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Page One:
A look at the work of Philip Gefter
Newspaper
editors serve as gatekeepers who control the flow of information and messages
through their media outlets to their audience, therefore helping to dictate
public perception. With more than one million people viewing the New York
Times every day, page one photo editor Philip Gefter has enormous influence
over how Americans perceive current events. As he chooses the images that sum
up America today for most of the world, Gefter focuses on news value, accuracy,
clarity and color.
Every
day, Gefter reviews pictures from all around the world as the self-described
“Curator of the Pictures of the Day” decides which images will work best
journalistically and artistically to portray the people and events making
history. His
mantra:
“Without objectivity, you have no credibility.” His philosophy: “Words are
cerebral and pictures are visceral. It seems as if a photograph gets filtered
through a mental process before it is registered as an image.” His goal: To
choose pictures
that will
resonate through history. “I want people in the future who look at copies of
today’s New York Times to be given a sense of what life is like now (Vienne).”
One
of the most widely viewed pictures to run in the New York Times, and a
prime example of news value, clarity and staying power in an image is this
photograph that
ran on
page one of the paper on September 12, 2001. One hundred
people
submitted images for that issue of the paper. (Hirsch) Gefter chose this one
because of the visual information it provided at the
moment
the second plane hit the
tower.
Gefter described the image as: “the most straightforward, unflinching view of
that
horrific moment. The Brooklyn Bridge in the foreground underscored the
sense of destruction. I am still struck by the intensity of the heat within
that explosion (Gefter).” Millions of people were similarly affected when they
saw the photograph.
Photography is the medium people have been most frequently drawn
to since the attacks, as video of people running, screaming and jumping to their
death became too difficult to watch, and as the printed word failed to
encapsulate the shock and devastation that gripped the nation. Also, still
images seemed to mimic the feeling that time stopped on that tragic morning.
Every modern, major historical event has a representative
photograph associated with it, and in the future this image will most likely be
the one people most associated with September 11, 2001. Reaction to the
photograph “caused a sea of change” in the format of page one. Gefter and other
editors “decided that people want to see as much as they want to read, and so
the paper runs more photographs, they are bigger and generally in color, and
they are more creatively laid out.” (Hirsch)
When the
New York Times first began running color photographs on news pages in the
early 1990s, Gefter spoke out against the change: “In black-and-white
photographs the sober facts are bared, naked: the objects, gestures and
expressions are distilled to their essential anatomy. I believed that the
presence of color in photojournalism was often a cosmetic distraction instead of
a descriptive editorial detail. In other words, color seemed frivolous,
gratuitous, unessential (Gefter).”
The image
to the left is page one of the New York Times from the day after Bill
Clinton was elected president of the United States. It serves as an example of
the way in which Gefter felt black and white photography enabled the reader to
grasp the essence and power of the image and the story, without the distraction
of color.
Just one
week after the New York Times began running color photographs on news
pages, Gefter changed his mind as he realized that use of color did not have to
mean deviation from the mission of journalistic photography. He said: “While I
was afraid that the printing of color photographs would make our great gray lady
appear to have put on too much makeup, that wasn’t the case at all… The truth
is that we do see the world in color. Color imagery is the appropriate
reflection of our era (Gefter).”
Gefter
embraced the power of color in photography and began to select pictures because
of their use of color (in addition to their newsworthiness). In March 2000, the
New York Times ran on page one an image of President Clinton with
councilwomen in India. Gefter has said about the image that: “color provides so
much information about the moment: yellow distinguishes not only the lei around
Clinton’s neck, but also the flower petals the women had showered upon his head
that would have [been] invisible were the picture not in color, the deep reds of
the women’s native clothing and the rich textures would be lost in black and
white, information that tells us a lot about the ceremonial formality of their
culture (Gefter).” Gefter also liked the color of the bench and carpet, and,
because of his extensive background in art, the fact that the image reminded him
of a mannerist painting.
A second
example of a photograph Gefter chose because of the power of its color is one of
an Afghan merchant taken in October 2001. Gefter said: “The colors provide
layers of information about the region – look at the sand-colored hills in the
background, the earthen tones of the blankets and satchels on the donkeys, the
lush brown fabric of the merchant’s cape. They are the muted colors of a desert
culture, but, in black and white the picture would be stripped of those
important details, and the drama that gives it its biblical quality would be
lost (Gefter).”
On almost
any given day, Gefter’s focus on news value, clarity and color are evident in
his photography selections on page one of the New York Times. The recent
front page pictured to the right is an excellent example. The picture from the
vice presidential debate placed above the fold represents a striking use of
color. The two candidates are in black, with the background in a dark blue and
the moderator in bright blue. The black outfits of the candidates balance the
weight of the picture around the blue. The red ties bring the eye to the
candidates’ faces, as does the contrast of their skin color against the
background. The debate undoubtedly was the most news worthy story in the United
States the day the paper was published, and Edwards’ gesture indicates the
tension between the candidates and the political jabs exchanged during the
debate.
The
picture on the bottom left of the paper also represents a very dramatic use of
color. The Japanese woman in the forefront of the photograph and the artwork in
the background make cultural implications that would not be as apparent in black
and white. The Arab woman in the background dressed in all black is a stark
contrast to the color in the rest of the image. The use of color in the third
photograph on page one also serves to draw the eye and the curiosity of the
reader to the paper. All three images give at least some indication as to the
content of the accompanying articles.
In his
work, “Gefter makes a point of distinguishing between pictures that are simply
‘illustrative’ of a new event, and pictures that are ‘edifying’ – that is,
pictures that are not merely additions, but illuminating in themselves, integral
to the report. A photograph on the page can edify when it opens a window on a
story rather than simply being a proof of the story (Vienne).” Gefter uses news
value, accuracy, clarity and color to choose the photographs that tell the story
of an individual, an event, a generation, a nation and the world.
Bibliography
Gefter,
Philip. Five Years Later. Times Talk.
http://www.nytco.com/timestalk/2002_10/features/five1.html. October 2002.
Hirsch,
Marianne. The Day Time Stopped. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i20/20b01101.htm. January 25, 2002.
Vienne,
Veronique. Page One: A Conversation with Philip Gefter, Picture Editor of
The
New York Times’ Front Page.
American
Institute of Graphic Arts:
Ideas: Features.
www.aigany.org/ideas/features/gefter.html.
2002.
Additional Resources
Gefter,
Philip. Art; Why Photography Has Supersized Itself. New York Times.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?
res=F30C11F6345C0C7B8DDDAD0894DC404482
April 18, 2004.
Gefter,
Philip. Self-Portrait as Obscure Object of Desire. The New York Times.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?
res=F50B10F734580C7B8DDDAB0994DB404482&incamp=archive:search.
December 18, 2003
Gefter,
Philip. The Snapshot Aesthetic Goes to High School. The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/19/arts/design/19GEFT.html?
ex=1381896000&en=bd1adcf9989f2810&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND.
October 19, 2003.
Hirsch,
Marianne. War & Peace: Time Interrupted. The relationship between grief and
photography.
Brown Alumni Magazine.
http://brownalumnimagazine.com/storydetail.cfm?ID=829 .
March/April 2002.
Thompson, William. Targeting the Message. Library of Congress. 1996.
Pages 267, 296-297.
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