Jill Greenberg and John McCain

Who is Jill Greenberg?

Jill Greenberg is a Beverly Hills photographer.

She was hired by the Atlantic Monthly to photograph John McCain for the cover of the October issue, highlighting an article by Jeffrey Goldberg.

She is also a rabid partisan and a disgrace to her profession.

Little Green Footballs links to the story on how Greenberg really feels about McCain.

When The Atlantic called Jill Greenberg, a committed Democrat, to shoot a portrait of John McCain for its October cover, she rubbed her hands with glee.

She delivered the image the magazine asked for—a shot that makes the Republican presidential nominee look heroic. Greenberg is well known for her highly retouched images of bears and crying babies. But she didn’t bother to do much retouching on her McCain images. “I left his eyes red and his skin looking bad,” she says.

After getting that shot, Greenberg asked McCain to “please come over here” for one more set-up before the 15-minute shoot was over. There, she had a beauty dish with a modeling light set up. “That’s what he thought he was being lit by,” Greenberg says. “But that wasn’t firing.”

What was firing was a strobe positioned below him, which cast the horror movie shadows across his face and on the wall right behind him. “He had no idea he was being lit from below,” Greenberg says. And his handlers didn’t seem to notice it either. “I guess they’re not very sophisticated,” she adds.

How professional!

Way to go, Greenberg!

American Digest has some leaked "out-takes" from Greenberg's photo session with McCain. See the images that appeared on Greenberg's website. Disgusting. What was she thinking?

American Digest also has a complete roundup of comments from The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, and this statement out of The Atlantic's PR agency, from Atlantic editor James Bennet:

We stand by the respectful image of John McCain that we used on our cover, and we expect to be judged by it. We were not aware of the manipulated and dishonest images Jill Greenberg had taken until this past Friday.

When we contract with photographers for portraits, we don't vet them for their politics--instead, we assess their professional track records. Based on the portraits she had done of politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger and her work for publications like Time, Wired, and Portfolio, we expected Jill Greenberg, like the other photographers we work with, to behave professionally.

Jill Greenberg has obviously not done that. She has, in fact, disgraced herself, and we are appalled by the manipulated images she has created for her Web site of John McCain.”

I think Bennet is just engaging in CYA.

I don't think he's really "appalled" by Greenberg's manipulated images. I think he's troubled that the world knows.
______________

UPDATE: "Atlantic Monthly Editor to Offer Apology to McCain for Photog’s Doctored Pics"

The editor of The Atlantic Monthly said Monday he is sending a letter of apology to John McCain after a woman the magazine hired to photograph the Republican presidential nominee posted manipulated pictures from the photo shoot on her Web site.

Photographer Jill Greenberg, who is vehemently anti-Republican and expressed glee that the photos would stir up conservative ire, took pictures of McCain for the cover of The Atlantic’s October issue.

During the shoot, she took several other backlit pictures, which she then doctored and posted to her site. In one photo, she added blood oozing from McCain’s shark-toothed mouth and labeled it with the caption “I am a bloodthirsty warmongerer.” In another, a caption over McCain’s head says, “I will have my girl kill Roe v. Wade,” an obvious reference to his running mate Sarah Palin’s anti-abortion positions.

Editor James Bennet said Greenberg behaved improperly and will not be paid for the session. He said the magazine is also considering a lawsuit.

Watch an interview with Bennet.

So Greenberg won't get paid for the photo session. That's tough.

I wonder if the Obama campaign will put her on their payroll.
________________

UPDATE, September 16, 2008: Jill Greenberg Dropped by Photo Agency