Talk to the Newsroom: Assistant Managing Editor Michele McNally
Assistant Managine Editor Michele McNally, who oversees photography for The New York Times, is answering questions from readers June 22-26. Questions may be e-mailed toaskthetimes@nytimes.com.
Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
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Ms. McNally joined The Times as director of photography in June 2004 and was promoted to assistant managing editor in July 2005.
Before joining The Times, Ms. McNally was picture editor of Fortune Magazine from November 1986 until May 2004. Previously, she was picture editor of Time Life's Magazine Development Group. She began her career as a sales representative for Sygma Photo News in 1977.
Ms. McNally has judged numerous photography contests, including Pictures of the Year, Overseas Press Club, White House News Photographers, American Photography and Best of Photojournalism, Getty Grants. She was chairman of the World Presss Photo jury in 2007. She was on the Pulitzer photo jury in 2008 and 2009. She has participated in many workshops, including The Flying Short Course in Photojournalism, the World Press Master Class, the Women's Conference in Photojournalism and the Eddie Adams Workshop. She has taught classes at various universities and has been a visiting professor at Syracuse University and The International Center of Photography.
She has been an editor on several books, including the bestseller "Day in the Life" series, and has curated a permanent gallery for Time-Life and The New York Times.
As picture editor of Fortune and The New York Times, Ms. McNally earned awards from American Photography, Pictures of the Year, World Press, Overseas Press Club, Communication Arts, Page Design and the Society of Publication Design. She has also won picture editing awards at Pictures of the Year and Best of Photojournalism. She was named the recipient of the Jim Gordon Award and Picture Editor of the Year by the Lucie Foundation's International Photography Awards. This year Damon Winter of The Times won the Pulitzer prize for feature photography. The award for Best Use of Photography in a newspaper went to The New York Times from both Pictures of the Year- POYi and the Best of Photojournalism.
Other Times staff members have answered questions in this column, including Executive Editor Bill Keller, Managing Editor Jill Abramson, Managing Editor John Geddes, Deputy Managing Editor Jonathan Landman, Assistant Managing Editor Richard L. Berke, Assistant Managing Editor Glenn Kramon, Associate Managing Editor Charles Strum, Business Editor Larry Ingrassia, Obituaries Editor Bill McDonald, Metropolitan Editor Joe Sexton, Living Editor Trish Hall, Investigations Editor Matthew Purdy, Foreign Editor Susan Chira, National Editor Suzanne Daley, Sports Editor Tom Jolly and Culture Editor Sam Sifton. Their responses and those of other Times staff members are on the Talk to the Newsroom page.
These discussions will continue in future weeks with other Times editors and reporters.
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In Focus | The Lomo LC-A Camera
via New York Times-The Moment
June 18, 2009, 5:32 PM
By SCOTT HALL
Purveyors of digital photography step aside, the Lomographic Society International, an organization championing the use of analog film, is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Lomo LC-A camera with a birthday bash on Friday at The Lomography Gallery Store in New York. Popular in the Soviet Union during the eighties, this compact, fixed-lens point and shoot all but disappeared until its rediscovery by a group of Viennese students in 1991. Since then the camera has been embraced by amateur and professional photographers alike for its quirkiness. To help celebrate, the society published a massive tome featuring thousands of photographs taken with the LC-A.
The images range from candid snapshots, (many cross-processed which creates the Lomo’s signature oversaturated image) of pets, funny gestures and the ubiquitous beach scene to more artfully rendered superimpositions of people’s faces with objects and buildings. Quite often, the shooters tend to follow Lomography’s “golden rules” such as shoot anytime of day and be spontaneous. My favorite rule is the one stated, “You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film.” After all, isn’t half the fun of shooting analog the surprise you get upon seeing your freshly developed film for the first time? Digital may provide immediacy, but some things are worth the wait.
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Why Are Republicans Still Letting Jill Greenberg Take Their Pictures?
via gawker.com
By John Cook
GQ assigned photographer Jill Greenberg to shoot Glenn Beck for an interview, in a cheeky homage to Greenberg's notorious series of crying children. Funny! Hey, didn't Beck accuse Greenberg of "terrorizing" children for those photos? Of course he did.
Beck's penchant for hysterical tears makes the pairing obvious—why not ask a photographer famous for taking pictures of crybabies to shoot a blubbering TV personality? But Greenberg is an officially designated public enemy of the right wing: Last year, when she was hired by the Atlantic to shoot John McCain, she boasted of taking extra shots of McCain deliberately lit to make him look old and leaving "his eyes red and his skin looking bad." Also, she posted photoshopped outtakes on her web sitefeaturing a monkey shitting on McCain's head. Republicans didn't like that. Beck got angry and called her a "nut job" on his show and said the Atlantic should sue her:
"The Atlantic" is sending a letter of apology to McCain. They will not be paying her, and they're considering a lawsuit. Good, they should. Greenberg said that, since some of her artwork was anti-Bush, quote, "Maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for them to hire me." Wait a minute. Let me see if I have this right. She does a horrible job and then she blames her employer? That's right, I forgot. She's a liberal.
By the way, this isn't the first time this photographer has been in the middle of controversy. In 2004, to describe her political helplessness, she took a series of supposedly artsy photos of toddlers crying. How did she get this shot? Well, she gave the kids candy, and then she snatched it away from them. They'd cry uncontrollably, and she'd just click away. Isn't it just fantastic art? Nothing more beautiful than a child being terrorized.
Whatever, evil liberal lady. As long as you take one of my chins off, just do what you do. We asked Greenberg if Beck had any idea who she was when she took his picture—and if she has any outtakes with animals shitting on his head—but haven't heard back. How exactly did she get those realistic tears when her subject is an adult? Did she start talking about the Fed or something? To judge by Beck's sympathy for the children Greenberg "terrorized" in her crying toddler series, her strategy probably didn't change much: "And, as a guy that would kill you if you take away my candy, I feel their pain."
The interview itself has Beck saying crazy things like how Jon Stewart is his biggest influence and he's taking up painting, because he contains multitudes.
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