From Perpignan: Celebritized News?

Each year at Visa pour l'Image, festival director Jean-Francois Leroy sets the tone for the show with a letter published in the festival program. Last year, he was in a huff about soccer. This year, it's celebrities. He writes:

"Over the last year, a trend has emerged in photojournalism, and that is the tendency to 'celebritize' news. Photographers these days seem to have forgotten how to take photos of the homeless, of activists, fighters, soldiers, victims of rape or child abuse, relatives of victims, rural communities, boxers, prostitutes, transsexuals, orphans, migrants, drug addicts, or any other category - social, professional, religious or political. So what do they do? They do portraits. And we are tired of it."

He goes on. It's a valid complaint, and one we've heard before. But I'm having a hard time drawing the connection between celebrity coverage and a lazy over-reliance on portraiture.

I've heard a lot of griping about celebrity here, both this year and last year. The popular line is that it's cheapening journalism. But take a look around this festival. One of the most enlightening exhibitions I've seen this week is a retrospective of Magnum photographer Dennis Stock. Stock's exhibition includes classic photographs of James Dean (seen above), Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in the 1950s and 1960s. Celebrities all. In another exhibition, Dirck Halstead's impressive portfolio of recent American history is punctuated by portraits of musicians, filmmakers, hippies and activists.

It's fair to say that good celebrity portraiture is hard to do successfully in the TMZ.com era. But let's be careful whom we blame. The problem is the people we've chosen to be our celebrities.

(Photo: James Dean, USA, 1955 (c) Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos)

Comments

[Skid Row]

I find those thoughts very powerful; it does seem that the life changing power of documentary/real news features has been replaced with Pop Culture Portraits and essays.

Photography still has the ability to be a didactic media -it can shift the thinking and help uplift humanity....one viewer at a time.

Issues facing the homeless in this great Americana : race and economics, healthcare --http://www.skidrowportrait.aminus3.com

Peace.
Skid Row | Portrait
Los Angeles, Ca.:The promised land.