Relying on photos to tell stories, news media loses perspective

BY HEATHER ROSS

Plumes of coal-black smoke rise from a barren field at the Rocky Mountain Fifty Caliber Shooting Association Machine Gun Shoot in Cheyenne Wells. A young, blonde model poses with a handgun in front of a white wall festooned with the taxidermal heads of deer, elk, and fowl. A four-year-old boy in Denver brandishes a shiny toy gun almost directly at the lens of Matt Slaby’s camera.

Slaby, a Denver-based photographer and freelance photojournalist, is not a rabid anti-gun lobbyist. The aforementioned photographs are part of a photo essay Slaby produced for TIME Magazine entitled "Gun Culture U.S.A.," which features adult war-reenactors participating in gun show performances, and yes, kids with various types of weaponry. Though the on-line essay purports to be a chronicle of America’s infatuation with guns, its powerful images—devoid of any accompanying textual content—may alter viewers’ opinions on gun control legislation, the Second Amendment, and the fetishization of firearms in youth culture. In short, his work is directly, if not overtly, political.

The way a photographer frames his or her shot and what he or she chooses to omit can have a powerful effect on the way that the viewer perceives a person, an event, or an issue. Slaby’s shot of a four-year-old aiming an Indiana Jones pistol—entitled "First Time"—places the child in soft-focus against a black background, brandishing a pistol that appears to span the length of his head. His fingers on the trigger are in focus as he prepares to "shoot" the viewer right between the eyes. By framing his shot this way, Slaby makes the viewer the victim, and forces him or her to think about the fact that, for this child, his "first time" with a gun will probably not be his last.

Publications that rely on shocking images to draw in viewers may not realize—or take responsibility for—the way in which those images affect the people who see them. The caption of Slaby’s photo "Machine Gunner" (a low-angle shot of a young gunner scowling in concentration) reads: "The rapid fire guys reminded me of bad photographers. The guys who never bother to look at what they’re shooting, just pointing and squeezing. They call it spray and pray, just like photographers do." Are publications (such as this one by TIME) simply spraying the public and praying for increased readership?

Photographs take only a moment to deliver the full impact of their messages—both aesthetic and political—and the only perspective offered is that of the photographer. We are bombarded daily with dozens, if not hundreds, of photos, some of which (like Slaby’s shot of the model in her father’s trophy room) can change one’s views on, say, hunting regulations in elk country. Was Slaby’s intent to change minds? Does it matter? The photos are published—without pesky statistics or expert interviews to detract from their visceral impact.

Using photos to tell stories can be a wonderful thing; it can convey a profound message in an immediate and emotional way that text may not. However, it is impossible to understand a complex story in full from a single snapshot or even a series of them. Text, though certainly not without bias, can flesh out an issue and present perspectives other than that of the journalist. By deemphasizing text, publications lose their professed objectivity and viewers receive only a smattering of news in a bedazzled package.

Before I’m accused of being a reactionary, trying to drag journalism back to the pre-media age, let me say that I love and respect photography both as an art and as a journalistic medium. However, it is no secret that magazines, journals, and newspapers, which rely heavily on text, are becoming less and less financially viable as impatient readers go online for up-to-the-minute news and feature stories. Journalists are faced with the prospect of competing for viewership with visual media (graphics, flash presentations, and especially photographs) as print media rapidly moves to the web. Online, editors can push copy aside in order to include more accompanying photos, photo essays, photos-of-the-week, charts, graphs, cartoons, and interactive reader interfaces. And because we lead hectic, sound bite lives, we may be tempted to get our news from photos, captions, and blurbs as opposed to full-text stories.

We live in a world of media images. Many are beautiful, influential, and vital for their ability to bring to news immediacy and clarity that are impossible through text alone. But taking these images at face-value, we defeat the purpose of news media: to allow us to reach our own conclusions.

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