During my years as a photojournalist, I’ve taken a number of photos with unlucky timing – eyes squinting, sour expressions, tongues hanging out – the same expressions that you’ll sometimes get when you pause even Netflix at the exact wrong moment. A person’s face can’t be frozen in a flattering expression 100 percent of the time, making some odd expressions inevitable.
That’s exactly why a recent headline caught my eye. According to reports in the Washington Post, the US Pentagon excluded photographers from two press briefings this month, reportedly for “unflattering” photos of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
A Defense Department spokesperson denied those claims, saying photographers were restricted for space reasons and that the press was welcome to use the official photographs from the meeting that the Pentagon shares after each briefing. Video cameras were still allowed into those briefings.
Article continues belowBut, the allegedly unflattering photos are just another example of rising tensions between the current administration and the media. A number of journalists left their desks at the Pentagon last fall over being required to sign a new agreement – the New York Times has filed a lawsuit calling the agreement a violation of the First Amendment right to press freedom. Last year, the Associated Press – including photographers – was banned from White House events over not using the term "Gulf of America."
I’m not a political journalist, having shifted from local news reporting to tech reporting more than a decade ago. But as a photographer, I know how common those unflattering, ill-timed photos are. Typically, the photographer (or perhaps an editor) goes through the photos of the event and selects the best options.
But “best” of course, is subjective. In photojournalism, “best” doesn’t mean the most flattering images, but the images that convey the tone and emotions of the event. Look no further than the Napalm Girl photograph or the World Press Photo Contest to understand that the most impactful images in journalism are rarely smiling faces.
A photojournalist’s job is to capture what happened. But just as written journalists choose which words to use, photojournalists choose how to compose the shot and when to press the shutter – and sometimes the shutter is pressed on an expression that wouldn’t be featured in a flattering portrait, but may speak volumes about the emotions during the event.
Unlike perhaps, say, a glamour portrait photographer, a photojournalist’s job isn’t to make the subject of the photos look good. A photojournalist’s job is to capture a representation of what happened. I’m not sure what photographs were allegedly “unflattering,” but the furrowed brow and solemn expressions that I’ve seen from the event feel far more appropriate for a briefing on the war in Iran than, say, a smiling portrait.
The “unflattering photo” fiasco reminds me of the response to photographer Christopher Anderson’s close-up portraits of the Trump cabinet published in Vanity Fair in December. The collection of photos included extreme closeups with no attempts to hide pores and makeup smears, which the internet described as everything from “diabolical” to “done dirty.”
A photograph’s job isn’t to be pretty. A photograph’s job is to communicate without words, and when the topic isn’t pretty, why should the photographs themselves be?
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