viz. - photojournalism

Robert Frank's The Americans and Magnum's "Postcards from America"

Sarah G. Sussman — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 06:15:20 +0000

Image credit: Postcards from America Tumblr, Mikhael Subotzky

On a recent visit to the Harry Ransom Center’s exhibition "Radical Transformation: Magnum Photos in the Digital Age” I was inspired by how often Magnum photographers turned their lenses to capture that ever elusive “representative” photo collection of the U.S., as they do in their project “Postcards from America.” The concept behind the project is that a group of acclaimed Magnum photographers work collaboratively. In order to do this, they pile into a van and travel to different cities taking snapshots and uploading them directly to their Tumblr: http://postcardsfromamerica.tumblr.com/.

The “Postcards from America” official website explains that the goal of the project is “for the photographers to try to play like a band, in search of a kind of polyphonic visual sound.” With their invocation of the rock and roll ethos, and their premise of seeing America while on the road, the project brought to mind beat photographer Robert Frank. Frank’s collection, The Americans (complete with introduction by Kerouac), channeled the jazz prosody of Beat poetry into visual images. It’s probably the first and most famous instance of an effort towards the kind of “polyphonic visual sound” Magnum is talking about. In 1955 Robert Frank took off across America, often living out of his car and taking a staggering total of 28,000 photos (a kind of visual corollary to Kerouac’s Benzedrine-inspired scroll). The pictures, which feature apathetic waitresses, frantic street preachers, scenes of segregation, cowboys, drive in movies, and strip clubs, all seem propped towards a sort of thesis on America as grotesquely fanciful, and troublingly divided. The photographs could be read collectively as urging the already emergent progressivism of the 1960s. Still, they’re blended with the same old racial romanticism and sexism of the beat culture (in Kerouac’s introduction as much as the images).

There are, of course, differences between “Postcards from America” and The Americans, but the most crucial change to my mind is that the personal pleasure in the process which Kerouac and Frank document openly in their book, seems to have been replaced with a more outwardly productive angle which takes the form of letting subjects speak for themselves. One of the “Posctcards” group’s first stops was in Florida, to document the 2012 election. In one caption, for example, the subject says she doesn’t know whether she’ll bother to vote in the election. The next caption explains that the two men pictured have been stripped of their right to vote because of felony convictions. Through the juxtaposition there's an implied indictment of barring people with felonies from voting, and the apathy of most Americans -- but as there are no humans openly making any claims or taking any stakes, it feels distant.

Image credit: Postcards from America Tumblr, Bruce Gilden

Perhaps there is a corollary in trying to gauge how to best let subjects speak for themselves which explains the sometimes counterintuitive distance between lens and subject in the “Postcards from America” series. Frank’s photos are usually at comfortable distance for day to day interactions, mostly about 1-5 meters away, but in the “Postcards from America” series, portraits often feel like the aesthetically jarring godchild of Diane Arbus and Chuck Close. Take, for example, the portraits done by Bruce Gilden or Molly Candy, with harsh lighting and focus for unusual features. They could easily be critiqued as exploitative for all of the same reasons that Diane Arbus’s work was. Photos seem to be taken of people at either a few inches away, or in vulnerable situations: macho men on pink bicycles, teenagers sleeping at a state fair – personal space is documented and simultaneously disrupted to a much more radical degree than it was in The Americans. In a Slate article on the series, the reporter marvels that one man, who is curled up in bed in his portrait, let nearly perfect strangers into his home.

In an earlier post on Magnum documentarian Elliott Erwitt’s work, I remarked that the unmediated nature of the film left me on my own to form conclusions, and even to conduct research to understand the basic premise. With these photographs though, there are so many obvious interventions, nuanced tools for expression, that I wonder, does it make sense to say that these photographers upload their work "'live'--and unmediated" as the project website says they do?

Jim Goldberg's Rich and Poor: The Impoverished Viewer

clsloan — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 13:55:34 +0000

Image Credit: Magnum Photos

Jim Goldberg's Rich and Poor features photographs of the impoverished tenants of a San Fransisco hotel and of an affluent group of select individuals, also shown in their homes. As the most obvious dimension of the title suggests, the photos serve as a comparative essay on class and the disparity of wealth in America. Goldberg compiled this collection through the late 70s and early 80s and it was originally published by Random House in 1985. The Harry Ransom Center's current exhibit, Radical Transformation: Magnum Photos into the Digital Age (September 10, 2013 – January 5, 2014), includes several images from Rich and Poor.

As I walked through the exhibit, alternately admiring the pieces and feeling guilty for not knowing enough about photography to be properly appreciative, Goldberg's work in particular caught my eye. The composition of these pieces is, in and of itself, visually striking: a black-and-white photo is surrounded by white space marked with heavy, black, handwritten text. The presence of text has interesting implications for meaning as well. As I read through the testimonies attached to the images, I found myself compelled to think about the ethics of photojournalism and the limits of visual media. My encounter with each piece unfolded dynamically, and reading the text after carefully taking in the images led me to reflect on my role as detached observer with no little amount of distaste. For instance, while I closely examined the image of the piece signed “T.J,” my geared-for-interpretation-brain zeroed in on the woman's not-quite-sexy pose, the tilt of her head, the flatness of her stare, the bed as the only other notable feature in the frame.

Image Credit: Magnum Photos

I cobbled together something about female sexuality and kept idly wondering whether this picture was trying to challenge norms or partake of them while I read through the text. It says, “To me Life seems so messed up But lilttel by lilttel i am trying to over come that. Because it is hard being a woman and to accept me as I am. T.J.” This visceral commentary caused me to be immediately overcome with the insufficiency of any interpretation I could possibly bring to bear on this photo. The model herself, with her intimate, affective link to the creation of this image, to the experiences the photo gestures towards, to the reasons behind the tilt of the head, the pose, the bed, had already asserted an incredibly rich analysis of this image, and any others paled in comparison. All of a sudden, Rich and Poor acquired new, media-oriented dimensions for me. The richness of the images grew poor against the force of the models' statements. The poverty of my own understanding as a viewer came into harsh relief.

Of course, this striking experience itself was carefully tailored by Goldberg, with the help of his models. I have yet to read through Rich and Poor, but, from what I've gleaned off the internet, I understand that the statements on the photos were hand-chosen by Goldberg, and the authenticity of the handwriting, suggestive of a spontaneous overflow of emotion, itself is an artistic technique. However, Goldberg's collection still asks viewers to examine their own privilege and think hard about both financial and artistic exploitation.

The opinions expressed herein are solely those of viz. blog, and are not the product of the Harry Ransom Center.

The Funny Faces of Politics: No Photoshop Required

Todd Battistelli — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Image Credit: Reuters

As we’re in the middle of another presidential campaign, I thought I’d devote my inaugural viz. post to an aspect of visual political rhetoric: photos capturing politicians with odd facial expression or in odd poses. One of the better known examples of this phenomenon is the above photo of John McCain from the last debate in the 2008 presidential campaign. In the still image, McCain stands behind Barack Obama, seeming to lurch after him while disrespectfully sticking out his tongue and reaching out with his hands. I want to stress “seeming,” though, because viewing McCain’s movement in context offers an alternative explanation.

Video Credit: C-SPAN

McCain’s seemingly undignified lurch occurred at the end of the debate, as he, Obama and moderator Bob Schieffer stood up from the table to shake hands. As seen in C-SPAN’s video (starting at 1:29:42), McCain is uncertain of which direction to round the table. In his hesitation, he makes a funny, self-deprecating gesture to make light of his momentary confusion. Not being the most graceful person myself, I can imagine doing something similar were I in McCain’s position. Yet the lurching image soon proliferated on the web, casting McCain as a creepy, out-of-touch old man.

Photojournalists do take a great number of pictures, so their capturing the occasional odd look isn’t unexpected. What I find curious, however, is the editorial decision that goes into releasing still photos of odd expressions when other, more decorous photos are available. As with many aspects of visual culture, there’s a tumblr that collects these funny faces titled Stupid Faces of Politics, which bills itself as “a non-partisan collection of amusing faces made by politicians, both past and present.”

Image Credit: Stupid Faces of Politics

Looking through the images, you could make the argument that photojournalists capture politicians as human beings, including all their foibles, though a still photo out of context can be used to vilify as much as humanize, as the McCain example suggests. The images could also serve the function of afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted. The viewing public can enjoy a good chuckle at people in positions of power. Editorial policy, however, is tangential to my interests here.

More relevant to visual rhetorical analysis are questions about the use of these images and what those uses say about the production and reading of persuasive texts. My students sometimes run into trouble when they cite a source without understanding its context, but ignorance doesn’t seem to play a role in the operation (or manipulation) of context when it comes to these photos. The context of these photos is widely understood: weird expressions cross everyone’s face for fractions of a second, and sometimes they get recorded for posterity. Yet, they are not dismissed as “bad” photos. On the contrary, they serve as a important resource for rhetorical invention.

Image credit: Laura Clawson

When they appear on partisan blogs, these images are used not only for humor but also to support larger narratives about politicians and their parties. The above photo can be read as Mitt Romney desperately attempting to engage his empathy circuits, as blogger Laura Clawson suggests. Or below, President Obama seems to sport a patrician and elitist mug that looks down on common people, which is the narrative blogger Nice Deb invokes.

Image Credit: Nice Deb

In an age of photoshopping, what are the different suasive functions that these “authentic” images perform in contrast with, say, an image of Joe Biden manipulated to put a colorful lollipop in his hand and an exaggerated tongue extruding from his mouth? Do the ostensibly documentary origins of non-manipulated photos enhance their appeal?

Image Credit: Stogie

At a step removed from the bloggers who use these photos to construct arguments, I also wonder about which photos get released by which sources. Might they reveal some subtle argumentative strategy? Does the White House under Obama, for instance, release more odd photos of John Boehner than the Bush White House did of Harry Reid? This might not be the best example, though, as Boehner seems to be rather more susceptible to awkward photos than other politicians (saving perhaps Joe Biden, as photos like the one below attest).

Image credit: 500 Still Frames of Joe Biden Eating a Sandwich

Soviet Photojournalism and The Thaw

Jessica Werneke — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 01:51:46 +0000

Mikhail Kocharian, Vladimir Kharstyan. Water--A Life. Published in Sovetskoe Foto 11 (November 1964)

Of the numerous culturally fascinating movements that came out of the late 1950s and early 1960s, photography as art became of particular interest to Soviet photojournalists. For those who are less familiar with the history of visual culture in the Soviet Union, photography was removed from artistic institutions in the mid-1930s, and thus garnered very little cultural prestige. In an effort to gain the status of artists, rather than craftsmen, those who worked for the primer photography journal, Sovetskoe Foto (The Soviet Photograph) embarked on a crusade to catapult photography into the socialist realist, or officially recognized, art world.

Kocharian and Kharstyan. Water--A Life.

Interestingly enough, the push to classify photography as an officially recognized art form involved questions of how photographic narrative related to aesthetics. By the late 1950s, a clear consensus appears to have been reached: the standard for creating a professional photographic image was that it fulfills the role of document and art simultaneously. The critiques that emerged from the pages of Sovetskoe Foto defined the necessary criteria of a successful photojournalistic image: a ‘good’ image should be artistic, give an eyewitness account of an event, and have a narrative structure and aesthetic that was easily discernable to its viewers. Mikhail Kocharian and Vladimir Kharstyan’s two photographs entitled Water-A Life (see above), shown at the 5th All-Union Photographic Exhibition, were criticized because they provided only an eyewitness account of scorched dry earth and a stream of water shooting up into the air. According to its reviewer, the images lacked a coherent narrative and the photographers acted “more as eyewitnesses than as artists and poets.”[1] Kocharian’s photograph was compared to a second photograph featured at the exhibition, B. Dadvadze’s Manganese (see below). Dadvadze’s image of manganese being carted out of a Georgian mine was extolled for its artistry, and Dadvadze was lauded for his ‘creative activities’ in the industrial landscape.

Davadze, Manganese, published in Sovetskoe Foto 11 (November 1964)

Sovetskoe Foto’s preoccupation with the narrative capacities of photographs is inherently problematic. As a visual technology, photography undermines linear narratives and promotes a particular way of looking at a given phenomenon, “dislocating time and space.”[2] In particular, photojournalists underscored a universal photographic language which, for the most part, transcended the boundaries of gender, ethnicity, race, age and so on and so forth.

[1] Diko, L. “In Light of New Requirements” Sovetskoe Foto No. 11 (November), 1964, 12.

[2] Liz Wells, Photography: A Critical Introduction, 19.

Cairo and Perspective

noelradley — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 18:44:49 +0000

Lefteris Pitarakis Via New York Times

Since protests began one week ago across Egypt, the media has published many photographs of iconoclasm against images of President Mubarak, or images depicting the scale of the protests in Cairo. I'd like to raise the question of how representative images from this week are using one-point and two-point perspective, and how that perspective informs our sense of the unfolding events.

Screenshot from Saturday's New York Times

The three images in this post were included in Saturday's New York Times print edition. All three shots were taken Friday, January 28th in Cairo. In the second image (above) taken from a distance in Tahrir Square, the battle between protestors and riot police is framed within ominous symbolic and literal signs of Mubarak's government. The height of the statues and the architecture of the bridge creates the scale, making the crowds of human actors seem vast, and yet simultaneously diminutive? Two-point perspective furthers the unsettling paradox of an emergent populace protesting within an existing power structure. Our eyes move in two directions: to the left, along with police and protestors, and then also to the right, into the smoky haze and background of imposing government buildings.

Screenshot from Saturday's New York Times

The third image (above) uses one-point perpective to capture a row of protestors kneeling for prayer in the streets. The orientation of the shot insinuates the immense number of protestors, while communicating the depth of spiritual quiet. What we see in the closest part of the frame appears to be replicated ad infinitum, with all the optical persuasion of a hall of mirrors. This image works in much the same way as the lead image by Pitarakis (top), which captures civilians standing on the row of army tanks (also in one-point perspective). The image of the tanks is different from the scene in prayer, however. One difference is the vanishing end point: in one, the eye moves toward halos of city lights at night; in the other, the eye finds dark, billowing smoke. Do these images attempt to organize and find order in the protests? Why did the NYT choose so many compositions of this kind? Are these compositions tied to a need to see Egypt through Western eyes?

Violence in Images

Andi — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 23:08:09 +0000

Image credit: screen shot of Harlan County, USA

Over the past few weeks my students have been discussing several documentary films and a recurrent topic has been the line between an emotional appeal and an exploitative image of the body in pain. We have considered key scenes in the documentary Harlan County, USA (1976) in which director Barbara Kopple closely trains her camera on a man struggling to breathe through the pain of black lung. We will also discuss the inclusion of several open-casket shots of a child’s dead body in Martin Bell’s Streetwise (1984). The ethics of documentarians is a topic I’ve considered before on this site, but this week my student’s surprised me by probing the distinction between images of an actual body in pain and simulated images of a body in pain.

Now I wish I had anticipated this turn in the discussion—had I been prepared I might have thought to bring in clips from several documentary filmmakers and images from several photographers. Re-enactment scenes from historical documentaries, images of torture of popular films such as Saw and violent clips from video games like Grand Theft Auto, along with Cindy Sherman’s film stills series might have helped us consider the many ways image-makers have troubled the line between representation and reality.

Image credit: Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #14

In his article, “Wound Culture: Trauma in the Pathological Public Sphere,” Mark Seltzer contends with the condition of postmodernity and although he does not explicitly address photography I think some of his work might have been applicable to our discussion. Seltzer posits a postmodern “wound culture” in which there has been a breakdown in distinctions between external/internal, public/private, self/other. This breakdown occurs because the “virtual and figurative look just like and hurt just as much as, the literal and the real: perception and representation change places” (Seltzer, 24). For Seltzer is the site of the wound that collapses the boundary between real and representation by splaying the private body before public eyes. At the same time, the wound fascinates us because, despite the trauma of this collapse, it seems to maintain such a clear distinction between what is real and what is not. What can be more real than the wound? It is hard to argue with blood and guts.

Selzter’s analysis of the would as the site of all this blurring of boundaries can be extended to the photograph: a private moment captured and circulated for the public eye, an image that is both of reality and a representation of reality. Several of the distinctions Seltzer notes —between external/internal, public/private, self/other—are broken down within photographs. The shots of miners struggling to breath and the open-casket images prompt questions about the use of violent images or images of violence. Is there really a difference between images of an actual body in pain and simulated images of a body in pain? Is there any connection between violent images and violence in the world? Is the act of taking a photograph always violent? Seltzer seems to suggest that in a “wound culture” it is impossible to imagine any experience not marked by violence. It seems worth asking whether we can imagine a photographic experience that is not violent?

Don't You Dare Go Digital

Andi — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:05:45 +0000

Rachel’s post this past week about the low-fi appeal of recent music videos raises similar questions to those surrounding a recent controversy over a digitally altered image stripped of its status as a World Press Photo contest winner. And, what was the alteration that led to this disqualification? Third prize winner in Sports Features, Stepan Rudik removed a foot from the finished photograph. World Press Photo, an organization known for promoting professional standards in photojournalism largely through the means of awarding one of the most prestigious photography prizes, disqualified Rudik because the jury discovered that he had digitally altered one of the images in his photo-essay submission. Both the low-fi aesthetics of the OKGO video and the field of professional photojournalism privilege a definition of technical prowess that does not include manipulation of the image beyond much capturing and cropping. The value of the image and the skill of the image-makers, in both of these respects, reside in the moment the photograph is shot and not at any other point in the process in which the photograph is made.

It is interesting that World Press Photo takes such pains to distance itself from the artisanal aspects of making a photograph and falls back on a presumption of authenticity aligned with the decisive moment. So, good photojournalism is not made but captured? Are these prizes just awarded to extremely lucky individuals? For the award committee, there seems to have been an implicit emphasis on aesthetically stunning images combined with an explicit emphasis on photographs captured at that lucky pivotal moment. And, always, the assertion that nothing has been altered. Amazing technical prowess at the moment of capturing combined with low-fi levels of retouching at the moment of making the photograph. Consider several of these past prize winners:

Image Credit: Jean-Marc Bouju

World Press Photo of the Year, 2003

Image Credit: Anthony Suau

World Press Photo of the Year, 1987

Image Credit: Nick Ut

World Press Photo of the Year, 1972

Although many of the prizes are given for images that are aesthetically beautiful, the truth-claim of those photographs deemed excellent photojournalism lies in the assertion that they have not been altered. World Press Photo’s rule reads, “the content of the image must not be altered. Only retouching which conforms to the currently accepted standards in the industry is allowed” (Worldpressphoto.org). Perhaps this assertion is not all that surprising—after all, it may be quite the slippery slope that runs from the removal of a foot to the faking of photographs of missile tests. But, where is the exact difference between altering aesthetics and manipulating content? Is it okay to punch up the grain of the image or switch from color to black-and-white? Is it wrong to crop out relevant context or wipe out a misplaced foot? What is the exact difference, in terms of truth claims, between framing, cropping, and photo-shopping?

Google Earth Pedagogies: From Haiti to RHE 306

Laura T. Smith — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:41:30 +0000

Image Credit: Google Lat Long Blog

If were you watching the news in mid-January, you likely saw images like those above flashing repeatedly across your television or computer screen. Unlike the photojournalistic, street-level portraits that tend to document disasters, these aerial shots, produced through a collaboration between Google Earth and GeoEye (a satellite imaging company), have been prominent in the visual coverage of the earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010. The above images show pre- and post-quake views of the Presidential Palace (top left; top right) and downtown Port au Prince (bottom left; bottom right), and were created using the timeline tool in Google Earth.

I’ve been interested in the prominent role that mapping and satellite-produced imagery has played in the coverage and documentation of the Haiti earthquake, partly for its own sake, and partly because I’m planning a Google Earth-based collaborative writing activity for my Rhetoric and Writing class this spring.

In the earthquake coverage, the intimate, affect-laden portrait—framed by the human eye, scaled to the human story—has remained prominent, of course, but has been augmented by this second visual approach, which has, itself, received significant news coverage. These visuals do not function the same way photojournalistic visuals function; they do not focus on the human situation; they do not construct an explicitly emotional appeal.

These sophisticated, accurate maps of damage have clearly aided rescue and relief efforts. Yet I’ve been wondering about the analytical impulses behind mapping and its effects—especially given the debates during the past few weeks about Haiti’s leadership, its autonomy, about who’s in control of relief efforts.

The history of mapping is entangled with the history of imperial expansion, shot through with impulses toward geographical control. In what ways do these contemporary mapping technologies address or confront the imperial history of map-making? While much of the mapping of Haiti has been accomplished through satellite imaging, Haiti has also been mapped collaboratively, by countless individuals with diverse motivations. (Google’s Haiti Map Maker project encourages such collaborative, local mapping.) Similarly, Wikipedia’s “Haiti” page is currently ranked in 1885th place among the most-edited pages in the last 30 days, a number that, while seemingly high, in fact indicates an extraordinarily high volume of recent edits. So, what effect does crowd-sourcing have on the implications of mapping? Is crowd-sourced mapping anti-imperialist mapping?

As I noted earlier, I’ve been considering all these questions about mapping and its implications because I’m in the process of planning a Google Earth-based collaborative writing activity with Geo-Everything’s Caroline Wigginton. We’ll be using Google Earth technologies to explore issues raised by Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. The activity, which will involve both of our RHE 306 classes, will take place in early April. In preparation for this collaboration, I’ll be using this blog throughout the spring semester to discuss Google Earth, its applications for the literature, rhetoric, and composition classroom, and, in particular, the potential it creates for collaborative writing.

As I’ve begun to think through the possibilities, I’ve come up with a few initial questions, which I’ll address (and likely add to) in the coming weeks:

For the purpose of the writing classroom, what are differences between Google Earth and Google Maps?
What are their different critical capacities? How do they ask students to conceptualize information differently?
What are their different collaborative capabilities? Is Google Earth inherently more collaborative? How can this capacity be used in the writing classroom?
How might some of the conceptual and technological features of Google Earth (the “fly to” function, the moveable timeline, the placing of local sites in the context of a globe) enable writing and thinking exercises that are different than those possible in Google Maps?

Archives and Associated Press

Andi — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:43:38 +0000

Image credit: Screen shot of APimages.com

A recent development in Shepard Fairey's ongoing legal battle with the Associated Press sent me thinking through some of the issues surrounding large private, not-for-profit, and commercial archives of stock photography and photojournalism. Last year, the AP claimed that Fairey violated copyright laws when he based his "Hope" poster for the Obama campaign on one of their photographs. Fairey countered that he was protected under fair use, but his situation suffered a setback last week when he admitted to knowingly submitting as evidence images that were different than those under consideration in the trial. While this case raises several interesting questions about the doctrine of fair use and visual allusion, I am also curious about the extent of influence the Associated Press has on our daily interactions with visual images. How does this massive news agency--with over 10 million images in its library--shape our access to and understanding of contemporary photojournalism?

Image credit: Shepard Fairey, Manny Garcia,

The Associated Press, and Myartspace.com

The Associated Press is a news cooperative comprised of several radio, television, and print sources that both contribute to and make use of material generated by staff journalists and affiliated journalists. The agency was originally founded during the Mexican American war by several New York newspapers but has since expanded in scope and size. According to their website, the Associated Press has 243 bureaus in 97 countries, distributes material to 1,700 newspapers, and has won 49 Pulitzer Prizes including 30 for photography. The agency generates over 1,000 images a day and the library houses negatives dating back over 100 years. Clearly this institution has had a long history of defining and developing our notion of photojournalism.

I had quite a bit of fun simply playing around with their search engine, typing in various combinations of terms--for instance, "war" and "women"--to gain a sense of how the AP organizes and indexes its images. The AP images archive allows "image buyers" to purchase prints for personal use or the rights to photographs for circulation. Images are organized into categories we might expect--"domestic news" and "sports"--and others that I found more surprising--"polar bears" and "faces of Obama." Without spending hours and hours culling through these collections (a prospect, I have to admit, that seems daunting and tempting), I can still begin to sense the sheer enormity of this archive and the extent to which I am at the mercy of the archivists, meaning-makers in the surfeit of visual information. Although in "The Body and the Archive" Alan Sekula wrote about the time period between 1880 and 1910, spending just a few minutes searching through the AP's digital collections today makes clear his argument that the creating of archives makes a claim on a particular vision of history with some images privileged and others others omitted or relegated to less visible spaces.

Documentary Photography and the Caption

Andi — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:27:45 +0000

Image Credit: Rolex Dela Pena, European Press Photo Agency

H/T: Lens, The New York Times

While scrolling through the Lens photojournalism blog this morning I came across this photograph of a the hand of a dead body partially obscured by caution tape. The photographed victim was one of over forty people killed in violence following the election on Monday in the Philippines--many of the people kidnapped and killed were lawyers, journalists, and relatives of a local politician. What struck me most about this image was its relationship to text; both within the photograph and beneath it in the caption. Across the image the photographer has captured the text of the caution tape "Police Line Do Not Cross." It seems, however, that the photographer and the viewer disregard this warning by visually transgressing past the barrier and the victim's hand disregards this warning by physically transgressing beyond the tape. It is the textual warning on the tape that contributes to a sense of action within the image--agency on the part of the victim and the intrusion on the part of the viewer/photographer.

This possibility of action dissipates when we consider the text beneath the photograph. The caption reads, "A dead body was covered in banana leaves along a hillside in Ampatuan, Maguidanao Province in the southern Philippines. The Philippines declared emergency rule and dispatched additional security forces to a southern province as the death toll in the country's worst election-related violence reached 46." Susan Sontag has argued that the caption is an attempt to fix the meaning of the image and that "only that which narrates can make us understand" (Sontag, On Photography). This caption certainly does fix the significance of the photograph--there is no agency left for this victim. The passive construction of the description, the lack of any attempt to identify the dead body strip the victim of any ability to signify on his or her own. Moreover, the quick jump to the ongoing violence fixes the significance within a national context.

Of course, this type of captioning both within and beneath the photograph is prevalent (and probably necessary) in all documentary photojournalism. Miles Orvell has considered the horrific subject matter focused on by documentary photographs as a visual tactic aimed to help us “overcome our habituation to shocking images…to make us feel the burden of our own responsibility" (Orvell, American Photography). Certainly this documentary image of the violence in the Philippines, like all documentary images, draw the viewer’s attention to a social issue with the intention of inspiring change. However, there seems little guarantee that the photographs of bodies in pain or of people in need will be little more than invitations to voyeurism. This image highlights this problem with documentary photography more intensely through the inclusion of the outstretched hand—the reaching hand suggests in some way that this subject is calling out for aid. There is, however, no assurance that looking at a documentary photograph will motivate that viewer towards political or social action. Enter the caption as the attempt to cajole that viewer into action.

The relationship between a documentary photograph, the caption, and the call to action was of particular importance to documentary photographer Dorothea Lange. Linda Gordon argues that much of Lange’s FSA photography was explicitly political and aimed at creating specific changes in agricultural policy. The difficulty of communicating an immediate social reality drove Lange to write extensive captions for her documentary images because she “wanted to fix the meanings of photographs” (Gordon, “The Photographer as Agricultural Sociologist” The Journal of American History December 2006, 717-718). The images of Lange and other FSA photographers did help to galvanize public support for the federal relief programs of the New Deal. However, simply because these images contributed to broader social change does not mean that they always did or always will communicate a social and political message. There is no guarantee that the documentary image will be interpreted as a call to political and social action no matter how extensive the caption.

Remembering War

Andi — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:35:50 +0000

Image Credit: Simon Norfolk

"Gold Beach" from The Normandy Beaches: We Are Making a New World

Last week I had wanted to post about Veterans Day and the intersections between war, photography, and memory but Emily's consideration of the images of Fort Hood sent me thinking about the representation of recent tragedies. Simon Norfolk is a landscape photographer who creates images of places in the aftermath of war and genocide. His images of the beaches at Normandy are haunting photographs that visually echo earlier works such as Robert Capa's images of landings on D-Day and yet evoke absence and suggest extreme temporal distance from the earlier atrocities by depicting ethereal empty landscapes.

Image Credit: Robert Capa

"D-Day Landings, 6-6-1944"

Robert Capa’s “D-Day” photograph of a young soldier struggling in the surf to land on Omaha Beach is one of only eleven images to survive a darkroom debacle, yet the blurred face of the soldier, the grainy, over-exposed negative, and the indistinct depiction of the landscape all contribute to the rhetoric of authenticity that documentary photo-journalism privileges. Taken from the beach as the first wave of soldiers were landing, Capa’s image is cropped so as to pushed to viewer forward into the frame without the benefit of any visible land to orient the perspective. Although not an effect intended by Capa, this unpolished hazy aesthetic and the closely-cropped frame recreate for the viewer some of the disorientation and chaos of the original experience.

Image Credit: Simon Norfolk

"Omaha Beach" from The Normandy Beaches: We Are Making a New World

Norfolk’s photograph of Omaha Beach taken more than sixty years later returns to the same location tocapture an ethereal landscape completely devoid of the chaos and grit of the earlier image. His “Omaha Beach,” taken from the same perspective as was Capa’s, still denies the viewer any sense of orienting perspective, however the effect here creates a calming sense of surrendering to the surf. The translucent grays and greens of “Gold Beach” (above) contribute to the solemn, haunting feeling Norfolk creates by holding open the shutter for an extended length of time to capture the movement of the mist and the water as it passes through the remaining battlements still present decades after D-Day. Norfolk’s intentional blurring of the water and mist hearkens back to Capa’s earlier image and yet the most striking feature of these recent photographs is the glaring absence of the body of the soldier. One way to interpret this image is as a call to the viewer to recreate the absence—to remember the war onto the empty beach. These photographs are so tranquil that the viewer senses the temporal distance between the two moments—of war and of remembrance of war—and imaginatively projects the past onto such a pristine landscape. The incongruence of the juxtaposition is harrowing.

It is worth asking of Norfolk's work whether this is the way we want to remember our wars? To construct a collection the echoes several images of the atrocity of war recast in a serene space reifies the earlier photographs as safely ensconced in the past and romanticizes that past through commemoration. Norfolk's work attempts to explore “war” and “remembrance” as though they were only nouns—passive, inert objects of history—and not actions chosen by people, enacted on others. An exhibition panel from a showing of Norfolk’s work characterized it as “more about the memory of the event than the horror of it.” Why, especially given our current situation, would we ever want to remember a war without remembering the horror?

Documenting Documenting a Tragedy

Andi — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:17:42 +0000

Screen capture of www.nbcdfw.com

Emily's post this past week considers the ways in which many of the images of the shooting at Fort Hood reflect a "conflicted understanding of this event as both a military and a domestic tragedy." Her insightful comments sent me searching through much of the photojournalism that surrounds this recent tragedy and I found that many of the collections of slide shows contain at least one, if not several, photographs of the media documenting the aftermath of the event. Some of these photographs show the media set against the setting sun while others focus on a key speaker surrounded and almost swallowed by a sea of cameras and microphones. While it is no surprise that, with the onslaught of the 24-hour news cycle and the need for news, the media likes to focus on the impact of the media, I wonder whether we might see these images of image-making as more than just meta?

Screen capture of www.nbcdfw.com

These photographs of the photographing emphasize what we might call the "newsworthiness" of the event. The prevalence of so many photographs of the media documenting the tragedy leads to a feedback loop in which the event is depicted as worthy of being documented simply because so many people are documenting it. This is not to suggest that the Fort Hood shootings were not a significant event nor am I intending to diminish the tragedy. Rather, I am interested in thinking through why these images of image-making appear during the documenting of a tragedy but not, for instance, within the photo-essays documenting the New York marathon or a second tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Screen capture of www.nbcdfw.com

Perhaps these photographs of the media at work are meant to allay anxiety that the media is capitalizing on a tragedy and transforming it into spectacle. I suppose, actually, that we could read these images in multiple ways: the image of the swarm of photographers suggests that the media frenzy may be building the event into a spectacle. Or, conversely, the image of the many photographers may suggest that the recent event is so significant that it requires extensive documentation. In a paper she gave at the GLASA conference on visual culture, Elisabeth Ross argued that media coverage of the recent political campaigns has tended to include images of image-making much like these documenting the Fort Hood shootings. In many ways these images make a claim to truth by laying bare their constructed nature--images of image-making show us the man behind the curtain.

Screen capture of www.nbcdfw.com

These photographs of the photographers at work document the media's role in and relation to the event but there is another trend running through these photographic slide shows. Many of the collections also privilege photographs of people holding photographs of victims of the Fort Hood shooting. While the images of image-making may suggest that this tragedy is being documented so that we will remember this one day in the future, the images of family members holding photographs may suggest the memories of an entire life lived and lost on this one day.

Plastics Pollution and the Death of Albatrosses

noelradley — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:45:36 +0000

Image Credit: Chris Jordan with MidwayJourney

H/T Enviro Smith (Enviroart on Twitter)

This video was filmed as part of a project called MidwayJourney, which is documenting the ecological problems of Midway Atoll in the North Pacific. Five artists, headed by multi-media artist Chris Jordan, have stationed themselves on this string of three islands to document the death of albatrosses, who mistake plastic for food and become filled with the plastic waste. The birds eventually die of starvation. Photographed by Jordan and his colleagues, the decaying bodies of the albatrosses dramatically reveal the culprit of this environmental disaster: the collection of plastics with a macabre combination of feather, weathering flesh, beak, and delicate bone.

Image Credit: Chris Jordan

H/T Enviro Smith (Enviroart on Twitter)

The portrayal of plastic is not the first by Jordan. His collections often use manipulated digital photographs to portray the scale of plastic and other commercial and industrial waste products. From Jordan's 2009 project "Running the Numbers II," the two zoomed details (below) help represent the 2.4 million pieces of plastic that enter the earth's waters every day. In this digitally-born pointillism or collage, Jordan uses images of bits and pieces of plastic to create a much larger composite picture of a wave, entitled Gyre 2009 (an 8-by-11 foot image in 3 panels), which you can view on Jordan's site. The iconic beauty of the composite image belies the reality that the elements of the image indicate: the penetration of plastics into the world's oceans. It is the scale of the disaster that Jordan indicates, as well as the pernicious effects of our inability (or unwillingness) to see the underlying causes.

Zoomed Image of Gyre, 2009 by Chris Jordan

H/T DotEarth

In this new project, Jordan has ventured from digital manipulation, however, to new formats. As the captions of the photographs explain, none of the plastic has been manipulated or moved. Depicting the birds with documentary photography and video, as well as writing on their blog, the artists are trying to show the reality of this particular kind of pollution risk in a less-mediated fashion. The affective basis of the video and photographs also seem a departure from the more ironic and conceptual basis of the earlier 2009 series.

Partial Zoomed Image of Gyre, 2009 by Chris Jordan

H/T DotEarth

Indeed, Jordan writes on the mission statement of the MidwayJourney project, "Maybe it is not too ambitious to hope—if we can fully rise to the occasion—that we might be able to co-create a multi-media work of art that tenderly witnesses this middle point that humanity finds itself at right now. And in the eye of the storm—the apex of the Gyre—perhaps our collaborative efforts can create a container forhealing that might have some small effect on the collective choice that is to come."

Images of an American Soldier

Andi — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:18:32 +0000

Image Credit: Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post

H/T: The New York Times

Noel’s comments this past week about the circulation of iconic images of violence and the role of affect in our reception of these images left me wondering about contemporary photojournalism and its treatment of war. In their text and blog, No Caption Needed, John Louis Lucaites and Robert Hariman have written extensively about the way iconic images, such as the photograph of General Loan executing a suspected member of the Viet Cong, circulate in public culture but what should we make of images that are less well known or that focus on the more mundane aspects of war?

Image Credit: Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post

From July of 2007 through August of 2009 photographer Craig F. Walker and journalists Kevin Simpson, Michael Riley and Bruce Finley documented the life of Ian Fisher as he enlisted in the U.S. Army, went through basic training, and served in Iraq. The series of photographs follow Fisher as he graduates from high school, says good-bye to friends and family, struggles through basic training, and serves on escort missions in Iraq. Quite a few of the photographs, however, show Fisher and other enlisted men waiting around, smoking by the side of the road, or sleeping while they wait to be deployed. The daily practice of war looks like a lot of standing around. In fact, the bulk of the action shots document Fisher's time spent in training. Moreover, the only images that capture and convey any affect focus on the emotional response of Fisher, his friends, and his family as he leaves and returns to the U.S.

This depiction of the waiting around of war seems to play off the more iconic images and cliches that have been burned into our collective memory. The photo-essay begins by focusing on Fisher's love for his country but later captions tell us of his frustration at having to dig ditches and complaints about having to pick up trash. Taken as a whole, the essay undermines many of the more traditional narratives of war--we see no transformation from boy into man. There is little focus on homosocial bonding and friendships forged through fire. Fisher's love of country slowly devolves into a lament over the tedious tasks of waging a long war.

Perhaps this portrait is able to emphasize the mundane aspects of war because the photo-journalists spent so much time with Fisher. Are these photographs simply the byproduct of extended time spent documenting Fisher's service? Or, maybe we can read this collection of images as anti-iconic. If we have become inured to the violent or iconic images, perhaps it is time to consider the daily, the dull, and the less-than-decisive-moments of war.

Digital Manipulation and the Ethics of Representation

micklethwait — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:15:16 +0000

An article this week on Stinky Journalism, Danielle Mastropiero's "Photoshopped Images Booted from Press Photo Contest," calls to mind a couple of other similar incidents in recent memory: first, Adnan Hajj's laughably bad Photoshop manipulations of smoke plumes over Beirut during Israel's summer '06 bombing campaign; and second, Iran's equally laughable manipulation of publicity photos from their summer '08 test missile test launch.

Image source: Stinky Journalism.org

Click on 'voteringen' in the menu of this Flash-animated comparison of Christensen's submitted photographs, their RAW files, and the Photoshop auto-corrections.

The ethical question of representation in these cases branches out beyond simple questions of technique. My gut reaction is that these questions of authenticity in reportage only seem to crop up in depictions of 'the Other'--realities of Haiti, Lebanon, and Iran being the examples I've chosen--but other cases come to mind as well, such as the indignation over unretouched portraits of Gov. Palin (for the cover of Newsweek) and Sen. McCain (for the cover of Atlantic Monthly).

As far as pedagogy is concerned, these cases of photographic manipulation provide an object lesson in the subtleties of plagiarism that are harder to convey than taking credit for another's work. Digital media and tools of manipulation have already deposited this comfortable academic principle in a vague, soupy ethical context. Still, how one represents the works (or realities) of another person opens the door to the specter of plagiarism. A careful exposition and discussion of these cases of manipulation and reportage might help to elucidate these vague or complicated situations for the average undergraduate student.