This isn\'t the first instance of a photographer manipulating a situation to get a desired look from a politician in a portrait. Karsh revealed his famous scowling portrait of Churchill was the result of walking over and yanking the cigar he was smoking out of his mouth. Annie Leibowitz suggested to the Queen of England she remove her crown for a few shots. Did Annie really want the crown off, or just the restrained regal version of the \"are you out of your mind?\" reaction to the suggestion?
Greenberg\'s judgement was poor in resorting to trickery to get an unflattering shot and then gloating about it, but are we to believe Atlantic hired her for the shot based on her reputation for taking flattering portraits of people? Not likely. So its really more a matter of one shot being more unflattering than the other. At least she didn\'t say mean things and make him cry before snapping the shot and Atlantic had the good judgement not to use it.
If the mainstream media outlets latch onto this story like they did her baby photo controversy - where she was accused of doing mean things to make them cry for her photos - she\'ll get another 15 min. of fame, but instead of the photo making McCain look bad, the unintended consequence will be to make him look good: the victim of a mean spiteful partisan trick.
Fast forward one week...
Larry King: \"Senator McCain, what do you think about that Greenberg photo in the Star this week?\"
Senator McCain: \"Well Larry, the lighting in that shot is much better than it was in my Hanoi prison cell.\"
The think the OP\'s notion that Greenberg\'s actions will somehow taint how ANY (his emphasis) photographer will be able to market their work and open the door for punitive lawsuits in general is a real stretch, but it does make me wonder if McCain signed a model release with Greenberg which would allow her to sell the image, or whether one would be necessary in such a situation. Absent a model release her lawyer could argue he is a public figure, but his would say that it was a private portrait session for the Magazine.
I\'m sure Larry King\'s panel of experts will sort all that out next week
Sep 13, 2008 at 10:47 PM
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