Issue #6, by Bill Russell

Washington Post photo via Associated Press

Susan Sontag the writer and activist has had some interesting things to say about the power of images particularly in the release of Abu Ghraib Prison photographs and the power of them ending the war.

I sat down in cyberspace with illustrators' agent and photographer Bill Grigsby to get his thoughts specifically about these photographs, the public reaction to them, and to the power of images in general:

Bill Russell: No where is the power of images so apparent than in the Iraqi prison photos published recently in the media. War is hell is the clear message. I thought I'd ask you about how you view the effect they have had on people and public opinion?

Bill Grigsby: I thought that the message was the power of shame. It was the prisoners’ fear of being shamed and ours of being caught. Goya and Matthew Brady showed us war is hell.

The Dead at Gettysburg, photo by Matthew Brady, from the National Archives

(Are these photos) another embarrassing Kodak moment or a national shame? I think the images' real power lie in the intent of the images handlers… originally taken to coerce the prisoners, then used to expose the perpetrators, then used to shock the citizenry. Did any of us ever wonder how prisoners are interrogated? The photographs as reproduced provoked everyone to confront the issue of interrogation of prisoners. I agree with Susan Sontag, the photographs were cropped poorly by the media’s photo editors and in doing so robbed us of much of their real meaning.

BR: Is there a power beyond an image's content?
BG: Sure there is. There’s the graphic power (power of composition, power of tonality, hand and all else graphic) that moderates and prejudices the point of view of the image content, that set’s the emotional tone of the image. The image content’s emotion interacting with the graphic emotion provides us with the message.

BR: Do we underestimate the power of images?
BG: The picture-blind have no use for images. The visually illiterate have no time for images. The powerful recognize that images are powerful. The powerful are often picture-blind or visually illiterate and so cannot or do not use the power of images well.

BR: Do you think editors in the mainstream media fear the power that images have?
BG: In the food chain of the photographer or illustrator’s life, editors are frequently powerful.

BR: Images can be subversive. Are we entering a new era of the always edited and even censored image in mainstream media?
BG: I don’t think so. Mainstream media are losing the competition with new and macro medias. Mainstream media have always been censored and edited, even if only for politeness.

BR: The difference I see between photography and illustration is that photographs carry an assumption of truth and illustration carries an assumption of opinion. What do you think?
BG: Photography and illustration start from different premises. Illustration is an additive process. You start with a blank sheet of paper and add to it. Photography starts the other way. Everything is out there in front of the camera. You use the frame of the camera to edit things out, to deduct, and to “take” a picture.

BR: Getty/Corbis is "banking" on the value of their image archives. What do they get that we image makers don't?
BG: Getty/Corbis is just doing the time honored practice of buying and selling copyrights, (which after all is just a form of contracts). What they are doing that is different from image makers is that Getty/Corbis spends almost all of its time and energy making their image archive valuable.

BR: Thank you Bill for your valuable time.

Bill Grigsby's company is Reactor Art and Design

Comments, etc. to Bill@Billustration.com

You can also see the archive of Bill's past columns.