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October 19, 2009

Your Turn: Mixing it Up with the Kids

By Michael Shaw

Obama Maryland School Getty.jpg Obama Maryland school.jpg

What do you read the shot on the left which Getty used to feature its editorial package on Obama’s Maryland school visit (as opposed to the Reuters shot on the right)? Is the shot on the left necessarily negative, by the way, or does it actually resonate more widely in articulating Obama’s larger challenge these days? And then, which one do you think will circulate more widely?

Update 7:45 pm PST: If you circulate #1… what a gift to the right that this President should come off as 1.) angry, or 2.) unable to short things out between two grade schoolers. And if you circulate #2, who’s going to pay attention?

(image 1: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images. image 2: Jason Reed/Reuters. Getty caption: US President Barack Obama chats with students during a visit to Viers Mill Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland. The school was picked because it was the first Title I school in Montgomery County to win the National Blue Ribbon for significantly closing the achievement gap. It won this in 2005.)

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  • Tim

    Given that I am one of many who think that the attitudes of various media inside the DC interstate beltway are, as an institution, calcified and unchanged since the results of 11.04.08, I think the one on the left by Getty will be the most widely circulated. I mean (thinking in “beltway” terminology) do you want to portray the POTUS as an active and (enjoyably) active parent (on the right), or do you want to portray him as angry and that those 2 young wipper-snappers should just settle down (on the left)?

  • Tim

    eh, “…active and enjoyable parent (on the right)…” was what I meant to write.

  • g

    Interesting how much one can read into a subtle facial expression. The raised eyebrows on the right vs. the tiny crease between the brows on the left give impressions that are almost polar opposites, though both shots were probably taken with an automatic shutter within split seconds of one another. Also the child’s hand is poised in a grasping action in the one on the right, vs. at rest on the left.
    Because the camera captured a flowing series of motions and facial expressions, rather than isolating a single action or incident, it can be very easy to interpret it however one wants to depending on which frame one chooses.

  • http://akinoluna.blogspot.com akinoluna – a female Marine

    I think it’s silly to read so much into, and assign so much meaning, to the tiny variations in people’s facial expressions in photos taken so closely together like this. The one on the left is just a better photo.

  • Molly

    In both of them, he looks like a dad interacting with children. Win and win, in my opinion.

  • Tim

    BTW – you operate a great site, here.

  • Blue Shark

    The left hand photo is a much better composition photo than the one on the right … even though O’s expression is harder.
    …I know how talking to kids is though as does every parent in the viewership. I think you over-analyze these two shots.

  • yg

    one of the local channels dubbed him “reader in chief.”

  • http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1009/669899_video.html?ref=newsstory yg
  • stonelake

    See, this is why I love this blog. It is a reminder that what we are getting is not actuality, but someone’s interpreted version. Nowhere is this more important than in photo selection – because our impressions of public figures are largely unconscious and subtly cumulative. I don’t think choosing one photo over the other is bad or agenda-driven- I just think that it is not well understood that this sort of editorial choice is ocurring.
    Just as we need to see a clip on The Daily Show of the continual recitation of message and/or talking points, or the occasional hilight of hypocrisy- we need to have occasional remiders of the semiology of the news media. This is the most important function that alternate media can serve- because the difference is similar to the difference between watching a hollywood movie in the theater and actually watching a movie being made.

  • desertwind

    I don’t see angry in the first photo (but, maybe that’s just me). What I see is a man interacting with kids in an honest way. Really connecting. I also see the boys being boys – there are quite a few different shots of this exchange.

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