Art + Life, a good column about professional photography

I remember years and years ago when the Taking of the Picture made national news. This is the flip side of wedding photography.

The occasion was a fire--I believe in NYC--and a press photographer snapped a picture of a woman jumping/falling from an upper window. I believe she was either badly injured or killed.

The picture went out on the AP wire and provoked a great deal of discussion, starting with what was "suitable" for a family newspaper moving on to "Why hadn't the photographer sprinted up the block and across the street to break her fall instead of focussing his camera?" to the role of what would not be called "The Media" in breaking or making news

I don't remember that situation, but I do remember a similar discussion re the photographer of a starving child in Africa with a vulture nearby.

Even during Katrina there was considerable flac from the media-consuming public that the reporters and photographers covering the destruction of the city should somehow have fed the multitudes and transported them all to safety.

I think many of the The Public (which is as windy a term as The Media) regard The Media as Public Servants, responsible not so much for artistic clarity as for fetching and carrying when commanded.