Poverty Chic

I put the "lonesome man" thread in the same vein as "poverty chic". Tourists and photogs who go places and take

pictures of poor people sleeping in the street or begging or passed out. This is called "art" and I just think it is taking

advantage of the people.

Gordon, maybe you should study the work of people like Don McCullin or James Nachtwey first. Some of their work which is very confronting has made people aware of the horrible circumstances some people have to live in. Yes, there are some who take advantage but there are also people who do it because they feel genuinely upset about what they see and try to photograph that with integrity. I have more problems with tourist buses touring through poverty striken and derelict areas.

Gordon,

 

Can you tell me why I put this in my gallery?...

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/6929705

 

And should I remove it because I'm taking advantage of this poor woman? Is it art? I just like the skin texture and what it brings

to the character of old people, but I had the same doubts and concerns as you on whether I should include it in my gallery.

I don't take them, print them, sell them or buy them. Just my opinion.

What do you consider suitable subject matter for photography, Gordon?

Also thought a good idea might be to always include with similar photographs the back story of these folk's lives and how they

came to be in the situation depicted. I can tell you what this woman told me about her life is far more interesting than the

photograph.

 

It starts out with her being evicted from the apartment unit next to mine where she now has to live with her brother in the house

seen in the background of the posted image and that's a highlight in her life.

Gordon, you could make the same argument about Dorothea Lange's Dust Bowl pictures, or Eugene Smith's Minamata pictures, or John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath," Frank Norris' "The Octopus," and so on and on. It's not a simple matter to separate legitimate social commentary from exploitation.

And please don't forget the incredible amount of good that was done by Jacob Riis. See "How the Other Half Lives".

I don't take them, print them, sell them or buy them. Just my opinion....

 

I have a different opinion. In my world, in my neighborhood, I see stuff like that on a regular basis, and worse. Maybe you live in a better neighborhood where you have to go somewhere else to see it. I don't have to seek it out, it's just there. I have no problem objectively recording the life of my neighborhood. I have a picture of a dead body in the gutter, footprints on my back door where someone tried to kick it in, bullet holes in my car, crazy people on drugs, and homeless lonely people. It's life, man. In a lot of places, and all valid subjects for photography and art. Just my opinion.<div></div>

I once was sent to a drowning scene to shoot a photo for a paper. When I got there the victim was laid in the grass mostly covered, but not completely. I chose a wide angle, and distance, and POV that showed the scene wherein the body was a small part of the whole most of which were police and emergency personnel. It was a tragic scene but not personalized. It was my hope that if a family member saw the photo, he/she would not be subjected to some of the gruesome details that I had to see. Even so I felt intrusive. Sometimes the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth can be overwhelming.

Bernhardt: your story reminds me of when a friend showed me a newspaper shot from the crash scene where her brother died. It was a Lego man lying face down. Although appropriate accord to the press "rules", i can imagine how grossly insulting it must be to a survivor.

 

In Thailand it has gone to the point where there a photography "reserves". The whole idea is something like a human zoo. Small picturesque villages where tourists can go to get "authentic" shots. Sickening.

 

Another friend of mine started working at a major Swedish paper, Expressen. He cracked when he noticed how everybody started getting jumpy and excited as soon as there was a new tragedy. In the end i guess it is all about intention, and relationship. Where you are coming from and why you are making pictures.

 

A good reading tip is Anthony Loyds - My War Gone By, I Miss It So. Its intresting because he admits that his motives are less than pure.

<i>In Thailand it has gone to the point where there a photography "reserves". The whole idea is something like a human zoo. Small picturesque villages where tourists can go to get "authentic" shots. Sickening.</i><P>

If you're referring to the villages where tourists go to photograph the "long-necked" Paduang woman, those aren't picturesque villages; they're refugee camps. The people who live there haven't been forced by the Thai to leave their idyllic lives behind and perform in a human zoo; they've left behind lives of toiling endlessly in rice fields to try to get enough to eat, while having their fathers, husbands, and sons conscripted by the Burmese army or by local militias to fight in frequent territorial skirmishes. Even though most of the money generated by entry fees goes to the insurgent group (that's trying to set up an independent state in Burma) which controls the business, the women still earn far more from selling handicrafts to tourists than they ever did back in Burma.<p>

While it's certainly not an ideal situation, it's less "sickening" than many of the alternatives.

I pretty much agree with you Gordon. Rich American kids going to impoverished countries with expensive cameras, not paying the subjects for their modeling and then selling the results as art or journalism is just sorta sick. On the other hand, being poor myself, I mostly take photographs of myself and my poor friends.... I don't sell them but I do consider them art, and I do love seeing images of poverty taken by the people who are living it. The Polaroid Kidd is a great example, if you haven't seen his work, he's a train hopper who shoots his friends and people he meets living the squatter lifestyle. And in some cases, photographers going into places to shoot poverty serves the purpose of educating the rest of the world on the situation there, as REAL journalists do, which is I think different than rich kids on vacation.

If you're sitting at a computer looking at a photo.net fourm, you ARE rich compared to 99% of the world.

Why just rich "American" kids?

<i>Rich American kids going to impoverished countries with expensive cameras, not paying the subjects for their modeling and then selling the results as art or journalism is just sorta sick.</i><P>

Could you point out any examples of this? I ask because, while I've seen this kind of sentiment expressed several times by people sitting comfortably behind their computers, I've <b>never</b> encountered that kind of behavior when I've traveled in "impoverished" areas. In fact, I rarely even encountered other Americans, and most of the ones I met had been working their asses off so they could afford to travel and experience something outside their usual, comfortable lives (experiences they recorded with their little point'n'shoot cameras).

In response to Jim Douglas, maybe so, maybe not. If "rich" simply means materially better off, one can't dispute the fact that a single computer may represent the annual income of a third worlder for five or ten years. But it is perfectly possible to have a rich human existence with very few resources. The photographers who appreciate that can photograph poverty without being "chic" or exploitative. I hope they do--we are all seeing the result of a world in which material values have been grossly exaggerated.

How can anyone live in the USA and be poor?!? Unless one is handicapped, a true victim of circumstans out of their control (and most are not), one has to really work hard not to be successful in the USA...

 

As to making pictures of poor folks, I don't think this is wrong if the people are out in public. It's not like one is barging into one's cardboard shack....people get too nueratic, by talking FOR the poor...when often the poor think otherwise...