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photojournalism as art
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What are people’s thoughts on photojournalism as art? Is the aesthetic element of our documentation an essential function of what we do? Perhaps being a journalist overrides this purpose. Whichever takes preference or precedence, the question still lies whether this kind of photography can even be considered an artform.
by
Kitra Cahana
at
Sat Feb 04 19:25:50 UTC 2006
(ed. Mar 12 2008)
Montreal,
Canada
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I believe if a person feels my work is art so be it, but to me personally I don’t consider myself an artist.
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There have been a number of different takes on this: (1) the two are separate things, an example of which is when Capa counseled Bresson to leave his diddling with surrealism behind and take up photojournalism; (2) the two are intertwined, as instanced by Dorothea Lange’s statement: "There is no real warfare between the artist and the documentary photographer. He has to be both." (3) or the rather more subtle if not coy position taken by Salgado, which simultaneously separates and unifies the two: "I can be an artist a posteriori, not a priori." This debate still rages at Magnum meetings, if what one hears is true. The agency appears to be divided between those who are in the artist camp and those in the journalist camp, and the difference of opinion has led to some rows. If I review the members of either of those camps, I would have to count myself among the journalists, because it is their work that moves me most, but if you were to ask me what I think is behind photojournalism then I would honestly have to classify it as an art: it is an expressive form, not an algorithm or a formula or even a statement; it deals in moral truths, not in axioms or mathematically precise equations; it is in its very essence a "representation" with the same set of narrative qualities that govern other arts (and not just the visual ones) - that is, we tell stories, and stories are "fictions" (nonetheless, a fiction can be true, the highest truth, if not real or objective); and it shares all the same esthetic ideas of other visual arts.
Partly the problem stems from the modern idea of art. Art was not always "Art": the gradual secularization, reification,and fetishization of art as an isolated practice with specific ideological values, market values, and cultural trappings has turned it into something that is decorative rather than "useful," a luxury rather than a common object. The idea of "art for art’s sake" would have been ludicrous in Michelangelo’s time or in Homer’s time. But let us take a more commonplace example to put this into perspective. Look at a tribal oriental rug made, let’s say, by a poor baluch woman in the northeastern provinces of Iran. Today, 19th century examples of such rugs - which back then were made simply for home use as floor coverings, walls, and beds - are collected as art and cost a pretty penny. In my mind there is no question that in fact they are great art, they meet every criteria; but when that rug was made its owner would not have thought of it in those terms because it was considered not just one thing but many: a domestic product with obvious utilitarian value; an art object that delighted the senses; and a religious/metaphysical object as well, not just because some were made specifically as prayer rugs, but also because every, and I mean every tribal rug from Turkey to Afghanistan carries with it the centuries-old emblems of a consistent metaphysical or cosmological scheme (the forms are not so random as they might appear at first glance).
I think that when photojournalists object to the idea of photojournalism as art, what they are really objecting to is its commodification as a marketable "art object" which threatens to drain it of its inherent "use" value as revelation or hard-hitting truth, as reportage intended to create change, and instead attaches to it a false market value as "art" that is intended for rarefied viewing in a museum or on the wall of some rich collector. From this dilemma stems other moral quandaries, such as can photojournalism be considered beautiful, or is there something wrong with photojournalism when it presents ugly truths with such beauty (a frequent point made against Salgado). This seems a bit of a canard to me, really, because after all the history of art is full of ugly truths presented beautifully - just look at Goya’s "Disasters of War." (It could be argued that Goya was the first pictorial journalist.) Still, it is certainly understandable that many photojournalists hesitate to call what they do "art," since the purpose would appear to be so utterly different and the manner by which the image is created would also appear to be quite different - unlike the studio photographer or art photographer, the journalist presumably does not manipulate the image unduly or simply "create" something that wasnt there. The journalist is said to "record" truth. Here is a great quote, found by Alex Reshuan, that makes the point nicely: "A photograph is not created by a photographer. What he does is just to open a little window and capture it. The world writes itself on his film. And the act of the photographer is closer to reading than it is to writing. He is the reader of the world" (Ferdinando Scianna). And yet, reading is also an art form, or so Proust would have it.
So I guess what I am arguing is that photojournalism as art only becomes a problem when we focus exclusively on its marketing or distribution - the consumption end of things. This is what Salgado in his sly way was hinting at (unsurprisingly, since he was trained as an economist). But if we talk about the art inherent in its practice or creation - the production end of things - then I think we have to agree that it is art, so long as the idea of art we are entertaining is not a narrow one and does not imply some kind of "illicit"manipulation or factitiousness on the part of the creator. And this is what Lange was getting at, I am sure.
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If you consider art as an aesthetic form of communication, yes, I see myself as an artist. For me art is "good" when it tells me something, when it forces me to think and not when it is art just for the sake of art. From my point of view, there’s one crucial constraint for photojournalists, you are bound to telling about the world as it is and not only about metaphysical concepts of the world. If you consider art as something rare and expensive intended for rich collectors or museums, I second Salgado’s quote "I can be an artist a posteriori, not a priori." (Very theoretically because nobody thinks that my photos are worth collecting.)
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Every individual has such a different idea of what is considered “art” and what is “good art” that I think it’s hard to say if ALL photojournalism is art or not. one photojournlists photos might be art to one, and just journalism to another. What one person would buy to hang on their walls at home might be totally ugly to another person.
For me, personally, I think that the greatest photojournalists are the ones that can tell a story, and be artists while they do it. The ability to see and capture life with a camera in ways that I would have never thought to, is the best kind of art I can think of. but again, that’s just one persons view of “art”.
Jon – very nicely put:)
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Ana, I like your final definition, not bad at all! And I also heartily agree that it is hard to say if all photojournalism is art, in the sense that it achieves a level of expressive force and beauty that it can be said to rise above the mere communication of a news event and become something more enduring. Again, a lot of the problem comes down to how we define "art": many trades for example are not exactly "art" but must be classified as one of the arts in the broad sense of the term. So in a sense any given example of photojournalism can be part of a practice that we define as "an art," but for lack of good artistry is not itself "art". So now we are introducting the element of artistic execution as a criterion. And as far as personal taste goes, well that brings in another dimension: Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup cans still dont qualify as art in the eyes of many people. I myself never cared for Warhol either, though I understand why he most definitely belongs to one trajectory of the history of 2oth century art. But this implies the conclusion that taste is not a criterion, ultimately, because Warhol, though you or I might not like it, is definitely Art: it is commodified as such, sold as such, exhibited as such, analysed as such. Personal taste is a tricky thing anyway, and I mistrust the concept of subjectivity whenever it appears in these kinds of argument. It is a very weak concept that doesnt hold up to analysis for many reasons, one of which is the fact that there is no such thing as pure subjectivity or individuality or taste. What most people think of as "subjectivity" is actually better thought of as "intersubjectivity." These are social constructs, and although one person’s view may differ from another, the views to which each adheres are already structured and set up for each of them, and of course their personal opinions matter not a whit for the material status of the thing as it is socially received - in other words, I may not think much of Warhol’s cans as art, but art it is, and art it will remain even if in the future that form of art goes out of favor. Now why this is, in fact, is a very complicated matter.
But I would certainly wish to distinguish between Photojournalism and what is generally called Art Photography, most of which personally I cannot abide simply because it seems so much like a one-trick pony. Compared with the best Photojournalism, which I guess is so good because it manages to convey many stories rather than a simple message, the Art Photography of today seems rather pallid and weak and - worst sin of all in my eyes - contrived. But then how does one distinguish between the two, it is not at all easy.
One final twist: is photography itself an art at all, or a sham art? The 19th century, faced with this technology for the first time, tended to think not, and that led photographers to experiment with pictorialism, until the new modernism exemplifed by Weston et al. replaced it. I remember once leaving an exhibit of Alex Webb’s recent work at the Leica gallery in NYC, and in the elevator some people were discussing what they thought. One fellow scoffed, "ha, Instant Art." In other words, in this guy’s view, photos - all photos not just Webb’s (which I suspect were far too subtle for his limited imagination, to be honest)—were pretenders to the throne of Art because all it took was to push a button and voila Instant Art. It lacked what he considered to be a fundamental criterion of Art, that it be a product of tactile labor, that it be worked over by the hands of the artist. Course, you and I know that it is not so, but why this fellow is wrong and we are right is another very hard thing to explain.
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In todays world, everything and everyone is an artist – with that comes both the question of quality and scholarship. This open ended decline began on both sides of the Atlantic over forty years ago and has in fact evolved into this conversation. Is a photograph by Lou Reed or John Szarkowski art or celebrity driven art, art now belongs to the masses and scholarship and critical thinking are not in vogue. There is a term that some photo editors use called: “Acceptable Quality”, this term and those that practice it are the end of photography as I know it. Back to your question: “Is Photojournalism Art”, no. It’s photojournalism, there’s nothing wrong with that, I don’t subscribe to the idea that everything and everyone is an artist, that a photographer is an artist, he or she is not, they are photographers and again, there is nothing wrong with that. JPN
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I refer again to the Chinese proverb I mentioned earlier….why is it that westerners are always preparing to live…seems, to me, this question, is an example of this kind of mindset… to me, the question is akin to this: peanut butter or jelly? (frankly, i cant live without either ;)) so, something for now, as I have to run … so quickly I find artists who separate themselves from photojournalists (in terms of qualitative difference) to be pompous bores. And I find photojournalists who view their calling/work as something more "authentic" to be equally boorish….we’re all tripping over the same lilacs in doorway’d bloom….. It is always interesting to me to read how persistantly "photojournalism" defines itself by its separation from "artists"....as if one picture were an objective manifestation of truth (as opposed to "art" which, apparently, is a "subjective" manifestation of a point of view). Photojournalists delude themselves if they believe that they are NOT waving their cameras from a specific point of view (they’ve chosen a specific place/person/moment/frame to document something which is much more organic and transitory). The photograph is the try in the attempt hope of shedding (shredding) a curtain of truth upon something. Artists delude themselves with the idea that what they are engaged in is an deeply, shredding born of a particular point of view (subjective). I’ll leave more comments later, but this duality (to me) has always been humorous at best (drunken arguments late at night) or cloyingly pretentious (Magnum’s on-going House of Atreus earthquakes). Show me one photograph from either camp (photojournalist/artist) that is NOT consummed by the same fiery orgin: the human ache to document, to witness, to uncover, to attempt to explain, to bandage that which has been scratched wide open: our wonded, searching endlessly selves. Photography (like all human forms of questioning and documenting) is born from the same rich soil: we are acrcheologists and witnesses. To me, some of the richest "truth" ive seen have come from artists and some of the most breathtakingly beautiful (artistic) photographs which have haunted my life have come from photojournalists. To me, it is simply a distinction between "occupations" photojournalist/artist. I have never separated either camp by some qualitative measure. Maybe photojournalists wish for the societal/historic weight that is often accrued to artists (bullshit weight) and artists wish they often had the steady income ( ;)))) ) of most photojournalist. I break it down to this: who’s work has biten into me, with whom have I enjoyed the most rich conversations, from whom have the questions come: both. Stop this silly categorization and pour yourselves a drink (this ones on Sion :))) ).... Let the holed-up folks long after we have departed squabble over these unimportant and irrelevant distinctions… What is the quality of a photograph? Does it, for me, feed me questions….and remind me how little I know, how much I continue to want to see (understand).... family calling.b
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JPN, if photojournalism is not art, then what is the difference between Capa’s Death of a Soldier and Goya’s "Y no Hay Remedio" (take your pick of any of his mordant scenes from Disasters of War)? I am not baiting you,it is an honest question. Why is Goya’s Disasters of War considered art (Great Art) and not photojournalism? (Let us assume that we are comparing Goya with a fully achieved and gifted photojournalist, not just any hack.) Take a look and you will see why I ask this question. It is not for nothing that I called him above the first Pictorial Journalist. If he had had a camera, he would have shot those scenes. So what is the difference, the medium? The execution? the means of distribution (museums and patrons vs magazines and editors)? The purpose of the communicative act? What you are calling "quality and scholarship" (I presume you mean Criticism and Connoiseurship and all the accoutrements of Art history and consumption) - is this what separates the two, defines them and rates them, anoints one and damns the other?
I am not sure that all art belongs to the masses - I agree with you, there is a degraded form of mass culture, but what about genuine popular culture, popular art? A vodun flag from an illiterate guy in Bel Air is not art? Certainly not everyone is an artist, nor is everything art; but having rejected that rather shallow statement for what it is, we are still left with some interesting issues regarding how photojournalism is defined artistically, and I for one simply dont buy an outright "No" - that is just too final, too simple. It is an assertion without valid reasons given for its truth value.
Actually I am tempted to agree with Bob, not just that it is a matter of semantics and categories that ultimately dont mean much and really just show the limits of words and rational thought—which as photographers we shouldnt rely on too much anyway - but also that we are talking about something like "occupations" and not the core of meaning that the photograph represents and is the important thing ultimately. The things that have bitten into me, as Bob puts it, are the things that count, regardless of the conventional definition attributed to the object. And it so happens that for me a picture by Eugene Richards is as poetic, artistic - biting - as any so called Art I have ever seen and studied. I say I am tempted to agree—because I am not wholly convinced: that occupational difference is significant, and at least in terms of consumption of the image, there are significant consequences involved there. I am waiting for Sion to set us straight here – . . . . meanwhile I am reaching for a beer.
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Here is another thought: Bresson (one of the godfather, yes?, of photojournalism) suspended a bowler-wearing man-shadow behind the Saint-Lazare station in Paris, in 1932, and allowed him (by his choice of shutter-speed stop) walk upon water: a feat of unnatural apotheosis…a photojournalist allowed a man, in 1932, to walk upon water and his own shadow….and then there is, for example, Arbus, whose last untitled work speaks more honestly and more heart-breakingly about mental illness and loneliness than (for me) Nachtwey (a photographer i often admire) work on a similar theme. Anyone whose read Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and coupled it with Evan’s images understands that this kind of bifurcation is completely irrlevant….there are only interesting photographs (stories) and uninteresting…. and this anecdote: last year, my son started using his first "real" 35 mm camera (an old Pentax my wife had given him). He went to Moscow for the summer, and I asked him to take alot of photographs of Moscow and his grandparents dacha (summer cottage) so that I could see what it was like, what he saw….some of the photographs were strange, beautiful delerium of dream flowers, close up of wood walls, flower seeds, my wife’s parents…some out of focus, some flur, some precise…they were a country of strange hypnotic beautiful….i ask him what he did, what he thought about; he said "to show you what is there and what i see"... this year i saw the garden, the dacha…he was right….i had been given the opportunity to see it before, even though it probably looked like nothing i would have recongized originally…. in photography (a photograph), there are only 2 distinctions: interesting stories and uninteresting stories…for photography is comprised of this river-country of stories and sometimes the camera and photographer get it, get some part of it and it transcends and other times it does not…. an artist is a photojournalist is a photographer is a person is a loss….. shoot, that is all which should matter… running to take a walk with my son and wife… boba
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There is lot of very good commentary in this thread.
All photo making is an aesthetic event. All photos operate based on their aesthetic components, and what distinguishes the great photographers is how clearly they are able to articulate their aesthetic position. The more conscious we are as journalists about how our pictures operate the more we are able to control of influence that vision in the pictures. It doesn’t matter if this is at a press conference or at a breaking news event or at a birthday party. The pictures are engaging and interesting according to how they operate and how they perform on the media stage, and that is all about the aesthetics.
Hmmm, back to the Super Bowl…
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It seems, on very quick reading, that there’s virtually no discussion on moral issues on this thread… whether it’s okay for photographers to frame the ‘inhumanity of man against man’ or others’ suffering and feel at home with holding it up as ‘art’….
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perhaps there is something inherent in creating an aesthetic piece out of reality, or placing an order (by means of composition and form (naturally including the form of light and shadow).. maybe even beauty) on top of a world with disorder (‘inhumanity of man against man’ or others’ suffering) that we are somehow able to elevate the way things are seen in front of us. I’ve been thinking a lot about the role art plays in photojournalism… perhaps it is by means of the art (aesthetic form that can be so numbingly but also evocatively inspirationally beautiful) that we are able to somehow teach and be visionaries of a better way to see the world, even when what we are depicting is grotesque. a will to elevate the grotesque, if you will.
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Hmmm . . . good points Jenny and Kitra. But again, if you think about what is implied in my analogy between Goya and Capa, then you will see that the moral issues are there, though not spelled out. So let us spell them out a bit more clearly. First, let me respond to Kitra: while it is a safe bet that most photojournalism is motivated by a will to change things for the better, I wonder if that is all there is to it. I know I work hard to change things for the better here in relation to the problem of Haitian migrant workers in the cane fields - but that is only one part of what I do here, and there are some themes I investigate where I really dont work to make things better because I dont believe that change in that sense is possible, nor that it is even relevant (though in other small ways I do in fact seek to call attention to problems that can be resolved, so it is a bit mixed). Or let me give an example from yet another theme: cockfighting. While many would argue that cockfighting is a brutal sport and a pure form of cruelty to animals, I certainly do not intend my cockfighting pix to serve as fodder for that argument and I have absolutely no desire to put an end to the practice (quite the contrary). What others see as depraved blood sport, I see as an important cultural practice as well as an example of what St Augustine called "beautiful and in harmony with nature’s laws." Ok, that may not be a great example of photojournalism, documentary is more like it, but close enough. What Kitra has just described is very close to an argument I have heard Salgado making when he has been accused of beautifying the pain and suffering he documents - that it is through his power as an artist he can make that suffering so palpable, the beauty of the image making an impact that a poorly done image wouldnt manage to do. I can buy that, but I am not certain that I would want anyone to place any kind of moral limits on what I can do as a photojournalist, or the range of feelings I elicit, or the tone I use. If you look at Goya’s Disasters of War, he clearly is motivated by a fierce anger over the depravity and stupidity of war, and he clearly would like to see war eradicated, but I dont think he is working to elevate the grotesque or even working for a change for the better - the situation as he depicts it does not admit of change: human beings are seen as vicious, depraved beasts. The indictment is savage, it is a savage book, the tone is deeply deeply ironic, and it just doesnt fit your usual "war is bad, let’s work for a better world" kind of thing. So my question is, why cannot photojournalism be just as savage, just as ironic, just as morally ambivalent?
I like the idea of teaching, but I am more interested in teaching truth than in promoting change, ultimately, and truth is not a comfortable thing, it is often grotesque, and just as often has nothing to do with bettering our lives.
Now to Jenny, and bear with me, I am not making any definitive statements, i am just exploring matters here that I constantly mull over without complete success, but by writing them down here, I find that sometimes I approach something like clarity, or at least shed a little more light. How can one square the two realms of photojournalism and art? That is, how can one take the misery that one has captured on film and hold that up as art? I assume that what you mean is something like the following: I once went to a small gallery that was selling some of Eugene Richards’ prints as art - that is, these 16 by 20 prints were going, I dunno, for maybe a thousand bucks at some small experimental gallery in Tribeca (a thousand bucks back then, now they would sell for more). Among the pix were some shots from Dorchester Days, but also some more hardcore images from Cocaine Blue (the headshot of the man and woman, with tears streaming from their eyes). My companion, not a photographer, turned to me and expressed her disgust, basically giving me the same argument that Jenny has just iterated. How dare this guy sell this image of these suffering people as art. And indeed, it does bring you up short - but why? that is the basic question I want to pose. why is this considered an outrageous moral transgression? Is it OK for Goya to display his etchings and sell them, though they are even much worse, much crueler, but not OK for the photojournalist to do so? Why is that? Because Goya represents human types and Richards an individual? Is it the invasion of privacy here? But there are Goya paintings that display quite clearly the identity of the sufferer, and yet no one would think to criticize Goya in this manner - why? And in the cases where identity is not so much an issue, is it OK then, or is there something morally suspect in the crossing of the line, and if so, just what line is it we are crossing here? is it the marketing of the image that somehow offends? The fact that it ends up on a wall to be looked at as "art"? Why is it ok to print and sell the images in a book or an magazine, but not print and hang them on the wall? Or is it that when we invoke the word "art" and put it in quotes, the quotes signify a kind of sneer because the art world is a frivolous marketplace of corrupt attention seekers who just want to make a quick buck by shocking people, so we degrade ourselves by participating in that marketplace? I’d love to hear some answers, because it seems to me that the argument has always been a very vague thing, or something that is always a problem for photojournalists but never for other visual forms or for writers.
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Photojournalism is art in the same way as a Tarantino movie is art. To some they are hard hitting, shocking, offensive – to others they are pure art. Different people’s views on the same item. Isn’t art meant to drag some reaction out of it’s viewer?
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Hi, to clarify, my concern relates to protecting the ‘rights’ of the subject. We are in a highly privileged position to travel the world with a camera, to shoot a ‘subject’ who is suffering for whatever reason, and to ‘use’ that image for our purposes, so the purpose for which the image is to be used is extremely important, i believe. I very much doubt that the subject would have given permission for the image to have been shot if it were known that the image was for creating ‘art’ – and if they are in a situation of suffering, even less so. So in order to protect the rights of the subject, the purpose in the mind of the photographer is extremely important, and if it is for creating ‘artwork’, I begin to question whether it is more the ego or the interest of the photographer that is being satisfied over the interest of the subject. In so many cases, the person before the camera has neither the same level of freedom nor the same freedoms of expression due to their situation, so those of us in the more privileged position (in terms of having the freedom of expression, the opportunity, and all that is required to put us in a position that permits us to ‘create’ – take that picture) we are walking a path bordering on exploitation, IF the intention in our mind is not straight. This is the way I interpret Salgado. By the way, if we are documenting human rights issues, doesn’t it raise a question over our own integrity if we are not able even to protect the basic rights of the ‘subject’ at the moment we press the shutter – by virtue of the intention we have in our mind of the use we are to put that image to? Of course, the issue under scrutiny, or the subject area being documented, may be considered ‘bigger’ than the individual, but the question still remains.
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Sometimes the situation that the photographer and the subject are in, whether agreed or not – could be landscapes or general out door stuff or situations where privacy of the subect is of utmost importance, or not as the case may be – can transcend any intention the photographer had when placing the camera to his/her eye. What a shock that can be, the slow realisation that it’s not really you that is doing the talking. When that occurs it can reach what some may call art, as thet image may take on a universal aspect, the fact that the picture can speak to many cultures and backgrounds and remain timeless.
It's amazing what some artists - self proclaimed - get away with when they pick up an easel, camera or chisel...
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I love what you just said Sean about the universal speaking through us – i think Bresson would have agreed with you… can you tell me what you mean by that last sentence? I may be reading it wrong because i’m not sure how it fits in with previous line….
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It is reductive to ever attempt to decide who acts morally within the context of photography. This is a profound question and it is not up to us to deside this for others. I think it is an eggregious idea to consider what constitutes "moral" work in the decision makers of others. Its bombast and something only individuals, who are working terribly hard to resolve such questions individually, to decide. Ironically, i most those who often speak the most about "moral" responsibilit those who’ve done the least arround them, morally speaking. The artworld and the photojournalism world are possessed equally of the good and the bad. I would ask each photographer to ask themselves this question, but I believe it is a profound failing to decide what constitutes a moral photographer of another…..if that, we should put all the cameras away and doing more concrete: something most of us fail continually to do… the wrestling with conscience needs to be done, as Pascal reminds, in the corner of the rooms of our honest, unlit selves…..
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I agree with you totally Bob that it is for each of us to decide where we stand on any issue and allow others to do the same.
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o, my god, my grammar really sucks (as does my typing)! :))))...its called typing with one hand and then answering students questions the next: forgive my sloppy writing everyone :)))...cheers, bob
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Two interesting anecdotes to consider: In the documentary War Photographer (a biography on Nachtwey), Nachtwey recounts (as does his partner, a camera man) a moment in an Asian country (I think either Indonesia or The Phillipines) when he was following and photographing a band men carrying machetes and chasing a man down the street. At some point, the man fell to the ground and in a moment, Nachtwey had to decide: should I shoot or help the man? He choose to photograph the moment (his explanation is complicated and his uncertainty and moral convictions are eloquently defended in the film) instead of putting down his camera. What would you do, what should WE do in such a moment? And I know, personally, a photographer who was confronted by a similar dilemma, during the Chetnian War who was photographing when a Chetnian soldier was wounded and he put his camera down and helped the man (an enemy of his nation). He choose to help instead of photographing. I would argue that both moments are acts of moral action, because both men make a choice, based on their moral conviction to do something: shoot or aide. It is not my place to decide whether one or the other was a moral person, that designation can only be wrestled hauntingly by the individual. The case of "selling" a photograph, to me, falls within the same circumstance. I cannot honestly condemn another photographer, because I know that I HAVE SHOT MOMENTS that later I thought, fuck why have I done that: why am I photographing them and what about my arrogance to make a print and to sell it? I continually struggle with this and try to balm the anquish with something simple: am i trying to do something reasonable. Have a used subjects: probably yes, because not everyone that I have focused has known Im shooting. Have my subjects, full aware of my action and what I m doing, always known what my prints would look like: no. I still struggle with this. In the end, for me, the moral quandry comes not from Goya vs. Salgado (i’ll take Goya ;)) ), but from each person’s rhyme. There is not almost one day as a photographer that doesnt pass when I ask myself: why the fuck am I doing this. I’ve tried to answer this with: in this constantly failing life, how is it that I can best plant inside this life in order to strive for awareness of that which surrounds me. Can my work help someone else: I doubt it. But, I try, away from being a photographer, to do good around me and my life. That is my moral quandry… cheers, drinks on me ;))) bob
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Wrong, Nachtwey pleaded for this man’s life. JPN
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photojournalism IS art when says truth…
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‘can you tell me what you mean by that last sentence? ’ Hi there Jenny, what I meant was sometimes you arrive at something that purports it’self to be art but it isn’t, it’s incredibly good marketing or PR. I remember walking into the first day of an exhibition at a gallery where my younger brother was working. We both showed up for the free wine, don’t you know, but we had been intrigued as to what was going to be installed in the gallery space. What we came upon were 10 huge canvas, of different sizes with slightly different shades of … brown… WOW for £5000 or more each… Even more WOW. We both found it difficult to get our heads arond the ‘Art.’ I should have qualified that last sentence in my previous post!
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JPN: Nachtwey pleaded and took the shots. He recounts this vividly and painfully in the documentary I sited and makes a strong and compelling argument for his decision of why he did not intervene physically and why he did make the photographs. I would, absolutely, defend him for his decision for many reasons. I used this famous incident as an illustration that it is impossible to, given the ambiguous moments which occur in the profession, to judge on "moral" grounds another photographer, especially considering how murky this life is. I trust that it was understood that I was defending Nachtwey and using his experience with the experience of my friend in Chetneya as an illustration of how important it is to not bandy around categorical statements about the morality of photographers. I always, trust, first the intent of fellow humans…above all else, even though we dont always act very well and often selfishly. Pleading for a life and continuing to take photographs in the midst of a slaughter is a horrible moral dilemma in which I hope never to be caught in: for that reason alone I cannot condemn or judge Nachtwey or any other photographer. My argument was this: it is too easy to cast judgements against others while typing at on a photography screen at a forum site. I, absolutely, in no way meant to judge what happened. I hope that was clear. -Bob
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”...what is the difference between Capa’s Death of a Soldier and Goya’s “Y no Hay Remedio”.
Mr. Jon Anderson, yes they are both images – how they were achieved, and under what type ( historical )of circumstances, although somewhat similar are also vastly different. Contemporary journalism as we know it has existed for about 60 years, painting however: from dyes, egg tempra, oil to acrylic, is another story, a story that has passed on from generation to generation of craftsman and not through the internet. Is it the same amount of time as 125th of a second vs the amount of time to do a limited edition of prints by Goya? A larger question from me is: “Why do some Journalist have the need to be called Artist or even valued as Artist” what is drive at the base of this need. To be a talented journalist, is quite a gift, so why is there this nagging need to be something that you are not. John Patrick Naughton
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huh? photojournalism has been around before the internet. certainly robert capa didnt know what the internet is. what the ef does the internet have to do with this argument.? zilch.
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recently wrote this essay, thought u might find it of interest.<br/>
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Susan Meiselas: Nicaraguan revolt.
Susan Meiselas’s photographic account of the Nicaraguan revolution is
presented in book format, consisting of colour prints, photographic
captions, texts and chronology. Her interest was the Sandinistas contest
over a seventeen year struggle, in which they successfully march into the
Managua’s central plaza in July 1979.
Founded in humanist politics the ‘book project’ grew out of Meiselas
aggravation over the lack of control presented to her by international news
agencies in which individual images published led to cultural and political
misunderstandings. In essence, Meiselas sought an established meaning or a
greater ‘truth’, “it was necessary to create a book that would link
otherwise isolated images together to make them understandable to an
American audience” (Meiselas, 1987). Nevertheless, photographs dictated by
their contextual use will by no means establish a true sense of realism as
photographs will always seem different in magazine, gallery or book. Can we
account, then, for the controversial workings of photographer Susan
Meiselas? Understood by means of extreme subjectivity fraught with
contradictions? Is it art-a work of literary creativity-or as an act of
witness? What aesthetic principal, as a consequence, will guide the reading
of it?
“Imagine” Meiselas begins in a conversation with Fred Ritchin, “this very
small room where there are no windows and it’s precisely the correct
proportion so that when people enter they feel an intimacy. And, if there
are eleven portraits on the walls of the Nicaraguans who had limbs amputated
because of one land mine and they look back at the people who walk past and
each hears the others voices, would it become merely fashionable art-a
concept piece?” (Ritchin 32).The disclosure of the photographic document
then, changes, according to its context, as Wittgenstein explains the
meaning is the use; contributing only to its political weakness and erosion
of truths. Ritchin comments further, distinguishing that Meiselas’s
“image-making was originally productive in Nicaragua because it brought
something important to peoples attention, not just to satisfy their
curiosity but in a helpful, tactful, political way”. Public appropriation of
such work, as a result, has changed their values “soon you’ve lost control
and even lost the ability to stay in the discussion because it has been
taken over” (33). A rueful response is appropriated, Meiselas noting “It’s
not that there haven’t been images made, but the larger sense of an ‘image’
has been defined elsewhere-in Washington, and in the press, by the powers
that be. I can’t somehow reframe it.”(33). How believable is this? The
foremost problem being, Waugh notes, is “what is a frame?” (28).There is in
the ideology of Meiselas’s profession, a conscious sense of wanting to
capture the humanism of history with this genre of photographs. This
snapshot remains problematic, however, as a result of lavish aesthetical
images dominating Nicaragua. Slowly asserting its discourse with art,
Meiselas’s Sympathetic portrayal of the Sandinista cause would more
effectively reach the reader were visual and written materials brought
together rather than being grouped and distanced from one another. Found in
the last section of the book, letters, testimonials and poems and other
writings many of them affecting in their own right deserve a place in the
central montage, consequently, the misplacement of ‘meaning’, in securing
the truth leaves the photograph “physically mute” (Godard & Gorin) failing
to “rescue it from the ravages of modishness and confer upon it a
revolutionary use value”, (Walter Benjamin). In contrast, Wolfflin
understood best, that stylistic development acts as an historical record of
a periods changing consciousness. Formal composition, balance and colour all
add to the interplay between Meiselas’s style and subjectivity of the
political message. Captioned “Country club” (Meiselas Nicaragua: 6) a young,
light skinned girl is attended by her ‘obedient’ dark skinned mestizo maid,
while a boy in the foreground chews on an adults sun glasses. In the
background to the right we see an older man lounging about in a deck chair.
Thus our subjective response is one of race and class. Likewise “Motorcycle
brigade” again enforces the political message by expressing the symbolic
vivid contrast of blurred motorcycles and flag waving riders, conveying the
intensity of enthusiasm for the cause. The appearance of ‘being’ though is
not equivalent to ‘truth’. As a result Meiselas’s construction of reality
makes such observations less than objective. In part a “symbolic process
where by reality is produced, maintained, repaired and transformed” (Carey,
1989:p.23). However the aesthetic response witnessed establishes our
relationship with a shared community of feeling, due to the fact that
ideology permits classification of the world in terms of shared values and
morals beliefs as equal subjects. If however Meiselas’s photographs fail to
represent the political reality of Nicaragua, then it does not fail to
portray the visual and emotional realism of war. As Kozloff (1987:167)
explains, Nicaragua, “should not be treated as any kind of historical
analysis”; as it “does not attempt to fill in the gaps between occurrences,
though it does impart their flavour and mood.” Such contrasts, however
abstract, embrace the pictorial range in which photographic ideas are
conveyed through the minds eye. Both Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ and Goya’s
‘Disasters of war’ instead of defining a person or place seek only to
communicate colours and shapes, attributing instead an idea or imitation of
truth to their work. Ruskin writes, “Whatever can excite in the mind the
conception of certain facts, can give ideas of truth, though it is in no
degree the imitation or resemblance of those facts…An idea of truth exists
in the statement of one attribute of anything, but an idea of imitation
requires the resemblance of as many attributes as we are usually cognizant
of in its real presence”.
Non-objective works however leave the dynamics of repression and resistance
abstract, despite the fact that sites of conflict such as Nicaragua,
Palestine, Chechnya etc are immensely complex. In Diriamba, Meiselas’s
photograph (p.19) of a funeral procession depicts an FSLN banner draped over
an open coffin. Touched by state violence the group has now been intergraded
into the Sandinista movement. Though difficult to sustain ignorance and
innocence in the face of pain and suffering, the meaning as a result is left
inexplicit and subject to determination on the basis of the received
politics of the viewer. This proves dangerous where aesthetic touches prove
politically troubling. Meiselas prints the national guardsmen in her photo
of a ‘guard patrol in Masaya beginning a house to house search for
Sandinistas’ as darkened silhouettes, individually indistinguishable.
Perhaps this was intended from the point of view of the victims but it’s
easy to interpret the guard’s man as the same dehumanizing propaganda the
National Guard employed to define opposition figures in justifying their
brutal oppression.
It is important to note that Meiselas’s account of the revolution is not the
making of, but, instead the military conflicts and its aftermaths. Civil
wars are not defined by fire fights and bombings; civil wars send shock
waves throughout society, affecting material and nonmaterial relationships
at every level, although not everyone experiences them in the same manner or
with the same gravity. Its documentary value is therefore limited to the
“Shoot-em-up, gun-em-down” (Binford, 1996). Meiselas’s horrific depiction,
contrasted with an aesthetically pleasing foreground, portrays (p.14) the
headless and armless remains of a death squad victim overlooking a beautiful
green valley at Lake Managua. Yet when we show the audience a dead body what
can we hope to interpret from this image except that these bodies are other,
they are not us?, Bronfen suggests that the “corpse in the picture stands
for something somewhere else and so what is literally represented is not
fully seen at all: it’s only a picture”. Any form of moral education is
therefore limited by our fascination with death. Yet what we understand from
the Meiselas’s images is understood only by the political consciousness that
surrounds Nicaragua, developed by our attitude towards the photograph. As
Sontag explains while the photograph “cannot create a moral position”, it
can “reinforce one-and help build a nascent one” (1977). Also any aesthetic
appeal concerning suffering and death helps us the viewer to engage the
political, into recognising such horrors instead of turning the page in
disgust and disbelief. If however this engaging wonders in the delights of
death “has this appeal then it can quite easily move from a pictures
editor’s desk to a national art collection”, (John Taylor: Body Horror,
133). But aesthetic effects cannot contain the spectacle of blackened bodies
burning in the middle of the pavement or corpses wrapped in sacking and
being rolled ‘casually’ down a cobblestone street on a wheeled cart like a
freshly butchered animal being taken to market. Furthermore Meiselas stated
that “the American public could not relate their reality to this image.
They simply could not account for what they saw”. Preceding that image by a
sequence of photos of national Guardsmen in training and on patrol is her
way of assigning attribution to the victim and making sense of this horrific
and atrocious act. But I find this representation is politically
problematic. As Lewinski notes photojournalists “Serve as important
mediators between a geographical-distant reality and its intended audience”.
Yet Meiselas locates the violence elsewhere-“down there” in Nicaragua,
(Anderson, 1989:102), and can easily be read in ways in which, conditions
that produce and sustain violence are underwritten enforcing a sense of
hiearachy among a majority of inhabitants in the western hemisphere. As
Jonathan Garlock noted on the publication of El Salvador: Work of thirty
photographers, which Meiselas edited along with Fae Rubenstein and Harry
Mattison, “mutilation inflicted by one person directly upon the body of
another can…be read as pathological, as if it were somehow worse than
comparable injury inflicted by pushing a button thousands of feet in the
air” (1984:6). A greater danger is perhaps seen in the fact “We see and live
in colour” (Kozloff, 1987: 168), yet by no means do we imagine in colour.
Colour photography shrinks the pictorial range of ideas, and by virtue of
fact strengthens the cameras ‘truth effect’. In contrast Meiselas’s prints
produced from colour slide film create an ideological-based reality due to
its similarities with watercolour paintings. Reality and revolution
therefore takes place in another time and place, of dream like proportion
serving only to locate the violence elsewhere.
Meiselas informed humanist ethic in understanding and tolerance, casts the
western public aside as no more than a bystander in Latin American civil
wars. The photographs seek to represent the consequence of the deep class
divides in Nicaragua, sustained and supported in causing conflict by both
repressive state apparatuses and the U.S government. The political context
in which humanism is delivered and its relative simplicity exploits
photography’s inability to convey the truth, as Sontag explains “the cameras
ability to transform reality into something beautiful derives from its
relative weakness as a means of conveying truth” (Sontag, 1977:112). Thus
the beatification-humanism of the revolutionaries portrays them as regular
people and underdogs, where pistols and hunting rifles confront planes,
tanks and automatic weapons. With moral rights and the people on their side
Meiselas fails to represent that “the revolution is not a social dinner, a
literary event, drawing or embroidery, it cannot be done with elegance and
courtesy. The revolution is an act of violence”, (Mao Tse-tung). Though
explicit in violence, Meiselas’s Nicaragua, fails to address a balanced
argument of the brutalities enacted on both sides of the conflict. The
simplicity of the message between the goodies and the baddies is again put
to shame in Oliver Stones critically acclaimed film ‘Salvador’, where the
gritty and horrific message of war in El Salvador is witnessed by
photographer Richard Boyle, depicting events of both National Guard and
rebel carrying out atrocity. In her assumption of a common human essence,
the viewer is invited to imagine his/her response to situations similar or
comparable to those portrayed in the photos and discussed in the
accompanying texts. Meiselas therefore assumes that all humans share a
common essence, that people everywhere “are pretty much the same” despite
their distinct historical and cultural backgrounds.
In conclusion, photographs such as these do not tend to let us forget, but
the “moral defectiveness” inherent within the ideology of humanism will
allow us to forget, if the narrative continues to lack the appropriate
complexity of the political consciousness. There archive nature, will be
become no more than prized tokens of aesthetics, void of all vital function.
David Plummer
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