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The War of the Roses

Several days ago I commented on the common and ordinary conventions of photographic representation that tend to guide and discipline photojournalistic decorum in representing the President of the United States. As I noted there, the conventions typically employed reinforce our perception of the president’s power and presence as commander-in-chief. But I also noted how the conventions can be managed in ways that call attention to their artifice, thus undermining the window-on-the world sensibility that they generally promote. And sometimes, I suggested, they can be actively exploited so as to produce effects that are wholly contrary to our ordinary expectations. In recent times such conventions have operated in something of a tension between efforts to minimize and maximize representations of President Bush’s stature. Two photographs of President Bush speaking in the Rose Garden on July 20th make the point—and more—exceedingly well.The first photograph was used to lead an AP wire report with the headline, “Bush Criticizes Democrats on Iraq”:

AP.Rose Garden

The AP, of course, is required to be “fair and balanced” in its reporting of any event, and no less so a media event planned by the White House. But this photograph tells a somewhat different story than the headline. First, it is important to note that in its published version the photograph is smaller by at least half than the version I’ve reprinted above, and this is not inconsequential to the interpretation it invites from its viewers. Shot from a low angle, as per the convention for emphasizing the power of the president, it is also shot from the side and at long distance. Indeed, the president is miniscule, once again dwarfed by the scene in which he is performing his office. Indeed, he is so small in relationship to his surroundings that it is hard to know exactly what he is doing—one has to strain to recognize that he is standing at a podium. He is backed up by an entourage, but they are almost entirely obscured by the roses, which clearly dominate the scene. And note too how the use of the roses to frame the action situates the viewer – presumably the American people: It is as if those who are viewing this scene are interlopers, voyeurs jealously sneaking a peek at a party to which they have not been invited. And the color seems off too, slightly washed out in a way that suggests that the roses have begun to pass their prime; the visual effect carries over to the president’s jacket, making it seem more like a drab and faded grey, than blue, his shirt and tie barely visible. It is hardly the image that an embattled president seeking public support for a contentious policy would want to portray.

One might expect to find a very different photograph of the event at the White House website and so they might be surprised to find this image which, at first glance, seems to be akin to the one used by the AP:

White House Rose Garden

The differences between the two photographs are subtle but invite very different affective responses. Note first, that at the White House website the image is slightly larger than the one reproduced here. In this image the president is shot in middle-distance, and as such his body stands in comfortable proportion to the scene in which he acts. He dominates the frame and appears to be in full command of the event unfolding: Standing at a podium, speaking to an unseen audience, he is the master of his house/garden. His entourage of supporters are visible and prominent, albeit subordinate; dutifully at attention and attending to his words, they reinforce the sense that he is in control. Equally prominent is the U.S. flag, somewhat obscured in the AP photograph. But most important are the roses, which now function as a natural and pleasant setting rather than as subterfuge or camouflage. They neither obscure the viewer’s line of sight nor hide the viewer’s presence from detection. While still to the side, the viewer is now a legitimate part of the scene. The colors are rich, saturated, alive, the roses in full bloom, the suit a bright and pleasing blue, his white shirt and red tie clearly connecting him to the flag that sits behind him.

Much more could be said about these photographs, but the point to underscore here is that each displays a very different social order: One a dim and dying world animated by secrecy and political jealousies; the other a bright and vibrant world, alive to the future and animated by the presumption of political openness and equanimity. The impulse here, no doubt, is to ask: Which, if either, is the real world? Or is it a third version that one finds at the NYT and that seems to sit somewhere between the two? But such questions are dangerously myopic, if for no other reason than the assumption that one photograph is fundamentally more real than the other. Every photograph is a construction, a tool for making (and unmaking) the world that draws upon complex mediating technologies, recognizable conventions of representation and cultural practice, and the inventional skills of photographers and editors. The better questions to ask are how do visual technologies enable the imagination and production of alternate worlds? What do such images reveal—both about the worlds they portray and about us? And what do they (necessarily) hide or obscure? And, perhaps most important, what are the implications of such constructions for the world (or worlds) in which we want to live?Photo Credits: Gerald Herbert/AP Photo, Joyce N. Boghosian/White House Photo

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Flag of Shame

A reader has suggested that we post about the image below, which is labeled “truthflag” and has provoked a heated argument this week at Flickr.

truth-flag.jpg

The Flickr page reports that the photo has been viewed 164,050 times since it was posted on August 7 2006. There is one comment listed from 11 months ago, and 170 more in the last two days. Why the debate has flared now, I don’t know, but I’ll take it as a good sign. The debate turns on a basic question: is this a courageous act of democratic dissent regarding a shameful war, or is the dissent and desecration of the flag a shameful act of cowardice? I think the image is eloquent. Why? Obviously, the uniform speaks volumes. I think it also matters that the flag does not look new; this is not a case of running out to buy a flag for a publicity stunt. Likewise, the words themselves had to written laboriously, and the man’s serious expression communicates an equivalent resolution. This is a considered act by someone who is aware of what it might cost. The setting reinforces this effect: again, this is not a publicity stunt or a big demonstration, but rather someone in his own locale, perhaps a Guard office (you can see the water cooler and sports trophies in the background). His public act is grounded in his private life, and he is willing to take responsibility for his actions. And the message is all about responsibility, deeply so. The desecration of the flag and its soiled look suggest the shame he feels–shame is often experienced as a literal stain. The writing on the flag also overcomes two barriers to public speech: the flag no longer has the fixed meaning of “pure” patriotism, love it or leave it, that is used so often to squelch democratic dissent; and words that would be ignored otherwise acquire rhetorical force. I am reminded of a special news report following Texas v. Johnson, the Supreme Court case that now protects flag burning. Johnson was asked why, instead of burning the flag, he hadn’t simply spoken up to voice his dissent in the legitimate medium of public speech. He replied, “Who would have listened to me?”

Update: I had wondered why debate about this image had flared up. My colleague Eszter Hargittai wondered as well, but she knew how to do something about it. The answer is that it got “dugg”:
http://digg.com/political_opinion/Pic_There_Is_No_Flag_Large_Enough_To_Cover_The_Shame

Those who like to mine comments will find 700+ at the digg page.

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Conference Paper Call: Visual Values

Of Aesthetics and Ethics:
A Conference on Visual Values

January 10-12, 2008

University of South Florida, St. Petersburg

Registration: FREE

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS

Deadline: November 1, 2007

Confirmed Professional Presenters Include:

Jay Maisel: Keynote Speaker and New York City Freelance Photographer
John Filo: CBS, Pulitzer Prize Winner for the Kent State Photograph
John Harte: Photographer, Bakersfield Sun
Janet Kestin: Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto
Creator, Dove Anti-Stereotype Advertising Campaign

This conference examines ethical questions regarding the expression of values in visual media presentations. Text and visual submissions are solicited that address topics including, but not limited to: stereotypes, manipulation, privacy, violence, journalistic stage management, infographics, graphic design, fair use, and persuasive visuals.

This is a juried competition. The top faculty submission will be published in the Visual Communication Quarterly. Award will also be given to the best student submission.

Submit One Identified and One Anonymous Version of your Work To:

Deni Elliott, Dept. of Journalism and Media Studies, USFSP,
140 7th Avenue S, FCT 204, St. Petersburg, FL 33701 or Elliott@stpt.usf.edu.

Jurors and Organizers:

Deni Elliott: Poynter-Jamison Chair in Media Ethics and Press Policy, USFSP
Paul Martin Lester: Editor, Visual Communication Quarterly and Professor, California State University, Fullerton
Paul Wang: Assistant Professor of Visual Communication, Department of Journalism
and Media Studies, USFSP

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The Western Burqa

This is the third post in what is becoming a series on how the burqa challenges the visual norms that define public spaces in the West. (Previous posts are here and here.) Today’s image is a small work of public art that I’ve held on to for several years:

burkah-head.jpg

You are looking at Rosemarie Skaine, author of The Women of Afghanistan Under the Taliban. Or are you? She is under the veil, while you are shown her hands holding a laptop whose screen reproduces a digital image of her face. She is both there and not there, and so the photograph creates an eerie strangeness. (Georg Simmel observed that the stranger “is near and far at the same time.”)

Or the tableau can be understood to include two women, one imprisoned under the veil by premodern authority and the other enjoying full personhood due to Western scientific achievement. It also implies a narrative of progress: women who are completely effaced by traditional customs such as the burqa can be liberated by Western technology to achieve self-realization. In any case, the tableau is striking precisely because it intensifies, almost to the breaking point, two assumptions defining the visual public sphere of modern liberal societies: liberty involves the ability not to hide but rather to be seen, and the face is the essential medium of individuality.

Although Skaine’s entire body is in the room, it is the digital image of her face that is the sole marker of her identity. That face, however, is an image; unlike the women behind the mask, it cannot see, and it can be reproduced indefinitely or eliminated by touching a key. The irony is that Western woman’s face lives in the modern technology but acquires a greater vulnerability for that fact. So there are two women there after all: one is premodern, devoid of personality, and looming large, monstrous, like an image of death itself. The other is modern, the epitome of individual personality, but also disembodied and mechanized. Perhaps both are under the veil. If we can assume that continued global modernization will liberate women now in burqas, the fate of women in the West nonetheless becomes less clear. One hopes for a third alternative, which is one indication that the artist has done her job.

There is a lot more that could be said about his tableau, and there are other images that I’d like to put alongside it. But that will have to wait for another day. The photo was taken (posed) for a story in an Iowa newspaper promoting the book’s pending release in 2002. Photo by Harry Baumert for the Des Moines Register, October 14, 2001, E-1.

 1 Comment

Boots, Hands, and the Empty Suit

Readers who are interested in our occasional observations about images of boots and hands might check out John’s post today at BAGnewsNotes on a photograph of President Bush with the troops. Boots and hands are proving to be remarkably rich tropes for visual argument, and for exposing the character of those being photographed.

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Lil' Bush

The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the world. Or at least so we are told. And photographic representations of him typically reinforce the point, commonly filling the frame with his visage, often shot from a low angle to accent his omnipresence, frequently surrounding him with an entourage in courtly fashion, locating him in the midst of cheering crowds, and so on. The conventions here are so familiar that we normally don’t even notice them until they are ignored or otherwise distorted and exploited. Consider this image that appeared in the NYT on July 16th, 2007:

Bush in Cross Hall

The president is speaking from the Cross Hall. Built as part of the original White House plan in the 19th century, it connects the State Dining Room and the East Room. The floors, walls, and pillars are made of marble. It is often used for receiving foreign dignitaries, and it displays all of the grandiloquence we would expect as the location for putting the most powerful head of state in the world on display in all of his magnificence. And all of the accoutrements of the presidency are here as well, including the U.S. flag and the presidential seal displayed twice. Clearly, the stage is set for majesty.

And yet, the force of the image is anything but majestic. Ironically, what is most striking about the photograph is the president himself, who is barely noticeable, a tiny head protruding from the podium, fully and completely dwarfed by his surroundings. Shot from below, as per convention, it is from such a long distance and at such a wide angle that it makes him seem out of place and altogether inconsequential. Cast in a diminutive register, he seems more akin to Comedy Central’s “Lil’ Bush” than to the portraits of past presidents that grace the walls surrounding him. Indeed, the angle is so low and so wide that it not only miniaturizes the president, but it calls attention to how truly alone he is, with no visual evidence of an entourage or a viewing audience—let alone an adoring American people—to be seen. The president’s reflection on the floor in front of him suggests that perhaps he is only speaking to himself. And indeed, it would not be a stretch to see this photograph as a visual metaphor for a presidency that has become increasingly insular and isolated, performing only for its own pleasure: a Court without courtiers. Contrast this image with the photograph of the same speech at the White House website and the capacity of the camera (or perhaps, more properly, the photographer) to manage the conventions of visual representation to maximize or minimize presence and power is palpable.

Photo Credit: Doug Mills/The New York Times

Digg!

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Should Pelosi Be Watching Her Back?

One of our readers asked for a post on this picture, which accompanied a Washington Post report on the presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal to Norman Borlaug. I’m tempted to say it needs no caption.

nancy-and-george.jpg

The paper said this: President Bush, right, listens as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., left, speaks in the Capitol Rotunda on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 17, 2007, during a ceremony for Congressional Gold Medal recipient Norman Borlaug. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

If this were a scene from a TV drama, we would know exactly what was up. And, of course, it is a scene from a TV drama. It also could be an object lesson in civility: despite the intensity of this antagonism, the guy will not actually put a knife in her back. I don’t think that is why the Post used the photo, however. What is particularly interesting is that there is no relationship whatsoever between the content of the picture and the story. The paper is taking the opportunity to do two things at once: report on the ceremony and also on the backstage antagonisms that make Washington what it is. Or are there three things: is this a photo of the real Bush? The photo clearly is all about him: Pelosi is blurred while the camera has zeroed in on him with the intensity of his reaction mirrored by the sharp precision of that part of the photo. It certainly shows us a different Bush from either the empty suit or the Casual Friday executive that we usually see.

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Three Faces of the Political Wife

The revelation that another Family Values legislator has been a serial adulterer is sure to bring out the best in all of us: gleeful smugness about the hypocrisy of the Right and hypocritical replies that the media are trafficking in human pain. Well, the media are trafficking in human pain, but whose? Not Senator David Vitter’s (R-La.) pain–or, if they are, he had it coming. But what about his wife? Well, she may have asked for public humiliation as well, given past comments reported at Wikipedia, but as a politician’s spouse she is easily set up, then and now. My question is, what are the images of the Senator and his wife showing us about her role as a political wife? I saw three images in succession: one in the NYT, another in the Chicago Tribune, and the first AP image that surfaced with a Google search. Together they neatly set out three distinct roles:

First, the one we know so well, the cipher:

ph2007071601767-1.jpg

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Loyal, but not happy about it, but trying not to show it, and succeeding well enough but also indicating inadvertently that there really is a person in there, someone who can be bored (much of the time) or even hurt (although that is under wraps today). Diana had made this role into an art form.

Then, the 90’s figure, the victim:

ph2007071601365.jpg

(AP Photo/Bill Haber)

This image from the Trib shows the pain, the humiliation, the terrible cost she has had to pay for signing on with this guy. This is the image I first saw, and it had me feeling for her.

But then I read the Times story, which reported that both the Senator and Wendy lashed out at the media. And sure enough, there’s another photo that fits with that attitude:

ph2007071700760.jpg

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

So we have a third role, the ally. And my sympathy went south.

A spouse can be all three at once, of course, but the different images lead us down different paths, emotionally and politically.

Update: For another posting on the first image, go to David Vitter trots out wife to cover for him at Pandagon; on the second image, go to The Pained Political Wife at Cheat-Seeking Missiles.

 4 Comments

Animated Music Video Photo Cartooning

Nick Anderson, editorial cartoonist at the Houston Chronicle, has created a remarkable example of next generation political cartooning. The cartoon, entitled Feel Good, Inc. combines animated figures for Bush, Rove, and Cheney, who rap and sing in front of a dense montage of news photographs and the occasional smiley button. The animation is deft and the songs are clever, but it’s the photos that provide the critical edge and disturbing emotional tone, while the pop culture icon of the smiley button really drives the point home: These people are playing with our lives and don’t give a damn about the harm they cause. Comments at the paper’s online site, Chron.com, are here.

 2 Comments

Paper Call: Visual Communication

Announcing the 4th biennial
William A. Kern Communications Conference
Call for Papers

Visual Communication: Rhetorics and Technology
April 10-13, 2008

Rochester Institute of Technology
Strathallan Hotel, Rochester New York

Call for Papers: The first Kern conference on Visual Communication took place in 2001 and provided a wide-ranging forum for scholars and practitioners to share their work. Since then, the interdisciplinary study of visual communication has continued to grow, sparking a variety of projects, books, journals, studies, and methodological approaches to research and critical studies. The fourth and final Kern Communication conference on visual communication continues the conversation with a renewed commitment to interdisciplinary interests and scholarship. Visual Communication: Rhetorics and Technology (2008) focuses on the study of visuality as communication with a special interest on the interconnections between visual rhetoric and visual media technologies.
We invite individual papers, panels and presentations that address this theme in the widest ways we can imagine. How does scholarship in visual communication interact with traditional approaches to the processes of human communication, inclusive of rhetoric and communication media technology? How do individual cases of visual communication, visual rhetoric, visual documentation and creative innovation enlarge our understanding of human communication? How does the history and practice of visuality inform our teaching of communication, media and rhetoric? What is the state of the field? Where are our individual research projects taking us? Individual papers, presentations, experimental “work in progress,” panel proposals and workshop proposals are welcome.

Send complete papers or 500 word abstracts via email as a Word document attachment to Diane S. Hope, [dshgpt@rit.edu], or by paper mail to Diane S. Hope; 92 Lomb Memorial Drive, RIT, Rochester, Institute of Technology, Rochester NY, 14623, by December 1, 2007.

Please check the website: www.rit.edu/kern <http://www.rit.edu/kern> for updates, details and registration information.

Diane S. Hope (dshgpt@rit.edu)
William A. Kern Professor in Communications
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester, NY 14623
585-475-6053

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