I read, every day, Leslie Burns-Dell Acqua’s blog – Burns Auto Parts. Leslie, a consultant that helps photographers market themselves and grow their businesses, has a lot of good advice, and she and I traveled the country as a part of the ASMP Strictly Business 2 seminar series, and I think she gave good advice. When Leslie wrote:
- “Ms. Greenberg is entirely clean in this”
- “Ms. Greenberg more than fulfilled her obligations to her client. I don’t have a problem with her making her own art on the side. As for how she has handled the press herself, I really don’t think that matters too much. She will be, at most, a blip in this election”
- “the act itself, I don’t think it’s half as bad as some think”
- “Read what I have written again–I have said that I don’t think what she did was wrong”
I thought that Leslie had gone off her rocker.
(Continued after the Jump)
Please read Leslie’s posts – IN FULL – Greenberg; and when people began critisizing her position, penned “What I Represent“; and then again today “Creative Freedom“. While she makes some relevant points in there, she maintains her positions on Greenberg – it seems.
Daryl Lang over at PDN, in his piece “Fallout From Jill Greenberg’s McCain Images” asked “Who wants to come to Greenberg’s defense?”, and I doubt you’ll get any takers, save for Leslie – and she’s narrowed her defense and isn’t wholly defending everything Greenberg has done. The extent to which I would defend Greenberg would be to say she had a right to make two setups, and license that image separately from her Atlantic work, provided it’s within the parameters of the contract she signed. yet, that’s where my defense ends. As I said in my first piece – “one for thee, one for me”, is often the way a photographer tries out new styles, but that wasn’t what Greenberg was doing. She appears to have had malice and forethought in her actions – and didn’t leave it at that – she appears to have had malice and forethought in her statements to the press not only of McCain, but of her client.
I can’t square all that with the position that Leslie has taken, and is maintaining – “I don’t think what she did was wrong.”
What do you think?
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Originally published on Photo Business News & Forum on September 17, 2008. Comments are closed; this post is part of the archive.
No, but that will come soon enough.
Basically, she betrayed a trust. She misrepresented her intentions and yes, hse is playing to the bad boy of photography attitude right now. Hope she enjoys her second fifteen minutes of fame.
It is having an impact on the industry. (Go ask Brad Trent if you think clients are not running for cover over this)
Every picture editor and art director in the country and many around the world know of her betrayal.
She will feel this for years. Her lack of ethics will catch up with her at one point.
Right is right, wrong is wrong. Their is no gray line here.
http://www.lightstalkers.org/in-defense-of-jill-greenberg
I feel that she is abusing the opportunities she’s been given and using her work as a platform to state her personal political opinion. In a way, that doesn’t make her any better than McCain.
You seem to have a personal agenda to keep pouring salt into an already gaping wound, rather than let it heal.
Is business really that slow? Are your book sales down? Been following your blog for some time and the overall negativity strikes me as odd, especially coming from you.
Actually, I wrote this during a brief break in the middle of my third assignment this week, and book sales are doing just fine, thank you for asking.
The agenda I have is how this will impact the future of photography – contracts are being re-written, and it’s just gotten tougher to be creative on a shoot and have a subject be ok with that. Trust has diminished.
Jill’s actions may affect others’ resales with longer embargoes, or more copyright transfer demands. Note – I said *MAY*.
Jill’s actions have spilled over from being discussed amongst the trades to being in mainstream news outlets, both print and TV.
To presume that her actions will not affect many others is to be naive, at best.
I can truthfully say that if someone who shares my political views did such a selfish, unsophisticated thing, I would be even more offended and angry than I am with Greenberg because I would not want to be associated with it. As it is, it’s bad enough that someone with the same profession would do it and hurt us all.
Thanks for being a voice of reason on this topic, John. Pity that emotions seem to trump professionalism for some of us.
You honestly believe that the actions of one photographer are going to have such a huge impact on the profession as a whole?
Rewriting contracts? Happens all the time – you in fact show that in your book.
Tougher to be creative? Baloney! It’s always been tough to be creative, so nothing’s changed.
If, in fact, the actions of a single photographer were indeed potentially as detrimental to the profession as you suggest, why, the industry would have gone belly up years ago.
All IMO, naturally.
dishonest? stupid? don’t know how to update a blog post?
look, it’s not a question of her right or wrong–you are responsible for this post, you’ve lied by co or o-mission, and you don’t seem to care. ironically while essentially accusing someone else of doing the same.
thinking is hard. writing is easy.
Interesting…
Artistic license is a wonderful thing if it is not thrown in your face in such a childish, ham-handed way.
If she had only presented the images without the verbal vitriol.
I absolutely do believe this will have impact on the industry.
Both those that have condemned and cheered Greenberg’s methods had indicated The Atlantic should have Googled Greenberg before hiring her. Then the magazine would have been aware of her political leaning.
I ask you, do you want YOUR political beliefs and affiliations to be a factor when a client is making a hiring decision?
I know I don’t.
Depends on what you’re looking for. There are the rabid McCain haters who can’t separate their disdain for the man long enough to think rationally about what’s been done, only clap gleefully like school children over an unflattering cartoon of an unpopular teacher. But for those who have any standing in the industry I think the support is pretty thin.
Politicians of both parties have become increasingly paranoid about the press in general, and photographers specifically, over recent decades. When getting behind-the-scenes pictures and candid portraits of Kennedy and Eisenhower could be done on a handshake, now — thanks to Greenberg, who has now given them “proof” that photographers cannot be trusted — it will take an act of God.
It’s not just that Atlantic, felling justifiably burned, is going to be less generous in allowing art to be made on their time. The subject isn’t going to show up at all.
Whether or not I agree that the teacher is a piece or dirt or not I still don’t feel that I should be guilty by association. I make a very concerted effort to be politically and culturally neutral in my appearance and mannerisms while on a job. I certainly don’t agree with the viewpoints of many of my clients and that’s fine. I’m there to make pictures, not friends. I also don’t necessarily agree with the politics of the usher who rips my ticket stubs at the movie theater- doesn’t mean that I’m not going to see the film.
I wonder if JG ever actually tried to have an honest interaction with McCain as a person, not as a candidate. On most of these shoots you don’t have time to chitchat, but you certainly can get a sense of who a person is if you’re at all interested in learning. If she had tried to get a sense of him as a human (and not a potential political catastrophe) if she’s have made her art in the same way?
Cheers,
Marie
Greenberg has a right to be an idiot. Unfortunately, the turd she drooped sinks up the room we are trying to stand in.
As a Democrat, I am upset that others will use this as an opportunity show us as foolish children who are unable to demonstrate the maturity necessary to run this country.
Thanks for nothing Jill.
If she did this to Hitler in 1935, she’d get an award in 1945. Wait 10 years and if she hasn’t died in a camp it could still happen.
lensjockey