume Kennerly.  Tear by Tim O'Brian.  TIME. Mar. 26, 2007.  time.com)

Law And Order Candidate

At first, I thought today's LAT on-line headline about the potential presidential candidacy of Fred Thompson was a bit of a joke.  But that was before I clicked through to the article and saw the accompanying photos.

The smaller one, a tight shot of Thompson in front of an American flag, I believe, is from "real life."  The second, much larger shot, however, is the one you see above.

Forming a package with the pic is the following caption on the "enlarge" page:

ALTERNATIVE TO MODERATES: Fred Thompson, who portrays a politically savvy district attorney on NBC’s “Law & Order,” takes conservative positions on key social issues.

Sure the text identifies Thompson as an actor (and is followed by a photo credit from NBC).  At the same time, however, the caption doesn't actually identify the photo as fictional, but assumes you (as a full-blooded American TV watcher) know that already.  Subtle point maybe, but doesn't the caption itself blend fiction and reality by marrying (in one sentence) Thompson's "conservative positions" to the visual representation and physical stance of his television persona?

I am very interested in your reaction to this image -- particularly how you encounter it perceptually, and whether (and how) you experience it shifting back-and-forth between Hollywood and Washingtonland. 

Obama's Mosque

That's one shiny dome, huh?

Call it unfortunate timing that the LAT backgrounder on Barack Obama's Islamic education shared the same front page yesterday with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.  (Why the media incessantly runs the same grimy shot of that guy, and why the press sucked up the Pentagon's propaganda over Mohammed confessing to almost every real or imagined terrorist act in the past ten years is still another story.)

What I was particularly interested in, however, was how the Times framed Obama's early religious experience.

Credit is due, in the article, for mentioning that "political Islam was far less influential in the 1960s than it is today."  At the same time, the story -- and, especially, the photo gallery -- weaves the impression that Obama -- between the ages of 6 and 10 -- was a more devout practicing Moslem than he lets on.

Although Obama has made known he attended an Islamic school for a couple of years, the Times seems intent on nailing him for a lack of specificity about his religious curriculum and occasional prayer attendance.  Having first gone to a Catholic school for two years, Obama went to a Muslim school for third and forth grade.  Although the article describes the school, founded by the Dutch, as a high-level place that produced many of Indonesia's elite, the inference -- especially given this image leading off the photo gallery (and given the Western media's tendency to use of Islamic religious symbolism to connote ideological extremism) is that Obama still somehow attended a madrassa -- or fundamentalist Islamic school.

In the world of parsed facts and factual hair-splitting, however, it would have been nice to know more specifically that this mosque -- put forth as authoritative visual evidence that the juvenile Barack attended a religious complex where he allegedly prayed -- didn't even exist at the time.

You can view the rest of the images in the photo gallery, including the murky class picture with Obama in the back; a shot of the "whistle blowing" former vice-principal at Obama's Jakarta public school who recalls his attendance at religious lessons (despite his official records having been "eaten by bugs"); and the practically accusatory last shot of Obama framed in a shiny, overly precious light, posed in front of our the American flag.

(image: Paul Watson / LAT.  March 15, 2007. latimes.com)

Oh God

Clearly Dick Cheney must have some secret strategic clout reserve.

-- Jon Stewart

Right here and now, I'm getting my act straight on Cheney.  And this cover provides the clincher.

I mean, you call that being under a cloud?

Plainly, Cheney is not under anything that isn't cheaply pasted over his head by a histrionic media.  At best, this illustration -- given Cheney's posture and expression -- makes a cheap joke out of Cheney as "the innocent angel."  (Notice the thematic connection to the story title, by the way: "Cheney's Fall From Grace.")  Playing it straight, the TIME cover proffers Cheney more as a kind of magic genie (who can confine any amount of trouble) or even some Olympian god who can command the force of lightening.

It's that seer, Jon Stewart, however, who hits the latest Cheney nonsense squarely on the head.  Says Stewart (from this great clip via C&L):

It is clear there is nothing any of us can do to stop Dick Cheney's clout.  All we we can try and do is neutralize its effects.

Once again, it's the image that telegraphs the true story, in direct contradiction to the words.  What we see here is Cheney, operating largely in the clear, under nothing that could tangibly or believably be seen as a real cloud -- puny as it might be.

(image: Brooks Craft. TIME cover.  March 19, 2007.)

The Usual Motion

It's a survey -- using each newswire photo available on Yahoo News last night -- of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' news conference yesterday.  Yes, that's the session where Gonzales admitted "mistakes were made" regarding the politically-motivated firing of seven different United States attorneys this January.

Whether the sequence is in perfect order, it seems to capture the typical progression when still another indiscretion of this unethically-challenged administration comes to light.  The stages could be defined as 1.) We're fine, right?  2.)  This is how it is.  3. Don't get me mad.  And finally,  4.) See ya later.

There were two other shots in the thread last night that were also interesting.  There was this one, making the point, I assume, that the fish always stinks from the head.  And there was this one -- also from the press conference. 

With Rove caught up in the scandal, too, was it his idea to juxtapose Gonzales with RFK yesterday?  And, if so, to what advantage?  In renaming the building for Bobby, the Bush Administration completely confused Kennedy's war on crime with their own, legally open-ended and extra-legal war on terror.

(images 1 - 8: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters or Gerald Herbert/AP. Justice Department, March 13, 2007. via YahooNews. Cheney/Gonzales: Paul J. Richards/AFP. Washington. 2006.  Kennedy/Gonzales: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters.  all via YahooNews.)