Riding the Ritz cracker

Did you see the news photograph a couple of years back of Vladimir Putin, shirtless, astride a horse? And—without meaning to draw you out as to your age—do you remember the infamous 1974 photograph, taken during the federal election campaign, of Robert Stanfield dropping the football—although nothing was published showing him make several successful catches?

If so, then you will be familiar with the power of photography to instill either a positive or negative image of a political leader.

And you will not be surprised—although perhaps a little more jaded—when I tell you Stephen Harper’s government has spent at least $2.3 million hiring photographers to take pictures of cabinet ministers during the first nine years of its tenure, according to figures tabled in the House of Commons. It is an incomplete count. It doesn’t include departmental salaried photographers, or partypaid photographers. But as they say, you get the picture.

The nine-year aggregate works out to over $250,000 per year; and with about 40 ministers to divide the expenditures among, that’s about $6,250 per minister per year. To make it more pedestrian, apply the $16-dollar-a glass of orange juice test—the undoing of former cabinet minister Bev Oda—and you’ll find it’s equivalent to about 390 glasses a year per minister, just a few more than one glass a day.

Just how many ways, I wonder, can you photograph a dignified-looking head-and shoulders shot of a minister for hanging in the entrance foyer to the antechamber to the outer office to the inner sanctum to the minister’s private quarters?

You have to wonder if there isn’t something more than dull portraiture at work here. For all we know, the government may be getting ready to trot out the Canada Gazette – Swimsuit Edition in time for the 2015 election, replete with month- by-month photographs of buff cabinet ministers in their sunbathing skivvies. Or, more risqué still, perhaps they’re planning to put out a pagea- day calendar during the next election entitled Ministers Without Portfolio—Or Anything Else, featuring undressed cabinet types draping smartphones or briefing books strategically over personal locations.

The ministerial photoshoot expenditures are, of course, a drop in the bucket compared with what political parties are likely to expend on photography in order to capture the images that will win our hearts and minds. So, for example, expect to see lots more photographs of a resolute Harper surveying the vast northern ice-scape as he bravely directs salvage divers where to search for the long-lost Franklin expedition.

The pictures that are out there now remind me of the photos of Kim Jong Un visiting some far-flung military outpost, demonstrating to a retinue of generals how to launch a nuclear warhead—“oh, Dear Leader, so the big red button is the one you push. Thank you so much for pointing it out to me: I never knew, and I’ve spent my entire career in the military”.

The Liberals will issue lots of photos of Trudeau, deep in thought as he listens to the wise thoughts of older people with wrinkles and less hair, while the NDP will picture Thomas Mulcair surrounded by a few carefully selected preschoolers whom he doesn’t frighten.

Back in the good old days, we used to have to wait for days as intelligence officials pored over photographs of Chairman Mao swimming the Yangtze river at age 73 in order to figure out whether the event was faked, because in some photographs, you couldn’t see his arms in the water. And Kremlin watchers always had fun looking at official reviewing stand photographs to see how clumsily an out-of-favour communist party factotum had been excised from the official photographic record.

But with photoshopping software so sophisticated even an adult could master it, it is impossible to tell nowadays which picture is real and which picture is doctored. So that bare-chested shot of Vladimir Putin quickly spawned internet imitations—Putin on horseback with Barack Obama clinging to his back, Putin riding a great white shark, Putin riding on a giant Ritz cracker (yes, a giant Ritz cracker). It could be that the photo of Putin on horseback was really crafted out of a shot taken of a shirted Putin riding a donkey, or maybe a simple shot of Putin’s head was superimposed on that of someone else riding a giant Ritz cracker.

So we should be suspicious of photography employed for partisan purposes during the next election campaign. The Conservatives will doubtless show a picture of Fidel Castro holding a baby Justin Trudeau in his arms, with the slogan “Raised the Cuban way”; the Liberals will show a photograph of Thomas Mulcair wearing a Calgary Stampede cowboy hat, jeans and boots with the tag “Would you trust this man to flip a pancake, let alone run a government?”; and the NDP will display a print of Stephen Harper locked in an affectionate handshake with Mike Duffy, with the caption “Friends forever.”

But those photogaphs will just be giant Ritzcracker- style fakes, won’t they?

dsimmonds@wellingtontimes.ca