The Iowa Photo: Political event presents opportunity to test multiple-exposure photo

Ethics in photojournalism are pretty straightforward. Aside from debating the morals behind controversial photos, one of the biggest rules my photojournalism and ethics professors preached was not to abuse Photoshop’s software to make a photo look more “aesthetic.“

But what happens when you use in-camera settings to produce a photo?

Recently, I came across a post by one of the many landscape photographers I follow on Instagram. In their posts, they mentioned they used the multiple exposure setting in their camera to produce their photo. My colleague Nick Rohlman walked me through the process of activating the feature in my camera.

A multiple-exposure photo is often used in landscape photography, where multiple images are layered on top of a base photo. How this effect is achieved is up to the photographer. Images can be layered in Photoshop, which can easily turn into a tedious editing session, or it can be done in-camera with a limit of nine photos.

I’ve spent a long time watching YouTube tutorials for multiple exposure edits and an even longer time on Photoshop, trying to layer the photos just right without much success. So, I was pretty ecstatic to learn the camera could do most of the heavy lifting for me. It’s a great way to show movement in your photos, and I wanted to add the technique to my skill set.

A few ideas for photos have popped into my mind, but with any new skill, I needed to experiment with the technique in different scenarios so I could anticipate how the layers would look.

While I was at Iowa Republican and former state lawmaker Jim Carlin’s official campaign launch last week, I noticed there were a lot of American flags set out. The idea of layering Carlin and the American flag came to mind.

In between snapping photos for the assignment, I’d slip into the camera’s settings and enable the multiple exposure setting. I spent who-knows-how-long aiming my camera at an American flag in someone’s hand, then at whoever was speaking, checking the photo, and retaking it while keeping the frame of that flag in mind. Eventually, I found that the blue area in the flag was the best place to frame the speaker because the stripes drowned out anything it was layered over. A few minutes later, this photo was produced.

After the initial excitement of my first successful multiple-exposure photo, I realized this photo had some strong imagery.

Immediately, a few questions popped up in my mind: Does the photo make it look like The Gazette favors this candidate over the others? Have I given other political candidates the same coverage? How would this photo be used after it’s published? How would our readers interpret this photo? What would this photo look like to someone without the article’s context? Did the use of in-camera technology make this photo ethically OK to use?

All these questions and more bounced around inside my mind. As I considered them, I realized if I had to ask these questions, the photo probably shouldn’t be submitted for the assignment.

Since then, I’ve found myself mulling over the choices journalists and photojournalists make every day in their coverage.

It’s not the first time I’ve reflected on the impact we have on our communities. I’ve thought about it often, both in college and as a journalist in Illinois.

Now, I’m looking at it again, but as a photojournalist.

There’s a level of trust placed on us as we come into people’s daily lives to take photos, allowing our readers an intimate glimpse into the lives of the people journalists write about.

With that trust comes a responsibility to accurately record what we see using various lenses and techniques. It’s up to our discretion to properly frame a photo so that it’s not only accurate but also visually interesting. Creativity can take a photographer far, but at some point, we must ask ourselves what kind of impact a photo will have and whether it accurately portrays the story we are trying to convey to our readers.

Comments: elizabeth.wood@thegazette.com