Monday, September 15, 2008

The politics of unflattering photos

Apparently a small scandal is brewing over at the Atlantic over a photoshoot of John McCain, which some say was deliberately unflattering. The picture itself isn't that bad, but it's a little unflattering – the really bad pictures weren't printed on the cover, but you can see them on the link. But my question is: Doesn't this happen all the time? I've noticed quite a few times pictures in the NYT that were obviously chosen for their negative portrayal of somebody in the case of an article that has bad things to say about the person. It wasn't as deliberate as this – strobe lights from the bottom making him look like a Grey alien – but it seemed obvious that the photo editor chose an unflattering picture on purpose. I'll try to remember in the future to post a few of them as they come up.

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