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

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

Occasionally I meet people who, upon learning I was a Marine, tell me, “thank you for your service.” This is meant well, although their thank you is always tinged with guilt. People learned after the Vietnam War not to visit their dislike of America’s misguided politics and wasted wars upon the veterans who had to fight them.

I am conflicted about being thanked for my military service. Should I be gracious and accept it? Or should I tell the person to study the history of America’s war and politics and ask themselves some hard questions? Should I point out that the Vietnam War is now recognized to have been folly—that the 51,895 names etched on the wall in Washington D.C. testifies to their sacrifice in service of too many lying and dithering politicians who played war games from the comfort of their desks? Should I point out that our current “all volunteer” military is for many a last resort employment program led by career professionals—that in effect it is a mercenary force used to extend America’s influence by means of threat and violence. Should I point out that for all the deaths and maiming suffered by the United States, its allies, and the Iraqi and Afghan peoples that Osama Bin Laden has not been brought to justice, and that weapons of mass destruction have not been found in Iraq—although they certainly exist in arsenals throughout the United States?

Recently, while in New Mexico, a place I love for its stark contrasts, I photographed the roadside marker at the entry to Trinity Site.

Trinity Site Marker, near San Antonio, NM

It was at Trinity site, not far from San Antonio, NM in Socorro County, on 16 July 1945 that the equivalent of 20 kilotons of TNT was released with the detonation of the first atomic bomb. It was here that the biblical promise of Armageddon was made possible by science, engineering and American ingenuity. It was here in the desert, south of the Valley of Fires, that 45 mile stretch of malpais, and west of the Three Rivers Petroglyphs site with it 21,000 drawings carved in the rocks by nameless and faceless people more than 1,100 years ago that the objectivity of science was irretrievably surrendered to the service of politics.

Valley of Fires, Malpais, near Carrizozo, NM

Petroglyphs, Three Rivers, NM

We know the rest of the story. The bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all that was living below perished or suffered. The bombs could not distinguish between combatant and non-combatant, the innocent or evil. They cooked the young and old, babies, dogs, cats and birds without discrimination.

Of course, the destruction and horrors of Little Boy and Fat Man were no greater than those caused by the fire bombings of Tokyo on the 9^th of March 1945, when more than 100,000 people died that night and more than a million were wounded!

On 5 August 1945 the bomb bay doors of the Enola Gay opened and America gained the distinction of being the first nation to drop an atomic bomb (Little Boy) on a living population. Later, on 9 August 1945, Fat Man fell on Nagasaki.

It is argued that hundreds of thousands of allied troops would have died invading Japan had the bombs not been dropped. This is likely so. Yet the fact remains that the single most horrific and powerful weapon ever made was used, in spite of the pleas by many of the scientists who developed it. They said it should not be used until it had been first demonstrated to the Japanese thus giving them the option of immediate surrender. President Truman, ignored those pleas and ordered the bombings. Science was now an arm of politics. Realizing what he had done  J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoted from the Bhagavad Gita, saying, “Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Thus far we have avoided another war on the scale of World War Two and have settled for exercising our military skill in a succession of mini-wars—tactical adventures that increasingly resemble video games except for the real carnage they exact. This way we continue to produce a steady stream of new veterans—veterans of our political policy wars—of our wars to extend corporate influence in the guise of spreading Democracy (mostly to those who haven’t asked for it).

As a nation we seem to have lost our stomach for wholesale slaughter and subscribe to the unfounded belief that war can be waged clinically using missiles, drones, and robots, remotely controlled by operators sitting in front of computer monitors in air-conditioned command centers. We believe, or want to believe, that we can kill only the bad guys while avoiding “collateral” damage. It doesn’t seem to be working. We seem resigned to winning the immediate engagement but not the war. In fact we can’t seem to define the war—to decide whether we are at war, conducting a police action, doing peace keeping or nation building.

There was clarity about World War Two. Neither the Axis or Allied powers deluded themselves believing limited war was possible. It was a fight to the finish. It was freedom versus the forces of oppression. Hitler and the Imperial Japanese had to be stopped. And it was over in four years.

The bombings of Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagaski, London and Dresden were not surgical raids on military targets only. Instead both sides aimed at inflicting so much pain and suffering on the respective enemy populations that they would be compelled to capitulate or wiped out. War then was understood as total. Whether you were a civilian or served in uniform you were involved and vulnerable. It was inescapable.

Today, in the United States, there is no compulsory national service, military or otherwise. Consequently the conflicts we are involved in, such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq are executed by volunteer troops, commanded by university educated and professional officers. Thus our civilian population is free to support, dismiss or totally ignore the American soldier and the military in general. Instead of military service being an obligation, or perceived as a duty it is now considered just another job or career choice. New recruits are given signing bonuses and in some cases permitted to take holiday leaves during boot camp! All of the military services now use branding and marketing agencies to sell themselves, promising to turn the young recruit into an invincible high tech warrior—off to see foreign lands, seek thrills and find adventure.

So, as a veteran how do I feel about being thanked for my service? I feel unsettled, embarrassed and somewhat grateful. I appreciate that my service is acknowledged. Yet I know I did not enlist out of patriotism. I enlisted because the G.I Bill promised me an opportunity for an education, if I survived—a way out of a dead end situation. And I got that education and opportunity at a price.

During and after my service I came to know that my nation lied to me about Vietnam. I began to realize that the pay and benefits I’d received as a Marine had come at a cost in blood for many innocent people, both American and Vietnamese. So how can I be proud of this? Why should I be?

The veterans of World War Two can be proud of their service, knowing it was truly necessary and noble. And those of us who served during Korea and Vietnam can take a measure of solace in knowing that we had few choices—we would likely have been drafted if we hadn’t enlisted. Drafted or enlisted most of us went in with our eyes open and aware of the calculations.

So I will graciously accept the thank you for my service. However, anyone who would truly honor me as a veteran must pledge to rise above the words of politicians, professors and religious leaders and search for the real truth—the truth one must recognize in their heart—the truth that tells them that “blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

War should never be the political solution. It should only be entered into in defense of the innocent and helpless, and then only as an absolute and unavoidable last resort.

The best way to thank veterans is by not creating the conditions that produce them.

© Michael Maurer Smith 2009

Backyard Memories

Black and white photography is neither inferior or superior to color photography. Each has its merits. However, black and white photography allows the photographer to explore form and light in ways that color prevents or obscures.

A particular quality of the black and white photograph is its ability to immediately confer an aura of nostalgia on its subject—to remove it from and lock it in time, principally by the reduction of local color to a range of grays. The absence of full color eliminates the emotional shading that color brings.

More so than its color counterpart, the black and white photograph is an artifact to be read. Its appeal is to the intellect first and the subject is to be discovered through a reading of the tones, lines, textures, shapes and voids in the picture but without the slippery and burdened emotional associations of color.

In our age of increasing attention deficits the color photograph prevails. Color is everywhere—even for the physically or perceptually color-blind. It soothes, titillates, excites and masks. This extension of color into every facet of our media saturated existence blurs the boundaries between what is real and what we perceive as real. However, the black and white image announces it separateness, its artificiality, and thereby makes itself something other, something removed from the way we see the world outside the rectangle—something to contemplate.

The color photograph appeals directly to the emotions—to the mostly unconscious color associations in the viewers mind. It bypasses the intellect. And no matter what the putative subject of the color photograph may be, its color palette will elicit an immediate visceral response. In this way the color photograph can be insidious. Likewise, it is often a reiteration of the obvious—a pretty packaging of the banal and vacuous.

The picture above was taken in the early 1950s. It shows me in the arms of Nick—one of my step-fathers. My memories of him are few. He and my mother were divorced soon after this picture was taken and I did not live with either of them. I lived with my great-grandmother.

I saw Nick only a few times yet this picture confirms the memories I have of him—as someone I liked, and who liked me. He died several years ago. I never saw him after the late 1950s, but I still have this picture, with its off center geometry—with the two of us looking out to the unknown. And with it I can look back at us wondering what was? There we are in that rectangle united, removed from time and worry, composed and recorded for all time in black and white forever.

© Michael Maurer Smith 2009

Coffee at the Supreme Bean

It had been nearly 3 months since the city’s Combined Sewer Overflow project had come to the front of the Supreme Bean and for all this time pedestrian traffic was restricted to narrow paths on either side of the street. Patronage had suffered as a result and even Tony, Carmina and Curran had stopped coming. Finally they decided to meet. So on the last Thursday of August they convened for their usual coffee, pastry and conversation.

Outside the clanks, scrapes, bang and thuds of the heavy equipment, the staccato of jackhammers and the loud voices of the hard-hatted workers went on. Inside three lobbyists were ganged up on a single legislator, with each proclaiming their studied positions. In spite of these distractions Carmina, Tony and Curran got down to the serious business of catching up and speculation. Tony began.

“You know,” said Tony, “Senator Kennedy’s death has got me thinking a lot about the connection of politics and photographs. I’ve heard it said that every photograph is a political statement—a political inquiry and I believe it. I know mine are—even my snapshots.”

“But Tony, you shoot mostly nature stuff. What’s so political about photographing a spider? Curran asked.

“Well, just aiming the camera is a political act—even if you aren’t consciously ‘thinking politically’ at the time. What you choose to photograph is always a reflection of your values—and your politics. The images we make are mirrors and windows.

Just making a photograph of a spider isn’t likely to identify you as a Republican or a Democrat but it will reveal something about your relationship to the natural world. If you believe spiders are important to the ecosystem you will photograph them with a different attitude, than if you believe they are ugly and expendable. Your photographs are records of what you find meaningful—worthy of notice, preservation and examination—worthy to be shared.

I recently read a fascinating book titled, After Photography, by Fred Ritchen—which I highly recommend. Anyway, Ritchen asks, ‘Did the millions of romanticized and appropriately beautiful images of nature that serve as an image archive, on calendars, in textbooks and magazines, on the Internet and elsewhere, help us to ignore the realities of environmental destruction?’

Well, I think the answer has to be yes—and I am a card-carrying member of the North American Nature Photographers Association. So this got me thinking even more about the politics of what I do, what you do, what we all do as image-makers,” said Tony.

“So Tony, if I understand you, you are saying that even if we think of ourselves as apolitical, our politics, our values and beliefs still manifest in the photographs, paintings and design that we make—that it is impossible for anyone to be truly apolitical. Is that right?” Carmina asked.

“Yep. I am saying that every picture—is a political statement—that it can’t be otherwise, not if it is made by a human,” Tony replied.

“Well I guess that rules out objectivity in Art? Carmina replied.

“Sure does,” said Tony. “But it need not rule out truth.”

Curran was listening intently. As a graphic designer his profession had much in common with those of the lawyers, lobbyists and legislators that frequented the Bean. As a designer for hire, he was expected to champion his clients values rather than his own. He dealt in coercion, illusion, and artistic deception—it was his stock in trade. Of course Tony and Carmina did the same, all artists did, but they did it in service of their personal values and politics. They could use artistic lies to tell truths.

Still Curran wondered if in spite of his best efforts his design revealed his personal politics. He preferred the minimalist ethic—less is more. He favored Helvetica and Bodoni. He advocated for the utmost in clarity, readability and legibility—nothing sentimental or extraneous. And so he sought clients who liked this approach. Was this serving his client or his own political nature? Now he wasn’t sure and that disturbed him.

“So then, all of our work is political speech and has consequences, even if it does no more than add to the noise and confusion that is piled up on our information super highway?” Curran remarked in a tone of thoughtfulness and resignation.

“Yep,” said Tony . “Think about it Curran. You and your designer friends have helped create our super packaged, and branded world. Our lives are lived in a sea of media—mediated reality. Our views of reality are so pre-conditioned that we may already have lost the ability to distinguish the real from the virtual. We are conditioned to expect our world to look like the perfected and manufactured images we see everywhere. With every new image added to the pile our cynicism grows. We can’t trust our senses anymore. Everything is ‘mediated.’

As a photographer I question the validity of what I do. What does it mean to make an authentic and original nature photograph? Is it even possible? Is the species natural if it exists only in a zoo or on a game preserve? Is a tiger a real tiger if it is not free to roam?

Quoting Ritchen again, he says it is estimated that in 2010 nearly a half a trillion photographs will be made in just that year alone. So what’s the point of making another nature photograph? Taking millions of photographs of a threatened species means little if they disappear among the billions—the trillions of photographs being released into media? It means little if the public believes that every picture it sees has been Photoshoped—manipulated or constructed,” said Tony.

“But Tony, there is that satisfaction which comes from making a picture you believe in, a piece that is authentic and original and which reflects your personal values to the best of your abilities. There is that satisfaction and meaning which comes from sharing the work with others who know and trust you. And really Tony, none of us can ask more of ourselves as artists than that,” said Carmina.

“You are right,” Tony replied. “We are artists and artists make art. Politics will take care of itself,” he said.

“So, you all want to try this again next week? Curran asked.

“Sure,” said Carmina.

“Sure,” said Tony.

© Michael Maurer Smith 2009