Art Photography vs. News Photography: Politico, Race and the “Other Washington” — BagNews: Last week, a story in the art section of The Financial Times, “The Art of Photojournalism,” generated discussion in the photo sphere for discussing the differences, as well as the diminishing boundaries between news and art photography. The day after, a photo story caught my attention for the way it reflected the issue. It was a photo story published by Politico titled “The Other Washington,” based on the images of self described fine-art and documentary photographer photographer, Susana Raab.
It’s one thing for the NYT Magazine to commission an art photographer to document a vital social or political issue, something they’re extremely experienced at, presenting that imagery so that it retains its impressionistic quality and doesn’t purport to be news. The photo story at Politico wasn’t nearly so informed, however, repurposing pre-existing work with news captions and a different lineup of images than the collected images on Raab’s site, which very much read, and are presented as art photography.
