Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Jill Greenberg - Still At Large?

Well, it seems that Fast Company is none-to-concerned about Jill Greenbergs' bad reputation (Jill Greenberg: Open Mouth, Insert Foot, 9/12/08) and has assigned her to photograph Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane for their latest cover story.

It surely helps, that the opening paragraph of the article ( Seth MacFarlane’s $2 Billion Family Guy Empire, 11/08) describes MacFarlane's work - "Much of the animated sitcom's purpose seems to be to stoke the opposition, to offend the easily offended." So, perhaps they are two peas in a pod? Kindred souls?

(Continued after the Jump)

The online article includes other images Greenberg produced as well as her signature (and dare I say, now looking a bit passe) lighting style.

Perhaps, though, Greenberg shot this piece back before the controversy erupted? As we move forward in these interesting editorial times, it will be interesting to see if Greenberg remains "assignable." Certainly, if this was done after "the incident", MacFarlane surely has no problems with Greenberg, since 10 days ago, his Family Guy show had this suggestion that McCain/Palin supporters are Nazi's, with this in it:

If you'd like to see the video segment with that in it, click here.

Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Surely?" They may both be against McCain, but I'm not sure you can draw conclusions like that based on their actions.

Anonymous said...

Her 'bad reputation'? So you have a personal vendetta against her now? Are you going to make a post everytime she is published again, in hopes of reminding everyone that you deem her unworthy and passe?

Anonymous said...

I agree with Emmely. I'm not sure I see the value in this post, or the point in criticizing the quality of her work. And why drag politics and controversial cartoon episodes into it?

Anonymous said...

a cursory review of greenberg's website (in the "news" section) shows that a) she's shot about 10 jobs since the controversy and b) fast company was one of those jobs.

why don't you think before you post? i'm sure your axe to grind is very precious to you but since you make misstatements of fact that take seconds to correct perhaps there is something wrong with your methods. stop embarrassing yourself.

Anonymous said...

john, whats your point with this?

Look, I appreciate what you're doing with educating people about business practices and all... but this post goes too far.

A. continuing to bad mouth her is not professional and will certainly cause some potential clients pause to think you might some day bad mouth them

B. A point you often seem to miss in all of your business practice wisdom is this. Someone with a proven track record of making outstanding images will get away with a lot of "unprofessional" things in your view simply because they are in high demand. They will be able to wear jeans on assignment, speak ill of a presidential candidate, and in general take career risks because their photography is stellar. If you make amazing photos, you'll be able to go anywhere in this business.

Anonymous said...

David Bailey was often drunk on shoots and Patrick Lichfield occasionally so. Didn't hurt their careers and maybe even made them (bad boys who were a lot of fun).

However, if I were a publisher I'd never hire Greenberg - let her make her statements on her own dime, not mine. Very discourtious to her client, the publisher.

Anonymous said...

She CREATED this controversy, and all subsequent comments or critiques are justified......in fact, knowing what I know about Jill, she may have done it to try to remain relevant as the popularity of her look starts to wane.

Perhaps she should change her moniker from "the Manipulator" to "Madonna?"

Anonymous said...

Please no more Greenburg..........for fucks sake.

Who gives a shit about her or the controversy?

Anonymous said...

1. I like Greenberg's photos.

2. I think what she did regarding the McCain shoot was unprofessional and disgusting; but, hey, each person carves out their own path and the legacy they are comfortable leaving behind.

3. John, I believe by you initially bringing this issue to our attention was relevant.

4. John, I believe you adding this latest post is vindictive and unprofessional.

5. My prediction is that some clients will NEVER use Greenberg again while others will either not care or will ever find out about the controversy in the first place. I also believe that some clients will NEVER want to work with you again, John, because of some of your unprofessional statements on this blog while, again, some won't care and others won't find out.

John Harrington said...

I posited the notion that she was unhirable after the McCain controversy. I began to write this piece just about that, THEN, when I was trying to figure out of MacFarlane would have been offended is he had known, or if he would have been her champion, I *stumbled* upon the Nazi footage, and concluded that they were of like minds.

That was the basis for the piece - was I wrong that she's unhirable? Maybe, maybe not.

John

Anonymous said...

Jill is a .........

She may be a .........

I don't care for her tactics......

I believe she hurt the profession......

I feel that she is does not gives a rats ass about how her exploitation affected many photographers now faced with far more restrictive contracts and PR agents controlling more of the final image for the famous amongst us.

Who knows, if I was an Art Director or Picture editor I would never go near her.

Right is right and wrong is wrong. Sugar coat it all you want.

Anonymous said...

one more time, john. this time i will write it really slow so even you can understand: in your post, you claim that "maybe" fast company hired jill after her dispute with mccain. but the date of her fast company shoot is right there on her website, along with numerous other shoots she's done. so the essential question of this post is inaccurate. you have the technology to change this inaccuracy, by "updating" your post. but you can't, and you won't, because you aren't man enough to admit you are wrong. you even dip into your own comments but still can't sack up. pathetic.

of course, if she's still getting hired, apparently all the whingeing and bitching about her behavior has not had the effect desired by many of her detractors. oh well, less jobs for shittier photographers i guess. there are always weddings.

and one last thing: has anyone actually seen a change in any contract since this happened? anyone? noonan? i can tell you that THIS photographer, one who actually works quite a bit, has not. same shitty contracts as before, just as annoying and just as protective of "talent". c'est la guerre.

John Harrington said...

Anonymous - The LAST one -

Actually, I never went to Jill's site looking for the date of the assignment. I looked at the cover of the publication, and worked backwards and arrived at an ambiguous date.

After digging around on her difficult to navigate site, I found it presumably - 9/6, unless she's shot other covers that are yet to appear. So, it appears she shot this cover JUST before the controversy errupted. Perhaps she and Seth had a meeting of the minds and he fired her up just before she spoke to PDN?

Now I'll type really s l o w l y, s o y o u g e t t h e p o i n t - there is a lot of BS floating around from both McCain AND Obama, and this is all about how UNprofessional she was, and further, this is about how she's clearly found SOME work since the controversy - this is NOT about being a supporter of either candidate.

Oh, and as to contract changes - it'll happen - bet on it. It will just take time.

Perhaps next time you'll be man (or woman) enough to sign your own post?

John

Anonymous said...

So is Greenberg a Nazi sympathizer?

Lesson to be learned from this ........

I can express my free speech just like she can.

Booyah

Anonymous Harness Racer said...

Anonymous's:

I think Jon's point is that Greenberg acted unprofessional in her handling of her job for the McCain photo shoot.

It would be hard to argue that the behavior of Greenberg was professional, and it does have ripple effects on the entire industry, ie more clauses in our contracts, more control over our work ect.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad she's able to do her own thing and still get sweet gigs like this. She's a good match for the shoot.

Anonymous said...

revised contracts due to Greensberg's actions have happened as well as shoots getting much tighter due to new restrictive clauses. A photo Editor.com has comments written by several shooters who came across new contracts that were written afte Jill's little artistic exercise.

Se fucked us all and don't kid yourself...if you haven't seen this type of contract..then you are not doing national covers and most likely a wanna-be just spouting off to make yourself feel good.

Anonymous said...

^^ nice blog!! thanks a lot! ^^

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