Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Stretching the Truth

In Newark, I am giving two presentations, one on ethics in photojournalism and one on creating photo illustrations. I am in love with the complete dichotomy of the two topics and how they almost counteract each other.

What I discover is that everyone in the room is willing to stretch their own personal ethics to fit individual scenarios that may come up. Pictures are extended horizontally to accommodate typography and layout constraints and objects are removed to make cleaner photos. I am slightly shocked to find out how untrustworthy a room full of hungry photographers can be. However, my presentations are a success based on the dialogue and discussions that ensued. At the very least people started talking about what they are doing and I made a good, truthful pigeon photo on the way back to the hotel.