Investigating The Concepts Of Truth And Reality Conveyed Through The Medium Of Photography In The Context Of Photojournalist Lee Miller

As the visual component of contemporary media has overtaken the verbal, visual reportage has established a unique and extremely significant role in 21st-century culture. Julianne Newton has prepared this comprehensive analysis of the development of the role of visual reportage as a critical player in the evolution of our understanding of ourselves, others, and the world. The Burden of Visual Truth offers a first assessment of the role of visual journalism within the context of the complex, cross-disciplinary pool of literature and ideas required for synthesis. Newton approaches the subject matter from several perspectives, examining the theoretical and ideological bases for visual truth, particularly as conveyed by the news media, and applying relevant research on photojournalism and reality imagery to contemporary newspaper, broadcast, and internet professional practice. She extends visual communication theory by proposing an ecology of the visual for 21st century life and developing a typology of human visual behavior. Scholars in visual studies, media studies, journalism, nonverbal communication, cultural history, and psychology will find this analysis invaluable as a comprehensive base for studying reality imaging and human visual behavior. The volume also is appropriate for journalism and media studies coursework at the undergraduate and graduate levels. With its conclusions about the future of visual reportage, The Burden of Visual Truth also will be compelling reading for journalism and mass communication professionals concerned with improving media credibility and maintaining a significant course for journalism in the 21st century. For all who seek to understand the role of visual media in the formation of their views of the world and of their own identities, this volume is a must-read.

As the visual component of contemporary media has overtaken the verbal, visual reportage has established a unique and extremely significant role in 21st-century culture. Julianne Newton has prepared this comprehensive analysis of the development of the role of visual reportage as a critical player in the evolution of our understanding of ourselves, others, and the world. The Burden of Visual Truth offers a first assessment of the role of visual journalism within the context of the complex, cross-disciplinary pool of literature and ideas required for synthesis. Newton approaches the subject matter from several perspectives, examining the theoretical and ideological bases for visual truth, particularly as conveyed by the news media, and applying relevant research on photojournalism and reality imagery to contemporary newspaper, broadcast, and internet professional practice. She extends visual communication theory by proposing an ecology of the visual for 21st century life and developing a typology of human visual behavior. Scholars in visual studies, media studies, journalism, nonverbal communication, cultural history, and psychology will find this analysis invaluable as a comprehensive base for studying reality imaging and human visual behavior. The volume also is appropriate for journalism and media studies coursework at the undergraduate and graduate levels. With its conclusions about the future of visual reportage, The Burden of Visual Truth also will be compelling reading for journalism and mass communication professionals concerned with improving media credibility and maintaining a significant course for journalism in the 21st century. For all who seek to understand the role of visual media in the formation of their views of the world and of their own identities, this volume is a must-read.

A highly readable biography of uniquely talented artist Lee Miller, now in compact paperback. Collected in this compelling volume are the many lives of Lee Miller, intimately recorded by her son, Antony Penrose, whose years of work on her photographic archives have unearthed a rich selection of her finest work, including portraits of her friends Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Max Ernst, Paul Eluard, and Joan Miró. Starting in 1927 in New York, this volume chronicles Lee Miller as she is discovered as a model by Condé Nast, hits the cover of Vogue, and is immortalized by Edward Steichen, George Hoyningen-Huene, Horst P. Horst, and other acclaimed photographers. From there, readers follow Miller to Paris where she, along with Man Ray, invented the solarization technique of photography, and where she developed into a brilliant Surrealist photographer. Finally, this account covers the later chapters of her life, when she became a war correspondent during World WarII, traveling with the Allied armies to cover the siege of Saint-Malo and the liberation of Paris, which lead to her photographs of the Dachau concentration camp that shocked the world. A highly readable biography of a uniquely talented artist, The Lives of Lee Miller is now published in compact paperback.

Lee Miller (1907-1977) was an American-born Surrealist and war photographer who, through her role as a model for Vogue magazine, became the apprentice of Man Ray in Paris, and later one of the few women war correspondents to cover the Second World War from the frontline. Her comprehensive understanding of art enabled her to photograph vivid representations of Europe at war – the changing gender roles of women in war work, the destruction caused by enemy fire during the London Blitz, and the horrors of the concentration camps – that embraced and adapted the principles and methods of Surrealism. This book examines how Miller’s war photographs can be interpreted as ‘surreal documentary’ combining a surrealist sensibility with a need to inform. Each chapter contains a close analysis of specific photographs in a generally chronological study with a thematic focus, using comparisons with other photographers, documentary artists, and Surrealists, such as Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, George Rodger, Cecil Beaton, Bill Brandt, Henry Moore, Humphrey Jennings and Man Ray. In addition, Miller’s photographs are explored through André Breton’s theory of ‘convulsive beauty’ – his credence that any subject, no matter how horrible, may be interpreted as art – and his notion of the ‘marvellous’.

This text examines the use of images in journalistic contexts and the manipulation of these images to accomplish varying objectives. It provides a framework for critical discussion among professionals, educators, students, and concerned consumers of newspapers, magazines, online journals, and other nonfiction media. It also offers a method of assessing the ethics of mass-media photos, which will help visual journalists to embrace new technologies while preserving their credibility. Phototruth or Photofiction? also: *recounts the invention of photography and how it came to be accorded an extraordinary degree of trust; *details how photos were staged, painted, composited and otherwise faked, long before digital technology; *lists contemporary image-altering products and practices; *details many examples of manipulated images in nonfiction media and lists rationales offered in defense of them; *explains how current ethical principles have been derived; *lays groundwork for an ethical protocol by explaining conventions of taking, processing, and publishing journalistic photos; and *offers tests for assessing the appropriateness of altered images in non-fiction media. Each chapter is followed by "Explorations" designed to facilitate classroom discussion and to integrate into those interactions the students' own perceptions and experiences. The book is intended for students and others interested in the manipulation of images.

For decades, people have made certain assumptions about photographs, the primary one being that they are truthful in depicting reality. While this is true in many cases, it is not always so. This book traces the rise of photography’s perceived veracity. It shows why a combination of pre-knowledge of early developments in imagery, a persistent marketing campaign espousing the accuracy of photographs and a perception by users that what they got from their photographs was an accurate depiction acted to create the belief in the photograph’s veracity. The book uses philosophy, physiology, psychology and photography to tell this story and concludes by describing a system of identification that could be used to separate images that are not always what they seem. The turbulence caused to photography with the introduction of digital imaging is described and is the impetus for the beginning of the discussion about where photography sits today amongst other images.

Fashion model, photographer, friend of the Surrealists, war correspondent: the remarkable Lee Miller had a varied career. Her superb photographic work is now being rediscovered, and it forms the basis for the major touring exhibition that this book accompanies. In the 1920s Lee Miller, already a successful fashion model in New York, set off for Paris to pursue her growing interest in working behind the camera. Armed with an introduction from Steichen, she sought out the Surrealist photographer Man Ray, and announced herself as his new pupil. Together they developed the technique of solarization, and Miller went on to establish herself as a photographer in her own right. In the early thirties, in New York, she broke new ground by taking models out of the studio and photographing them on location in city streets. She returned to Paris and during the war years served as an acccredited war correspondent for Vogue. She was the only photographer on hand during the invasion of St. Malo, and was the frist photojournalist to report the horrors of Dachau. After the war, Miller married the Surrealist painter and writer Roland Penrose and settled in England. She gradually withdrew from commercial work, but she continued to photograph the friends who came to visit -- Picasso, Miro, Noguchi, Max Ernst, and Braque among them. Here is a rich selection of Lee Miller's finest photographs, one that will ensure her place among the great photographers of the twentieth century.

Together for the first time, this collection of photos from model turned photographer Miller includes her portraits of such luminaries as Pablo Picasso, Fred Astaire, Dylan Thomas, as well as London during the Blitz and the aftermath of the Third Reich. 135 illustrations.