From the video CP Photogs
This is a video of four Canadian Press photographers and their work. Their work puts life into newspapers. It helps you relate to the subject of the story.
Parts of the video, that a fellow photojournalist Jayson Mills brought to my attention, laments that images can be very contrived. Even in my experience covering community journalism, I’ve been asked if I could “please shoot this, this way” and “please don’t shoot this”.
Take for example one time I was asked by the public relations representative to refrain from shooting the president of a company, complete with lab coat and “shower cap” as he took the Mayor through a tour of his company’s pharmaceutical lab. The entire entourage was similarly dressed. (For that matter, so was I.)
They had the extra garments on to keep out foreign particles because it was a controlled environment. The fact that they were wearing lab coats and shower caps really made the picture. It gave the sense of the environment they were in. To avoid shooting them in the outfit was to nullify the entire purpose of being there. In fact, it would be a great public relations moment to show the seriousness of their work and the steps they take to ensure its protection.
Very often photojournalists meet resistance to taking photographs of people, their emotions, or even their goods. I remember having the perfect picture of someone at a sports memorabillia show only to have the person loudly protest the publication of the picture. His reasoning: people might come to steal his goods.
I am sure any real sophisticated burglar would have attended the show and seen the goods for themselves. In fact, they probably approached him to inquire more information, like where he lived and what else he might have among other things. His paranoia was completely unfounded.
On yet another assignment, I was asked, at the request of a victim of a house fire, not to photograph him being wheeled out on a stretcher. Yet the next day, after donations were trickling in to assist him, he asked that his photograph be taken, looking very distraught I might add.
In all cases, I go to the full extent of my capabilities including positioning and persuasion, to get the best photograph of the moment. I got the guy on the stretcher before he even got a chance to ask not to be photographed, I got but did not publish the memorabilia collector’s photo and I got the pharmaceutical president, the mayor and the entourage in their lab outfit. Our job is not to make you look bad. Our job is simply to tell the most compelling and engaging part of the story visually.
Each moment we photograph is a slice of history. It’s a slice of our heritage and our community. Unfortunately, society often prefers to be remembered for what is manufactured than what is real.