Photojournalism

“Photojournalism: A Blend of Artifice and Actuality” by Andy Grundberg

English 101 Spring Semester

LIFE Magazine, devoted to ''The Year in Pictures'' for 1987, features a remarkable portrait of Lt. Col. Oliver L. North. Taken by the photojournalist Harry Benson, it shows the star of the summer's Iran-contra hearings in full-dress uniform, standing at attention next to an American flag. The camera's position, roughly waist-high, causes him to loom larger than life. A polished marble background adds to the heroic, even mythic effect of the pose. One could say that Colonel North appears to be impersonating Charleton Heston impersonating Moses on the mountain.

This carefully lit and calculated image seems aimed at encapsulating the popular impression of Colonel North as a kind of folk hero, and in this respect it succeeds quite well. But it is not by any stretch of the imagination a report on what went on during the Congressional inquiry. For that we have to turn the page, where we can find a less rhetorical, and less interesting, news picture of Colonel North being sworn in before a full house of Congressmen, aides and - needless to say - press photographers.

The portrait and the news picture raise an important question: What kind of history do photographs make? Is the aggregate visual record they produce a fairly faithful, albeit condensed, reflection of the events and spirit of our times for the future? Or is it something more ambiguous, selective and slippery, the still equivalent of a television docudrama?