From: http://arafiqui.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/to-hear-or-see-a-haitian/
“I can’t think of another craft so immune to self-analysis, so trapped in its tired cliches, and so determined to just carry on as if nothing around it is changing. This is made even more evident when an occasional voice speaks up and reveals the sheer exploitation, and misuse of it all, as the photographer Eliza Gregoryso beautifully revealed in a piece she wrote called Photographer As White Messiah: Looking Back At A Picture I Wish I Had Not Taken. “
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Is that who we are? … Who we’ve become?
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I really hope I don’t sound like a blow hard, but I feel like some of the criticisms may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
This was a good read. Pangs of guilt here and there. Although, (and this may be a optimistic view) I feel like the “willingness and eagerness” to cover something like Haiti or any tragedy from a young photographers perspective should be explored. From the outside, someone being eager to go there might come off as inhumane, sensationalist, self serving, etc. In many cases this could be the case, and in probably most cases there are slivers of these less desirable motivations as no one is ever driven by one solid emotion.
To be painfully honest though, as a photographer and a person I crave to be part of something, something larger, something sacred, or something valuable. As I see something, the thing that makes me want to photograph it is usually one of two things.
1. It looks graphic and pleases me…simple eye candy.
2. It is important, it has a value, and within this value an implicit respect and reverence and appreciation exists.
Whether I am shooting jubilation after a soccer game, a burned child in a Haitian clinic, or a “perp” walk, that reverence and respect is for the situation, the gravity. It isn’t to say I respect some murderer or deeply respect aid workers, or the captain of a high school girls soccer team. Rather I respect the value of the situation.
As a photographer I hope I never forget that I am showing this respect by taking the time to make one, two, a dozen images of what is happening. More often than not, I have felt this understood by people I have photographed. For example, while in India last summer and in Haiti recently, many people would see me with a camera and ask to have their picture taken. I don’t think they are under some false pretense that I am going to mail them a print. Rather I feel like most of these people recognized this give and take of appreciation and respect when you immortalize someone in a photograph. I have seen very proud faces staring back at me, looking at me like they are getting a good deal by being photographed.
Being more resolute as photographers about our approach and knowing ourselves more will often (not always) be felt by those we photograph and in turn be reciprocated. In a tent city in Port-au-Prince a lady was washing her young boy in a small plastic bucket who was crying like crazy, covered in soap suds and shaded by a small sheet. I didn’t try and sneak a photo or crowd her into the corner of the frame to make her think I was shooting something else. Making eye contact with her I knelt down next to them and started taking a few photos. I feel like this exchange would have been much different had I not had the confidence in my own motivations for deciding to shoot this scene.
Unfortunately conditions do not always allow for both parties to be aware of each other and enter into this implicit agreement, these situations require that confidence in what you do and why you do it even more.
I don’t think that many of the photographers mentioned in these articles are insensitive to the core, I think many are just wanting to be part of an opportunity to see and record value. Most likely they have respect for that value, i.e. the people that symbolize it. I feel the real message to take from these articles and blog posts is to be more self-aware and honest with ourselves about our motivations as often as possible. Beating ourselves up for wanting to cover things that matter is counter productive and poisonous.
We shouldn’t forget our own freedom as the person who decides how to make the image. In general the majority of viewers don’t really care how the photographer got the photo. They just want the photo. We can shoot something without any compassion or real interest and feed it back to the media beast or we can craft our approach to be mindful, human and respectful and the images might look the exact same.
Thanks for posting the articles Scott, it is good stuff to think about.
This is one of the most interesting posts I’ve read on here. Thanks for putting it up!
I didn’t go to Haiti and I wouldn’t want to comment on what’s going on over there.
But the fact that our craft is all about people in front of the camera, yet what we often talk about is ourselves and our skills and our ‘seeing,’ has made me think quite a bit in the last little while. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, just that I sometimes miss the questioning of our motives and the doubts that at least for me come with working as a photographer.
It has started bugging me that my concern to tell someone’s story accurately, I guess in a way that they could agree with, has to share space in my head with whether those images are good enough, creative enough, to put on a blog, in contests, to show friends, belong in the trash and so on…I’ve tried not to chimp when I’m shooting a story, and that’s helped a little bit. I would say I’m a pretty insecure photographer and so I have to be aware constantly that my own doubting myself and so on doesn’t get in the way of telling a story that I think is important.
I’ve been working out on a reservation quite a bit lately and it was hard to shake the feeling of ‘taking’ photos from these people. And one morning they wanted to know what I’d use them for. We talked about it and I had to figure out – for me and for them – exactly why I was there photographing. If I was just interested, I could have just sat there and learned about their life. But why was it that I wanted to find a publication, put the photos on my web site, show them to others. It kind of forced me to re-examine again and it was good to still have reasons to be there that were honest enough in my mind to keep shooting.
I don’t want to criticize anyone or rip on our profession. I love it and its made me live differently and approach the world more openly. But as the guy said in the blog post, maybe it would be good to talk about these things more openly and frequently. That’s all.
Oh, this is also really interesting:
http://www.adevelopingstory.org/2010/photographer-as-white-messiah-looking-back-at-a-picture-i-wish-i-hadn%E2%80%99t-taken
-d
thanks for this Scott. What a great read! After reading elsewhere about the guy who wants to take students to Haiti for an expensive workshop it’s hard not to ask questions like those brought up in the article.
For anybody who hasn’t seen it, this link is to the workshop info.
http://tinyurl.com/yaal2ar