Part One - Photograph as document: Project Two - Photojournalism: Research point - Images of war

One of the research points suggested is to consider whether we believe that images of war are necessary to provoke change and if we agree with Sontag's earlier view that horrific images of war numb viewers' responses.

In my view, images of war don't numb my response.  Over time they become easier to look at, because you become more used to seeing gory details, but they still shock.  And in fact, because you are able to look more easily, the impact is more shocking as you are able to look for longer and take in more detail.  I certainly don't feel compassion fatigue.  In fact, what I am currently feeling is that I wish I was 20 years younger and not tied in to the mortgage system, so that I could be a war journalist and make a contribution towards raising awareness and getting knowledge to the right people.

I personally believe that we don't do enough to prevent war; we happily elect governments that seem willing to send troops into wars that are nothing to do with us, and the problem with sending graphic imagery to news agencies is potentially that it reaches the wrong people.  The politicians making the decisions to sacrifice people's lives should be the ones that are forced to witness these events.

If journalists stop showing the public images of the appalling cruelty and degradation of human life, how else will people know what's going on?  And how else will people be incited to take action?  In my view, the question of action or inaction depends on many factors particular to each individual, for instance, available time, resources, family commitments, access to communications and transport, political motivations and innate compassion.  I don't think you can blame the lack of inaction on the bombardment of images as Ritchin (2014) argues; there are people who do take action and I wonder if they would have done this had the images not existed?  Moreover, is it about the number of images available, or is it that people simply do not look?  And I also don't think you can make a connection with the existence, start and end of wars on photography; wars exist as a result of political, religious, social or ethnic situations.

Last night, I watched the film A Thousand Times Goodnight directed by Eric Poppe about this very topic.  In the film the photographer was accused of sensationalising shocking images, to which she responded that she photographed what she saw, as she saw it.  And of course it is the photographer's skill that makes the images have impact.

To refer to a later point in the course materials, I think that both photographs taken in action and "late" photographs can be effective.   In some cases, late photography can be chilling, but in this case, the photographer most likely has more time to compose a beautiful or striking image than a photographer who is at the scene of a war situation.  Campany (2003) argues that "aftermath" photography has become fashionable (in many photography genres); I think the difficult with late photography is that you are adding an element of interpretation beyond the photographers; the removal of the action and inclusion of the trace only may leave the viewer wondering what has happened.  It is quite possible for such an image to be misinterpreted and therefore to lose its impact (unless there is sufficient text present to guide the reader).  I think there is definitely a place in late photography, but on the subject of war, its purpose should be to illustrate the impact or effect of war, i.e. the longer lasting state, than the immediate cruelty and torture of war.

Websites:

• Campany, D. 2003 Safety in Numbness available from http://davidcampany.com/safety-in-numbness/ [accessed 28 September 2014]
• Ritchin, F. in Time Lightbox (2014)When Photographs of Atrocities Don't Shock available from http://lightbox.time.com/2014/01/28/when-photographs-of-atrocities-dont-shock/#1 [accessed 28 September 2014]
• Wikipedia (2014) A Thousand Times Goodnight available from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thousand_Times_Good_Night [accessed 28 September 2014]
• Wikipedia (2014) Eric Poppe available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Poppe [accessed 28 September 2014]

Bibliography:

• Poppe, E. (2014) (film) A Thousand Times Goodnight, Arrow Films 
• Sontag, S. (1979) On Photography, London: Penguin Books Ltd
• Sontag, S. (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others, London: Penguin Books Ltd

Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag

I read Regarding the Pain of Others a good six weeks after I had written about Invisible War.
In this analysis, Sontag debates why it is that our response to war imagery is numbed.  I found this text quite hard to read - although interesting, it is quite heavy going and my reading time is during my commute, which is when my brain is either waking up or shutting down!  To be honest, to write a coherent review, I'm going to have to read it again.

Throughout the text, Sontag provides historical context behind war imagery, argues that people even enjoy looking at violence, and that our response is now numbed by the proliferation of war imagery, which can now be transmitted in real time.  I've heard these arguments before, and although I disagree and believe that it largely depends on the individual, the arguments are familiar to me.

The debate that surprised me though is in chapter 8, in which Sontag argues that people should be realistic about the depravity inflicted by humans against each other.  She contests that if you are continually surprised about the existence of this cruelty, then you have not yet reached moral or psychological adulthood.  Personally, I would argue quite strongly with this.  I think it is for that very reason that we have war journalism, that the photographers themselves feel a need to communicate their own shock.  I can look at war images and I appreciate the photographic skills at the same time.  Of course I know that war exists, but I'm not comfortable with it and I don't enjoy it, and I am still shocked by the cruelty that people are capable of, and that there is a need for wars in the first place.  And I think we need the imagery to keep us aware of this.

To illustrate this point, a little while ago, I was on the train going to work.  There was an announcement that there would be delays at Vauxhall due to a person having been struck by a train.  Being a regular commuter, I often hear these announcements, so you could say that I am suffering the audio equivalent of the reactions described by Sontag.  Although these situations are very sad, they are so frequent, that I have got used to hearing them.  But, as my train went through Vauxhall, I saw the body lying on the platform covered by a blanket, so just the form of the person was visible, and this was very shocking, and it really brought home that is was a person that had been affected and not just another announcement.

And then I realised why we need war journalism: hearing about something is not enough.  To be truly appalled by something, to do the point where you may protest or feel the need to take action, you need to see it.


Bibliography

• Sontag, S. (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others, London: Penguin Group

Assignment One - Two Sides of the Story - Preparation and Execution

Assignment One asks that we choose a theme and prepare 5-7 images for each of two sets of photographs telling different versions of the same story.

23 August

For my theme, my first idea was to show life in a zoo park from two different perspectives: outsiders looking in, and animals looking out.  The idea for this has come from two different sources: firstly because I want to try out my D810 plus new lenses on animals (it has only been used for street photography so far!) and particularly to test whether the ability to handle dynamic range i.e. black creatures in midday sun, is better than the D5000 I was previously using (and for reasons of time I need to multitask!), and secondly I'm intrigued by the image taken by Count de Montizon in 1852 in London of the Hippopotamus at the Zoological Gardens, Regents Park, see Bate, 2013, p24 (which I first wrote about during Digital Photographic Practice - see here for a summary).

Bate uses the image to demonstrate the that there may be different points of view within a photograph.  In this instance, we know from our general knowledge that it is extremely likely that the hippo is the one in the cage, however, looking at the photograph, the onlookers appear to be in the cage.  There is a realism that we know to be true, and then there is doubt about where the viewer is placed, and indeed where the hippo is placed in relation to the viewer (Bate, 2013, pp37-40).  It asks the question whether humans been imprisoned by nature.

So, I'm going try to take 5-7 pairs of photographs showing the perspective of the animal, or the viewer inside the cage, looking out, and the perspective of onlookers looking in, to produce representations of the juxtapositions of these two worlds that are forced to co-exist.

I don't know yet whether these will be colour or black and white, or square or rectangle format.  Being right-brained, I will decide later!  A lot will depend on the lighting, background detail, what stands out.  I suspect the outcome will be colour and rectangle landscapes, but we will see.

24 August
So I tried to put my idea into practice at Drusillas and realised very quickly that I would end up with 5-7 photographs that all looked the same and which would not demonstrate any great technical or creative ability...so idea abandoned. 

But, on a spontaneous trip to Worthing on the way back from Drusillas, another idea came to mind.  I could try to show two different perspectives on English life - "This is England or is it?", with one perspective being themes that are quintessentially English and the contradiction being themes whereby due to the framing (e.g. a palm tree against a hotel) could be from somewhere that is not England.  Back to Worthing tomorrow to try it out!  Themes could include (and not necessarily be tied or limited to this):

• Ethnic diversity
• Food
• Plants
• Buildings
• Restaurants
• Street signs in different languages or the London tube map / Hong Kong tube map in Newport Court in London WC2
• Customs e.g. tea and scones / drinking starbucks coffee  

Inspiration for this partly comes from work by Martin Parr and his portraits showing English life and images of English things.  Other photographers that also come to mind that show a truly English perspective also include Paul Russell from a satirical perspective!  Venues for shooting include central London, Keswick and perhaps a September trip to the seaside if the weather improves....

7 September 2014

I missed the boat on the last idea.  The season for people eating ice creams on the pier is really over.  I love the theme of English summer and Englishness, so I will save this for another occasion.  But, fortunately, another idea has come to mind!  Through my participation in the Bleeding London project, I've got to know my local area, Feltham, very well.  And I've noticed that there are two very distinct sides of the same story.  The area is typically run down, lacking investment, rough, dilapidated and so on, but there are pockets of more attractive qualities, which if photographed selectively and shown out of context, would present a very different story and also present a distinct series of contrasts:

• confinement vs space (Young Offenders vs the open space in front of it)
• dilapidation vs regeneration (building opposite Macdonalds vs the new academy being built)
• struggling economy vs booming economy (empty restaurant vs full (and happy) kebab shop
• neglected front garden vs elaborately tended front garden (multiple gardens to chose from full of junk vs the lovely one with the amazing happy hedges in Cedar Road, which although awful just makes me smile)! (see photo below taken earlier this year - to be reshot though)
• rowdiness vs peace (outside the Weatherspoon Pub vs the cemetery)
• crowded living space vs beautiful house (blocks of flats with railings vs original beamed house on Ashford Road)
• angry scary people vs happy people (people at bus stop vs people exercising dogs)

Cedar Road

My intention is to process the positives in colour, and the negatives in black and white (to enhance a gritty and more documentary feel and reduce the risk of colour/light making it seem more positive).  My only reservation on that is that I have been told many times not to mix colour with b&w in the same project/series, so I'm taking advice on that from fellow students/Crossing Lines members. 

These images are most likely to be viewed in an academic context only, so by my tutor, the assessors, other students, and also members of Crossing Lines.  I think I will be unlikely to show these images to people in a social context or to print and hang them on my own walls, although with any photos I take, there is always a chance that they will be entered into an exhibition!   

Am I taking any risks with this?  In a word, yes.  Walking through Feltham with a DLSR is always a risk, and especially with a D810 (it is insured!); taking the pair of street photographs of people might be tricky....might get punched.... ;-)

15 September 2014

So my thoughts are evolving - along the lines of the above, I'm thinking of looking for contrasts that I can shoot by being in the same position and pivoting 180 degrees - and also finding resonance and contrast within each pair in the process:

• weapons bin / cash machine
• dilapidated building / new look shop
• pub / church or cemetery
• young offenders / open space
• garden opposite / garden with hedges

22 September 2014

In the end, I went with the option described on 7 September 2014 above, but with the colour option only.  I decided it was too cliched to present the negative concepts in black and white.  I wanted to present the opposite views with resonances also and colour would help significantly with that.

The objective of this exercise was really to see if by careful framing, I could produce a convincing series of the better qualities of Feltham.  This illustrates the point made by Susan Sontag (2003) about a photograph:

"It is always the image that someone chose; to photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude".

What I would be doing is, as photographers do with every shot, presenting a selective and subjective view.  Hopefully by looking at each set, the viewer would be able to form an opinion of the area dictated by choices I made.  I will comment on whether this is successful in the reflections post.

I tried the 180 degrees option described on 15 September 2014, but found very quickly that this wouldn't work with the sun shining in my face...and I didn't have the time flexibility to make two trips to each point.  Unfortunately, I didn't get my hedges - the sun was in the wrong place at the wrong time, plus there were cars parked outside the house each time I went to have a look :(.  But I did get seven sets of contrasts:

• weapons / cash machine
• dilapidated building / new building
• end of life (cemetery) / new life (conkers)
• bust business / thriving business
• abandoned toy / rescued toy
• cramped living (flats) / detached living ground (house)
• confined (young offenders) / open (green space)

The execution took place during two days towards the end of September - one day with beautiful light, and I also used four pictures taken on the previous day which was dull and flat; this accounts for the different lighting in the series, which would not have been my preference, but it is what it is.

My approach to editing and processing is very simple.  For a start, I did not have to make many choices, all the good light photographs were deliberately shot, and the four with flat light (pairs B and E) were in fact chosen from a bank of Bleeding London photographs taken on the previous day that were better in terms of concept and composition than two of the pairs intended.  All were shot with Nikon D810 body and a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G lens.  Processing took place in ViewNX 2 and followed a simple routine: straighten, crop, exposure adjustment, shadow protection adjustment, (in same cases picture control reset to Landscape) contrast, colour boost and sharpening.  As the lens is new there were no blemishes to remove.  That's all I do.  I'm capable of a little more in Elements, but for this piece of work, there really was no need.

All pictures submitted are in square format.  This is a personal preference from a creative perspective, which I can't really explain.  I just really like square images!  Matt Stuart told me that I need to be able to answer this question if I'm going to continue to use square format, so it might be because I like pictures that are straight to the point and which exclude unnecessary information.  But I can't be certain of that theory!  In some cases, I prefer rectangle pictures (landscape), so it just depends.  I tend to avoid vertical rectangles if I can.  In any case, for this submission, square format seemed to work well in terms of composition, so I will be interested to see what the feedback is.  In addition, I think square format works for viewing on personal devices.

These photographs were mostly taken for the purposes of the assignment, with the exception of pairs B and E, as previously mentioned.  It is likely that they will only be seen by my tutor, fellow students and the assessors, plus the Crossing Lines group that I'm going to show them to (on account of their interest in urban conditions).  Pairs B and E are online on the Bleeding London submission site, and hopefully will be included in the Bleeding London exhibition (if they are selected).

See submission for the final results.

References

• Bate, D. (2013), Photography The Key Concepts, London: Bloomsbury Academic
• Sontag, S. (2003), Regarding the Pain of Others, London: Penguin Group

Websites

• Martin Parr (2014) [online] available from http://www.martinparr.com/ [accessed 24 August 2014]  
• Paul Russell (2014) [online] available from http://www.paulrussell.info/ [accessed 25 August 2014]

Invisible War - BJP August 2014

I'm not quite sure how I feel about an article called Invisible War in the August 2014 issue of BJP.  The article, written by Laurence Butet-Roch, describes a body of work by photographer Christoph Bangert.  Entitled "War Porn", Bangert has put together a series of shocking, explicit, gruesome, and real images of war, shot over a ten-year period in conflict zones.

What is interesting is the decision to publish and why Bangert felt that they needed to be seen: "When you have all this unpublished material dormant on your hard drive, you get angry; you feel like you have failed in your mission, which is not only to take photographs, but also to show them" (Bangert quoted Butet-Roch, 2014, p64).  This implies that taking the photograph (or in fact capturing the "story") is only half the job.  If photographs are not seen, the exercise is pointless.  In this case, Bangert intended to provoke discussion about how images of horrific events are framed.  I think that a lot of people will look at these images published in BJP, but I wonder how many will go on to purchase the book, so from that perspective, is the context in which they are seen right?  Perhaps governments and heads of state should be forced to see wall-size reproductions in an exhibition....This said, the first edition of War Porn is already sold out. 

The article goes on to reference Susan Sontag and her work "Regarding the Pain of Others" and comments on her reactions to photographs of atrocities and whether they inspire peace, provoke revenge or simply raise awareness.  Bangert's reaction is simply that his images will not prevent further violence, but, if people cannot even look at the images, then we can't begin to think about preventing war, and that if you don't look at the pictures, then you simply don't care.

Thinking about my own reaction, I am amazed by war photography; not in a voyeuristic way, but in the ability of the photographer to carry out their work under such conditions - both from an emotional point of view and the issue of personal safety.  I previously wrote about Don McCullin in my DPP blog, and remember feeling stunned that he could continue his work, and like Bangert produce photographs that are technically competent (read brilliant!) and also creative and visually compelling, whilst the atrocity is happening around them.  In this case, Bangert has put together a collection of work that for a lot of people will be too gruesome to look at.  I can look at it, and I am beyond appalled that human beings can commit these atrocities and harm each other to such an extent, but I don't know if I would be able to retain sufficient composure to be actually able to deliver something like this myself.


Reference List

Butet-Roch, L. (2014) Invisible War. British Journal of Photography 161 (7827), pp.62-65