What Is Jill Greenberg's Demographics Ethical?

Introduction: Jill Greenberg is an often talked about American photographer. Jill Greenberg’s photographical work is highly controversial. Not only does she specialize in portraits but she also sends certain messages through them. Her messages usually reflect something political. I believe that her use of these portraits is not effective or ethical for many reasons. The main reason being the way she goes about taking her photos.

Body: One of Greenberg’s highly talked about and controversial series includes portraits of different children crying. This series was made to express her frustration and disapproval of the Bush administration she mentioned, “as a parent I have to reckon with the knowledge that our children will suffer for mistakes our government is making.” (1) I do not believe she created these photos ethically because of the way she provoked the crying response in the children. She gave the children lollipops and toys then took them away to get them to cry. (1) Although the parents gave consent for her to take candy and toys from them it is not ethical
Once again she did not agree with what he was doing politically and tried to use her photos to express this. The magazine The Atlantic had her take the photos of McCain for one of their October covers. (2) She purposely made him stand in front of an unflattering light that gave him a murderous appearance and decided not to edit out his bloodshot eyes. He was not aware that the bad angles and lighting were being used and was led to believe that he was being lit from a different light source. She even said herself, “that’s what he thought he was being lit by, but that wasn’t firing.” (3). This is unethical because he did not agree to be misled or agree for the bad photos to be published. She even calls herself a “Manipulator” (4) so she is well aware that was she is doing is