Most newspaper photographers I've had the pleasure to know over the years have been visual -- rather than verbal -- types. As you might expect, they are moved by what they see. It's foolish to generalize, of course, but when a photographer approaches me to express an opinion about reaction to one of their images, I always take the time to listen. They usually make a lot of sense.

So it was with my colleague, Rich Forsgren, who has headed the Erie Times-News photo operation for more than a decade. Rich has been following the reaction in the newspaper's letters to the editor section to a recent photo of a grieving widow at her husband's military funeral in Crawford County.

The most recent letter, which appeared in Thursday's editions, said, in part, "How could you publish a picture of a grieving widow at her husband's funeral? It was insensitive and cruel. Perhaps this was all about politics, depicting a soldier's funeral to show a negative view of the war."

Forsgren approached me to say that he is surprised that some readers are shocked that photographers would make images that evoke so much emotion. "Yes, it's very sad to see what a widow would go through at the time of her husband's funeral. But it's our job to hold up a mirror to society -- for good and bad -- to let our readers see how people in our region live their lives and die," he said.

The counterpoint to the image of the grieving widow were the photos of joyous Marines returning to loved ones in Erie on Oct. 24 after a long stretch of service in Iraq. Everyone loved those pictures. I must have stared at them for two minutes, drinking in all that happiness, as I read my newspaper at breakfast the next morning.

The photo inspired a letter writer in today's editions to praise the newspaper for printing such uplifting pictures.

Truth is, we print the good and the bad, as Forsgren said.

-- Kevin Cuneo