Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Speaking of News Photography

[posted by Callimachus]

Michael J. Totten has an interesting collections of observations on its use and misuse in the Middle East. And it features our friend Ahmed Anger!

One of his points is that if the photographer who shoots the anti-Western protests and violence would take a wider-angle shot, he'd end up showing you how sparse they are, despite the way the protesters crowd around the camera. And how many people don't take part in them.

This matters a great deal, I think, because these pictures, more than words, tilt the American public's perception of the attitude of people in the Middle East toward us. It may be conflicted and confrontational, but even in spite of the relentless anti-American propaganda, it is hardly the mass of flaming hatred the pictures show us.