Watts All This?: April 2009

Part One:

1. Should newspapers show us violent images from Iraq?
Newspapers should absolutely show the truth of what is really happening in our world, regardless of what it looks like.

As a journalist, I feel that my job is less about being your filter for the world – deciding what you can and cannot see or experience – and more about facilitating the story unfolding before me… whatever that story looks like. As I see it – and as I have been taught - anything less is editorializing, not journalism.

If meaning truly is in people (the receiver) then it would be up to the individual to decide the “violent-ness” of the images and/or their appropriateness. As a photojournalist, I am not responsible for your management of the message, nor should I be. If I do get in there and try and manipulate the story to that end, I am acting as noise. I am interrupting or impeding the truth of whatever story is unfolding. In that capacity I am seizing power over you and acting as another filter that restricts what is possible for you to experience as the truth, as your truth. Neither I, nor anyone else, should be given the power over you to decide what your truth will be.

I would much rather stand by as you winced while looking at honest pictures of what really happened than to pat your hand and say, “Oh dear, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you should have to deal with that. I decided (for your sake) that you shouldn’t be exposed to that. Let me hide that from you, it is just too unpalatable.”

I do not want that kind of power over (the universal) you, and I resent you when under the guise of “the greater good” you claim that power over me. Allow me the freedom to choose for myself what my experiences will be, and I will allow you the same courtesy. Lay bare the truth of what happened, and I will gleefully accept the responsibility of making the sense of it for myself.

And if you don’t like the pictures I take for the newspaper because you judge them to be too violent or graphic or in poor taste, then buy a different paper and we will agree to disagree. You have a mom, and I’m not her.

2. Should the photographer and editor be two separate people?
Yes! They should always be two separate people.

One of the most difficult things about this class is choosing which shots to post. I am steeped in the context of whatever I am shooting and usually unable to see the story (or lack of it) in any handful of my shots.

An independent third party, or editor, will be a fresh mind with a fresh perspective. He/she will be able to see the story more clearly because they are not married to the experience.

3. Given the power and contrast of black and white images, what argument is made that readers prefer color?

Kobre makes the argument that color is how we see the world and color is what we are used to. According to a study done by researchers and the Poynter Institute Color Project, readers prefer color and think that color photos are more realistic.

Personally, I seldom notice the difference. Variations of chrominance and luminance all have their unique purpose and merit. The question is, “did you find it?”

To me, each photograph just is, and in looking at someone else’s work, the artist has either found the photo’s potential or they have missed it. For whatever reason, each shot is supposed to be either in color… or black and white, and somewhere inside my heart, I just know.

This sounds hokey, but when I am working with my own photos, I feel more as if “the shot” already exists; it is simply my job to find it or uncover its truth. Whether it is inside the soul of my camera body or later on in Photoshop, I can almost hear the shot urging me, a little impatiently, as I learn. The end result – in those rare instances when I find it – is a satisfaction I’ve never known and seems to belong to some entity other than myself.

It is impossible to explain. What I can tell you about the experience is that when I find the voice of the photograph, the “it” that it is supposed to be, I just know. It resonates within me, and I can breathe again.

I don’t know how to pass that on to you as something besides a nebulous bit of fluff, but if you’ve been in that place where you find the soul of a photo, you will absolutely know what I’m talking about.

4. Discuss the photojournalistic ethics of honesty, decency and relevance.

What I found most interesting – or perhaps most disturbing – is the evolution/devolution of ethics in photojournalism: Why was staging a shot acceptable 30 years ago? Why is staging so taboo now?
The actions haven’t changed.
Have the people?

I see on TV, The Character Project. Twenty or so famous photographers were hired to capture “American Characters” on film, and during the commercial you can obviously see them staging some of their shots.
Is this the same behavior?

I remember our discussion in class about decency and relevance. We talked about the almost pornographic aspect of photos today, the gruesomeness and gore that is pervading our experience. We talked about the graphic photos that are leaping beyond a simply hideous shock value and into the realm of absolute disgustingness.

I struggle with this one. I don’t believe in censorship, and I do believe in the right to choose for myself. At the same time I weep for the depravity of our ‘civil’-ization. Where did decency go? Is it necessary to show in full blown graphic detail, the spilled innards of the latest auto fatality?

Maybe not. Probably not.

But… don’t take away my right to choose. And if I choose poorly and trip down the road of dishonesty, indecency or even irrelevancy, I take full responsibility for that choice. I will also continue to afford you the same courtesy.

Once we begin to act as censors, given enough time, we will rationalize anything… and bit by bit we will have given up everything. It is a place where one act of censorship is too many, and all of them no longer seem to be enough.