Jill Greenberg, a freelance celebrity photographer, has admitted on her website that she deliberately made photographs she took of presidential nominee John McCain negative and unflattering. The Atlantic Magazine hired freelancer Jill Greenberg to take pictures of McCain for an upcoming edition of the magazine. According to her blog, Jill Greenberg used uplighting to portray McCain as devilish and did not airbrush or retouch his red eyes and skin tone. Correcting minor imperfections after the shoot is a common practice for photographers, including Jill Greenberg.

After The Atlantic rejected most of the photographs and went with a more traditional, even though still unretouched, portrait of McCain, Jill Greenberg posted some of the photos on her website and Photoshopped scribbles on them, depicting McCain as a devil with horns and with blood dripping from his fangs.

In her blog, Jill Greenberg boasts “I left his eyes red and his skin looking bad.” She blames Atlantic Magazine for hiring her in the first place. “Some of my artwork has been pretty anti-Bush, so maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for [The Atlantic] to hire me.”

On The Atlantic’s website, the author of the article photographed by Jill Greenberg apologized to readers and expressed his sheer disbelief at the level of unprofessionalism exhibited by Greenberg.

Is it okay to let your politics show in the workplace? Jill Greenberg sees nothing wrong with her actions. As a management consultant, I have many clients whose politics differ from my own. But they have hired me to do a job and that’s when personal opinions are put aside and professionalism kicks in. If I chose to imbue the work I do for my clients with my own politics, I would rightly be fired and could likely anticipate to not work in the field of management bookkeeping again.

Jill Greenberg has not done herself or the Democrats any favors. She will likely find her calendar less booked, even by Dem-leaning clients who may feel that her lack of professionalism could extend to other personal opinions. Greenberg’s actions and admissions will lead her down the path of becoming an industry pariah. If Jill Greenberg’s goal was to bring notoriety to her self and her business, she may have accomplished that in a very different manner than she intended.

Sources:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09142008/news/politics/mac_hater_has_a_lousy_image_129007.htm

http://manipulator.com/