Comments on: Off the cuff-Edgar Martins and the New York Times

By: Louise K

Louise K — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:50:00 +0000

I can’t believe how people can be so deluded! Everyone knows that if newspapers aren’t manipulating the truth their getting the truth wrong!
I’m not sure if anything read in a newspaper can ever be true and most people know this, but when seen it black and white, it seems to do something to peoples brains where they think it must be truth.
And as for Martins work, if any of you actually look into his career, you’d see that he is an artist, not a photo journalist. Any changes that he may have or may have not made, I’m sure would be down to artistic vision. I’m also sure that the NY Times knew that he is an artist when they took him on for that project and that would be why they hired him, to create magnificent pieces of art!

Artists don’t have to explain how they create their work, the work speaks for itself.

By: sybil miller

sybil miller — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:32:00 +0000

so the artist statement quoted above is from APERTURE?! seems their editor did not check or look closely either.

the issue isn’t about the veracity of the photograph as a medium. it’s about the integrity of the person who made these particular photos. i don’t care if he clones, or whatever. i do care if he lies about his working process.

By: Luís Aguiar

Luís Aguiar — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:40:21 +0000

Well, it’s amazing, people, even photographers, didn’t know what photography is. Photography it’s the true false. All photography is false. The Camera Obscura give you a image of objects without objects. But so perfect then you believe. The manipulation of Edgar Martins is made in the land of false – the photography – is a “second grade” manipulation.
Other problem is the manipulation Edgar Martins made is an aesthetic manipulation not a political manipulation or social or other. Cropping, color adjustment, levels always existed even in film and if you think this things are manipulation you are ingénue. When you shoot you made (manipulation) the crop, you made the expose, and you made the focus and so on.

By: g

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:46:50 +0000

Three things I don’t get:

1) How adrift must you be to lie about how your work was made?

2) How clueless was the Times to think, but for the misrepresentation, that anyone would care?

3) And what was the point? Was it really such an improvement?

By: Simon Keitch

Simon Keitch — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:28:12 +0000

I was also confused with the ‘no digital manipulation’ statement; it was conspicuous by the simple fact that it seemed entirely superfluous… Having given it a little thought I can only conclude that the magazine thought they looked heavily manipulated and so felt the need to assert the artist’s statement that he does not re-touch his images in any way? They do look odd – too perfect – even if you’re not looking for the the ‘joins’ (as you alluded to).

By: J. Wesley Brown

J. Wesley Brown — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:45:21 +0000

I also found it strange that they felt the need to write that when I saw it over the weekend. My first thought: “Really? No digital manipulation? No cropping, color adjustment, levels? Really?”

Now, my next though is, do they really think no other art photographers in all the years they’ve shot for the magazine haven’t used a healing brush or “worse” – that they haven’t previously published manipulated photos in the Magazine?

I agree – the mag is editorial and it’s photos, primarily taken by artists for the magazine should not be held to the same standards of their journalism.

Now, if they’d only hold those up:

http://wecanshoottoo.blogspot.com/2009/06/excessive-photojournalism-photoshopping.html

Basically, their mistake was bragging about the “pure” nature of the photos.

By: nalie

nalie — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:27:01 +0000

It’s not better manipulated – “real” or not it’s pretty average. Martins didn’t imporve on reality, but then this kind of photography rerely does.

By: me

me — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:54:49 +0000

I agree absolutely, but as I started out, this is an aside-

let me put it another way-

I didn’t see the need for the NYT to assert anything about the photographs, regardless of Martins reputation for non-manipulation (sic). They don’t need to insert themselves into that area. To my mind they have no responsibility for vouching for editorial photography which is what this is to me. It has a claim to truth but is not truth.

If they had just run the series minus the claim and some captions about the effect of the collapse of the economy, the point would have been made. The pictures are not better because they are not manipulated. They are actually better because the are manipulated. (why he had to lie is because of this bias)

It is going to happen again and again. It also points out how obvious it is that digital photography is not “photography” because “photography” is an optical-chemical process that makes tangible things-film-negatives, slides, positives. Digital produces nothing but “data”. And for me, one of the primary characteristics of “photography” is the “fact” or “new fact” of the thing produced-the changed film.

By: Paul McGrath

Paul McGrath — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:07:25 +0000

The problem seems to be, in my view, that Martins repeatedly has professed not to do any post-production whatsoever (on other sites are analysis of his previous work which seems to be photoshopped much against his artist’s statement for those projects). He is a award winning artist and those two factors possibly made the nytimes editors think he’d be suited for some amazing photojournalism. Turns out he’s not.