Slug:   The Eye of the Beholder
Date:   January 11, 2001
City:   New York

So now my husband's a photo editor. 

When I edit my film before an editor has had a chance to look it, I'll mark frames that I like or make a black and white printout to put in with the sleeve of negatives.  Last week I came home with a couple of printouts from the story that I'd worked on that afternoon and my husband looked at them and said, referring to the editors:  "They're not going to like those pictures...they don't really look like the ones that usually run in the paper." 

"Which is how?" I wanted to know from his perspective. "You know, the kind of picture that's...poignant." 

I trust his judgment and I knew he had a point, but I disagreed with his assessment because he WASN'T THERE.

The assignment, for Neediest Cases was to photograph Natalie Brenes, a young
teenager, in her home who had been suffering from low self esteem, self confidence and other issues at school, which she had been able to overcome with the help of Lizandra Rivera, a social worker.  I met Natalie in Lizandra's office and we were to walk over to her house, several blocks away, once the writer arrived. Since the writer was 1/2 hour late, I had plenty of time to learn about the story and to get to know the two, who had a very 
special relationship.  I also saw that the nature of the teen's personality was that she appeared to be a motivated and gregarious teenager.

When we got to her apartment, I photographed her in her small living room while the writer interviewed her.  She had a captivating smile and smiled often.  Now here's the problem. I knew that the gist of the story was that she had HAD problems, but they weren't in evidence now and clearly the social worker had enabled her to move forward in her life.
 
 

So of course I got a few other frames of her looking...pensive, but those frames were certainly not reflective of the way I saw her that day. 

The thing is, I was well aware that Natalie's chipper personality didn't have the kind of soulful quality that many of the Neediest Cases photographs tend to have, so I made sure to get something that I knew would appease an editor who might be wondering where the self conscious teenager was in the pictures. I thought of it as covering my bases; in hindsight, I felt as though the pensive photographs were a little manufactured, because of how I perceived the situation.

At one point, while her mom was being interviewed, Natalie and Lizandra walked out into the hallway.  Lizandra put her arm around Natalie and told me how proud she was of her.  Natalie then said:  "She's like my second mom."  To me, that was the picture.

But my husband, with his newly found gift for editing was right. The editor didn't like any of my choices. Instead, a picture of Natalie ran that, in my estimation didn't say a whole lot about the girl, or the social worker who had helped her build her self confidence.  All I can say is I was there and they weren't. Perception is in the eye of the beholder. The eye of the one who holds the camera.
 
 

Susan B. Markisz
January 2001
smarkisz@aol.com