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| The photographic darkness continues... (click to enlarge) Olympus E-M5, Panasonic 100-300mm lens @ 300mm; 1/1600th sec. @ f/9; ISO 500 |
If you are not familiar with this topic, this story has been all over the internet in the past month. Steve McCurry is one of the most renowned photographers, known internationally as a photojournalist and documentary photographer for 30 or more years, shooting for National Geographic and many other publications, as well as a member of the prestigious Magnum Photos consortium, again, probably the most prestigious group of photographers worldwide. His most well known image is of Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed Afghan girl that is one of the most iconic images of the last half of the 20th century. I first wrote about this here.
I have been a huge admirer of Mr. McCurry and I find myself greatly disappointed in what I am reading and seeing. In the end, it may turn out that Mr. McCurry has not produced images that we thought they were.
Unfortunately, more allegations of wrongdoing have been brought forward as more and more in the photographic industry delve deeply into McCurry's past photographic efforts to look what else could be found, other than the Photoshopped images initially discovered. Here is a recent article published on the Petapixel website entitled, "Eyes of the Afghan Girl: A Critical Take on the 'Steve McCurry Scandal'," written by Kshitij Nagar. If you are interested in this ongoing and developing important photojournalistic story, I suggest you take a look.
Nagar alleges, backed by confirmation by several direct witnesses, that McCurry routinely staged images, at least made on some of his trips to India. Not good. You just can't photograph for a journalistic publication of the likes of National Geographic and stage images. Nagar also closely examines various iterations of the famed Afghan Girl image and can point out how that image has been manipulated as well.
Let me ask you—in all of the years you have read, seen, looked at or known about National Geographic Magazine, what has been your expectation of the images contained therein? Mine has been that the images are moments of life, nature, science or otherwise, caught by fantastic photographers, allowing us to see cultures, places and things around the world that we will never see, in a manner in which we will never see them. That, to me, has been the essence of the magazine in all the years I was a subscriber. I would never have thought any of the images would have been staged.
I don't know where this is going. However, it seems to me, unfortunately, there is enough direct evidence of various kinds of photographic manipulation that, in the end, this will hurt Mr. McCurry's reputation as, again, one of the premier photojournalists and photographers of my lifetime. Sad.
I'm just very disappointed. Even sadder.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
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You know even as a budding amateur photographer as a teenager I never, ever believed anyone was that good that week after week, month after month that images appearing in NatGeo were not in some form or another "staged" or planned. Come on?! Be serious...
ReplyDeleteDennis,
ReplyDeleteImages never inherently tell the whole truth. At best, they are two dimensional representation of a four dimensional world. You state that the "images are moments of life, nature, science or otherwise, ...allowing us to see culture, places and things around the world..." I have to wonder just how far from that ideal the images have strayed. While I understand the disappointment that the images captured may not be perfect representation of the "real" world, I think the question is, just how far from the truth are they? Is the photoshop, staging so extreme that the "truth" the image represents is truly distorted?
You are correct in that Mr. McCurry's reputation is going down quickly, as is the likely value of any images others have purchased... and that is truly too bad. The perception of a lack of integrity, even to a slight degree, is hard to repair. This scandal won't take away the wonder I felt when first seeing the "Afghan girl". That wonder is etched in my memory. It will be only now, when seeing the images again, that this scandal will impact how I view and react to the images. Having my feeling of wonder and awe smeared by the nagging doubt that something is unreal... that is a shame.