Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, this July (2010), signed the so called “gun-in-church” law. According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune the governor signed House Bill 1272 which allows Louisiana citizens, holding concealed weapons permits, to carry loaded weapons into churches, mosques and synagogues. No doubt this will help them reflect upon peace, love and the teachings of their faith.
Jesus Shoot © Michael Maurer Smith 2010
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Let's Revisit School (from an earlier Tea Party protest) © 2009 Michael M. Smith
From my office window I can see Michigan’s State Capitol building. On most workdays, during the spring and summer, there are organized demonstrations on the capitol lawn, each addressing a particular issue or grievance.
Today’s demonstration (24 June 2010) was huge. It was the Michigan Education Association and they were well organized—several thousand of them in coordinated tee-shirts. They arrived by the busload. Large circus style tents covered the grounds and as a mark of just how organized this demonstration was there were no less than 10 porta-potties on the southside sidewalk and behind the capitol sat 5 state police cruisers.
A couple of weeks ago it was the motorcyclists protesting the Michigan law that requires them to wear helmets. I appreciate their logic. If they prefer to have their unprotected heads smash the concrete at sixty miles an hour what’s the point of government trying to protect them?
Anyway, my point here is not about the MEA or helmet laws, it’s about demonstrations. Do they accomplish anything other than making the demonstrators feel better? I doubt it. As I said I see them almost every working day. And they follow the same pattern. Someone, or several someones, mount the capitol steps and deliver righteous messages to the assembled believers. At key moments the demonstrators hoot, cheer, clap and wave their signs in the air. But rarely do the legislators or governor come out to meet the crowd—unless they are in the midst of a reelection campaign. Mostly, it’s the demonstrators demonstrating for themselves and the amusement of the lunch crowd. It’s purely theater and most of it amateur.
In his TED video, Political Change with Pen and Paper, Omar Ahmad claims the most effective way to get the attention of legislators is to write them letters—handwritten. When they receive thousands of hand written letters they pay attention. However, when they look out their windows and see signs and placards bobbing up and down, it’s just another day at work. Letters are personal. Bobbing signs are anonymous.
It takes tremendous energy and money to move tens, hundreds and even thousands of people to converge on a single location, there to vent their frustrations and express their views—particularly when tomorrow there will be yet another performance by another group and the day after that another. And to what avail? Inside the walls of government the deals are made based upon political and personal expedience and favoritism. If bricks and bullets aren’t coming through the windows the demonstrations outside are of no more concern than the day’s weather.
© 2010 Michael Maurer Smith
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There is a genre of photography known as “humanitarian photojournalism.” It seems a laudable practice and most of the photographers who do it are dedicated to the causes and organizations they photograph for. However, it is also a commercial practice, and where money changes hands expectations and obligations are present and they will shade the results.
I have recently been listening to podcast interviews (Depth of Field with Matt Brandon) with some of the most accomplished humanitarian photographers. They all tell compelling stories. They talk about what they pack for their trips and the difficulties and unexpected encounters in their travel. They tell about what gear works, what doesn’t and why. They give tips on lighting and how to work with the native populations and conditions—all of which is fascinating and useful to other photographers. Likewise, they all speak of the real needs and suffering of their subjects from around the world.
But missing in most of this discussion is a larger perspective—one in which bigger questions are raised and wrestled with.
Every one of these photographers claim it is a privilege for them to inform the rest of the world about what’s really going on in places like the Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan and the Amazon rain forest. So they report on the work being done by the major Non Governmental Organizations and many relief agencies—their clients and employers. And they do it well because they are professionals.
The result is yet more images in a media saturated world—images targeted at people living far from the source of those images—affluent, well educated, socially committed readers of magazines and buyers of photo books and joiners of groups dedicated to helping causes—the pool from which the NGOs and relief organizations seek their support. So the humanitarian photograph must be compelling though not repellent. It must not tip the balance politically, culturally or aesthetically in any way that might offend the targeted potential donor.
It is this need for balance that pushes the humanitarian photojournalist more and more into the realms of marketing, advertising and public relations. And to the extent humanitarian photography is a business both the photographer and those who hire him or her have a vested interest in the continuation of their subject’s abject conditions.
It is notable that many of the humanitarian photojournalists routinely leave their own countries (mostly developed nations) to travel on paid assignment to remote locations, there to record and report on their subject’s pain, poverty and suffering. But surely pain, poverty and suffering exist in the photographer’s own home country and community? There is plenty of it here in the United States and it probably exists in places like France, Canada, Germany, Britain and Australia too! Surely it must be more environmentally, morally and economically defensible to address the problems of pain, poverty and suffering at home before trying to right the wrongs in places thousands and thousands of miles away.
Humanitarian photographers should ask themselves how much what they do is really done in service of humanity—really makes a difference—and how much of it is done to expiate guilt (theirs and that of their clients) for being able to live a life of privilege and choice not enjoyed by those they photograph.
The people devastated by the earthquake in Haiti, and those left impoverished if not homeless and demoralized by Katrina and more recently by the incompetence of British Petroleum in the Gulf are not now flying to Santa Fe, Palm Beach or Shaker Heights to photograph the plight of the wealthy—are they?
What are your thoughts?
© 2010 Michael Maurer Smith
Note: This blog also appears at beyondappearance.wordpress.com
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Our Demand © 2010 Michael Maurer Smith
Our unbridled thirst for oil made this disaster all but inevitable. When will we realize that we are petroleum addicts?
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Photography of the effects and carnage of war, natural disaster and criminal behavior began with the invention of photography itself. Then as now the commonly given explanation for photographing the hideous, heinous and horrible was that, “showing the public such things may prevent them from happening again.”
After more than 150 years of photography—of millions of photographs showing humans shredded, burned, drilled by bullets, eviscerated, or hacked to pieces, we must acknowledge that murder, genocide, slaughter and natural disaster continue undeterred by the witness of photographers and photojournalists.
Words may reveal the mind of the victim or the perpetrator and thereby teach us something, but never the photograph. It can only re-present that which was visible. You will not get blood on your fingers by dragging them across the photograph of a dead soldier or accident victim. You will not hear the victim’s dying screams or last words. You will not smell the stench of the body’s decay. Still photographs remain still—odorless artifacts.
Most of the photographs of war and suffering are made to sell—not just to teach, witness, document or chastise. The photojournalists who make these pictures expect to be paid for taking the risk. And the news agencies expect to be paid for the use of the images.
Such photography panders to the viewer/reader’s anxiety and need to feel safe. It is expected they will find comfort in knowing they have been spared the horror shown in the photograph. But is this real journalism? Does it truly educate and serve any noble or practical purpose? Or does it principally titillate, stir fear and fan prejudice?
Eddie Adams won the Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a handcuffed Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon. This picture helped turn American sentiment against the Vietnam War and hasten its end. However, it has done little to prevent America’s involvement in subsequent wars. Likewise, the highly publicized photographs of the My Lai massacre, of more than 347 unarmed men, women and children, by U.S. troops, on 16 March 1968, has done little to prevent subsequent mass murders and genocides from happening around the world.
Photojournalism’s demonstrated failure to prevent or end wars, genocides and disaster makes it cynical if not immoral for photojournalists, news agencies and publishers to continue profiting from the photography of people’s suffering, pain and tragedy—photographs that are sold and peddled as a commodity to be consumed like coffee at breakfast. Is this what it means to be civilized? Is this being informed or simply inflamed? Who really benefits?
© 2010 Michael Maurer Smith
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