Improving images used to depict ME/CFS

You have to understand the process by which journalists and editors obtain these photos. I don't know how it works; I suspect it involves some sort of software or online program to access images, probably from respositories like Getty that host stock images. The first step is to understand the process. Anyone got any friends who work in a media room?

We've been through this before. The images of patients have been collected. The ME Association ran the Real M.E. campaign a couple of years ago, but I was told that the images could only be used by the ME Association (which they have been).

Edit: Peter White at Forward-ME was looking into this. We spoke about it over Twitter in summer.

 

They likely have licenses for obtaining stock images from providers like Getty. Cheaper than paying for individual photos.

 

That's probably true. But then that's not a barrier to the use of images of real patients, because they would be provided free. So what are the barriers? Lack of access?

 

Lack of access, time constraints, no necessity to check copyright status.

 

These questions are why we need to find a photo editor! We can only speculate - they will actually know...

 

maybe we could tackle the problem from the supply end?
Have had a brief online chat with shutterstock and they say when I asked who decides how photos are categorised
"All of our images go through a review process by our content team"
"submit@shutterstock.com. Our contributor support team will further assist you."

 

Complex consent and licensing issues will cause most of the obstructions. Asset libraries have all this resolved already, and each image comes with the conditions under which it can be used. Almost all major websites and publications have multiple library subscriptions, and they can simply download images and run them. I've often used stock assets myself, and it only takes a couple of minutes to obtain them.

Library photos are taken professionally and supplied in a number of different resolutions. This is because an image may be used for everything from a glossy coffee-table book to a website (and everything in between).

The key here is probably not going to be creating our own assets, but rather finding the tags that identify suitable existing stock.

 

@Simon M

Maybe contact Whitney Dafoe since he is a photographer and would know photo editors, etc. and might be interested in working on this.

https://www.whitneydafoe.com/contact/

Brian Vastag would also likely know photo editors
@brianvastag on Twitter

 

I don't think we know how we should tag our photos, because we don't know what photo editors are searching on. When you look at how they illustrate any health story, it's not disease-specific; it's generally just somebody in a hospital bed, or attached to a drip, or in a wheelchair, or whatever.

We need to ask a photo editor what they do when they have to illustrate an ME/CFS story.

 

But that would only be useful if we knew what tags photo editors would use to search.

 

@Sasha - was it you I worked with on this over at PR some years ago?

 

Yes! Looking back, I think we missed out on this first step of finding out how photo editors actually behave.

 

The right photos may already be in those repositories. I found quite a few for the Phoenix Rising project. We just don't understand the problem from the photo editors' point of view, and I think we need to do that before we do anything else.

It's no good getting photos onto those stock libraries and getting them tagged with what we think are the right tags if those aren't the ones that the photo editors use for ME/CFS stories.

 

see also https://www.s4me.info/threads/misre...elling-2021-mcmillan-et-al.22459/#post-376021

 

Related discussion in this old Thread: https://www.s4me.info/threads/a-database-website-for-me-images.7312/#post-130678
(Mod note - threads now merged)

I think the main problem is that if the images of patients have to be in a main (and often free) photo library but this means they can also be misused (for example to mock patients or commercials etc.)

 

I'd think it would be "fatigue" in many cases, if they're left to their own devices.

But they're not left to their own devices, strictly speaking. Many articles come about following interviews where this could be discussed, and press releases can contain image suggestions.

Off the top of my head:

"Most stock photographs used to represent people with ME trivialise their illness by presenting a well-dressed model looking tired. In publishing these, editors unwittingly contribute to the prejudice, marginalisation, and dismissal aimed at patients, many of them women, who suffer from poorly-researched but devastating conditions. Please consider avoiding stock photographs of people altogether, and instead using the generic medical, science, and research images and graphics used to accompany items about other serious illnesses."

 

Apologies, I posted that before I'd finished, because my cat was yelling into my ear that it's tea time. It's not, but anything for a quiet life.

Anyway...I'm not suggesting this would be a quick process. But the errors sometimes come about simply because picture eds don't realise they're representing a marginalised group. When they do, most of them are perfectly capable of engaging their brains before selecting images.

So where the charities, or the patient groups, or researchers, send out information to the media, I'm suggesting a nudging process. Once the thought is planted, some media outlets might be a bit more selective, a bit more aware of the underlying social and political messages they're conveying.

Some won't, of course. We probably know who they are already.

 

William the Talking Cat didn't appear to own a watch, either, so I ended up feeding on demand, too.