I
attempt to become as totally responsible to the subject as I possibly
can. The act of being an outsider aiming a camera can be a violation of humanity. The only way I can justify my role is to have respect for the other person’s predicament. The extent to which I do that is the extent to which I become accepted by the other, and to that extent I can accept myself." James Nachtwey / Conflict Photographer Our guest today Jonathan Green Professor and Executive Director of the UCR/ARTSblock “Photojournalism in the Palestinian Israeli Conflict,” After fighting off the demons of our freeways, Jonathan made his way to our f8 Pasadena meeting last Saturday. Below is a summary by Jonathan based on what he presented. I also have a copy of his PowerPoint presentation if anybody would like to see… “Photographs need a context and at times a narration to be understood. Single photographs are extracted from time and space. We cannot see around the edges. We do not necessarily understand the fullness of the situation from which an image was extracted. As human beings we read photographs of other human beings with a great deal of subtly and intuition. We are capable of empathy even though the photographer may have felt none. In documentary photographs, the camera almost always provides a more accurate account of reality than the conscious intension of the photographer. But the way a photo is framed and presented does indeed help reinforce its meaning. We read photographs through visual clues that harken back to historical human visual iconography. While this iconography may vary from culture to culture, the most significant gestures embodied in such emotions as grief and compassion are universal. Humans are the only living creatures who are aware of their eventual death. This knowledge of mortality makes us fascinated, indeed at times obsessed, with narratives, and images of death, disease, decay, and violence. A quick look at the world’s popular press will show that the preponderance of articles feature these themes and realities. So it is not mere voyeuristic tendencies that force us to look, but a primal concern with our own impermanence that makes photographs of political violence so bracing, unsettling, and impossible to ignore. While as photographers we may hope that a photograph can help right a wrong or change social or political conditions, very few photographs actually accomplish these aims. Human beings are certainly more prone to violence, self-interest, testosterone anger, and tribal mentality than a commitment to social good, truth and justice. The facts that Riis' and Hines's photographs helped change laws and social values and a few photographs from Vietnam helped swell anti-war opinion are actually rare phenomena. Of course photojournalists should continue to strive for images that are powerful enough to influence positive change. But the reality is that photojournalism/documentary photography essentially describes reality, providing a record of what exists. A photograph’s political meaning is constructed by the viewer's beliefs, not the photographer’s intensions. You read the Israel/Gaza portfolio based on your political stance about these issues. They are merely accurate descriptions of moments in time. The ones that seem more stunning and powerful utilize more visual, iconographic, and psychological allusions. In and of themselves these photographs are neither pro nor con.” Here is the book I referenced: The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence Susie Linfield (2010) In The Cruel Radiance, Susie Linfield challenges the idea that photographs of political violence exploit their subjects and pander to the voyeuristic tendencies of their viewers. Instead she argues passionately that looking at such images—and learning to see the people in them—is an ethically and politically necessary act that connects us to our modern history of violence and probes the human capacity for cruelty. The hour went by all too quickly and all present engaged in discussion of the issues If time permitted many additional questions could have been explored…if we had a few more hours. Listed below are some issues we can discuss at a later date: Impact of culture on current photojournalism Quantity of pictures blunting the societal impact Power of the State to adapt and respond to controversial pictures The new paradigm of financially driven photojournalism The moral burden of institutions sending photojournalists into conflict The post conflict issues suffered by those in field Embedding and censorship Hyper-Speed that media gets to public eye…even before fully understood Direct to public publishing from conflict areas
1 Comment
James Staub
10/7/2014 03:13:33 pm
A line that has stuck with me from Jonathan Green's excellent talk on ethical questions for conflict photography/photographers occurred near the end of his slide show, which surprisingly began with the calm of an Ansel Adams photography. Mr. Green displayed the image of a dying child on the streets of the Warsaw Ghetto. The complete disregard for the life of this innocent child became clear with Green's description of the German officer who casually on a lark photographed this and other scenes of tragedy in the ghetto. " In this case the camera had more empathy than the photographer" I paraphrase, but the concept of an inanimate memory device achieving emotion hit me. We bring our empathy or all else that informs our humanity, despite intentions to the contrary, to the cold fact of a photograph.
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