PhotoDude.com

Thu. Mar 31, 2005

A Tale of Two Magazines

While scoping the news over the past week or so, I noticed an interesting contrast involving the military, photography, and two magazines. Case Number One:

Marine recruits so new that their hair hasn’t been cut don’t sound like the best models for a story about soldiers going AWOL — particularly since none in the group is a deserter.

But there they are, pictured on the March cover of Harper’s magazine along with a headline that reads, “AWOL in America: When Desertion Is the Only Option.”

The cover photo, taken at Parris Island, S.C., shows seven Marines lined up in their T-shirts, shorts and socks. They are not identified in photo credits or in the article. In fact, Harper’s says the Marines are not meant to depict people in the article.

“We are decorating pages,” said Giulia Melucci, the magazine’s vice president for public relations. “We are not saying the soldiers are AWOL. Our covers are not necessarily representative.”

St. Petersburg Times: “The few, the proud — but surely not AWOL”

I love that: “We are decorating pages.” For the moment, you can see the image here (but it will likely be replaced soon with April’s issue … Later: it’s here), and it is clearly a case of photo-illustration, as is often done for magazine covers. Normally, one might hire a photographer and seven models who could pass for Marine inductees, then do two simple shots; the lineup with a gap, and then a solo soldier standing in that gap to ghost-in in Photoshop. Get signed model releases and usage rights from the photographer, and you are legally covered.

Instead … how might Harper’s Index put it?

Estimated fee for photography and models for editorial cover shot: $1500-$2000

Number of years Harper’s Magazine has been published continuously: 155

Estimated cost of March cover in ill will and potential litigation: priceless

But wait, there’s more! How exactly did this photo of actual Marines get in their hands?

Another issue is that the photograph was altered. One recruit’s image appears lighter than the others, as if he were disappearing.

Getty Images, the agency that sold the photograph to Harper’s, did not know it would be manipulated. The agency prohibits tampering with an image.

“It’s clear to me the customer has broken the rules,” said Michael Sargent, Getty’s vice president in charge of editorial.

The Marine Corps allows photo agencies onto Parris Island to take photographs of recruit training, said Lt. Scott Miller, deputy public affairs officer. Agencies then have stock photographs they can sell to newspapers and magazines.

“Once they leave here,” Miller said, “we can’t really monitor who uses the photographs.”

Oh, my. What a photographic Charlie Foxtrot. Rather than spend money to commission a cover photo, they bought an existing stock photo. And in its zeal to promote and recruit, the US military is only too happy to allow controlled access to photographers in order to get their imagery into the stock agencies. Then, along comes some art director from Harper’s, looking through stock photos like you and I might look through paint swatches at Home Depot, as they seek to “decorate” their pages … “oh, yes, the pasty men in baggy drab green underwear with black knee top socks, I simply must have them to decorate my cover.”

You think I’m joking.

Normally, when you buy usage rights to a photo from a stock agency, if there’s a person in it, the photographer has a signed model release from that person (stock agencies generally won’t accept submissions lacking releases). Thus, there’s no legal fear that your cover models will protest they’re being abused.

However, I’m guessing that when you are a Marine inductee at Parris Island, you are “tax dollars at work,” government property, and no model release is required. After all, Marines-to-be at Parris Island don’t get to make many (if any) choices during boot camp. I can hear the DI bellow … “line up for photos, maggots, and don’t break the man’s lenses.”

Next thing you know you’re on the cover of Harper’s with the word “AWOL.”

Although the subject matter of the article is 180 degrees the opposite, I found this an interesting photo contrast. You want to “photo-illustrate” the war? Ask a GI. Or a thousand of them:

For the first time in the history of combat — thanks to inexpensive digital cameras and flash drives and a preponderance of laptops — every airman, marine, seaman, was a photographer. And they have produced a remarkable, constantly evolving portrait of war.

With this in mind, GQ decided to ask servicemen, including military photographers, for their pictures of the war. A deluge of images came pouring in — more than 10,000 photographs from more than 1,000 photographers — from soldiers who had recorded their experience but had no outlet for it.

Together, these photographs represent a more intimate, more realistic, more extraordinary portrait of America’s Iraq experience than we’ve seen before. And it’s our chance to witness the war through the eyes of the men and women who have lived it.

Submit your pictures of the war to GQ.

GQ: Life During Wartime: A Soldier’s Portfolio

And here’s perhaps the greatest irony. Never mind subject matter, never mind tone, never mind “decorating pages.” Harper’s paid some sum for the rights to that photo ($1000? These days, who knows … could be $75), and is now paying “additional costs,” if only in man hours from their PR department, and the deliciously named Giulia Melucci (c’mon, they made that one up, right?).

Meanwhile, GQ paid … nada. And got a six figure return in good will. Not to mention some damn fine photos.

The moral of this story? They should have bit the ever so small bullet and hired a photographer to begin with. At least, that’s they way I see it…