Bringing Awareness

[Norma Desmond]

I personally wish the government would allow us (hard to believe it actually prevents it, but

then lots is hard to believe these days) to see visuals of flag-draped coffins returning from

Iraq. It would honor our brave soldiers and allow a little reality into our newscasts and lives.

These and other images probably would not alone change the course the administration

chooses to follow, but pictures get into our psyches and nightly visual reminders might just

help provide the nudge necessary to excite protest and more outcry from a seemingly dead

citizenry, who have opinions but do nothing about them. I like to think there is at least some

power in all imagery.

[DickArnold]

Fred. I agree with you.

[DickArnold]

Having done a seven year stint after I retired as a news photographer I know how mundane and generally inconsequential news photos are. Even coverage of the local quilting club requires words to give context to the photo. What photos do is reduce the amount of description required for the environment of the story. I understand that. I grew up with Life magazine. That was probably the exception that proved the general rule. But when I grew up there was no TV. Won't happen again. Even Life described the photos somewhat. The Life photography was wonderful and is what probably got me interested in it. I have done some photojournalism on the local level. I wrote a thousand words and provided two or three pictures as an example.

[jtk]

My closest friend was shot in Vietnam. He went back, has lived half of his last thirty years in country. He's become ultraconservative politically, a hater of Muslims, enthusiast for Israel. His decision to go to Vietnam, and well-educated white guys always had the no-go option, was ethically wonderful: if he didn't go he'd be palming it off on somebody else. A good man. We're cats and dogs politically, but were of like mind in our youth.

 

Good men die bravely in all wars on all sides. Tojo's men did, Custer's men did. Then they're mourned. People who merely watched the war on TV emote about their visit to the Vietnam Wall. That's the way this works. That's why Eastwood's fine Iwo movies were so popular.

 

Mourning the properly humiliating abandonment of "victorious" further destruction of a people and leadership that had been our allies in WWII and had not attacked us, that's a little over the top. Vietnam was 9/11 on a larger scale.

 

A college room mate was Saigon bureau chief for a network. Later he went with Nixon to China, part of a three man team that included the talking head. An adventure. He barely knew that trip was historic, but he didn't seem to think Vietnam had been important either.

[jennifer_durand]

Harry...... "My question is, where do we draw the line in the use of our cameras. Is it wise,

or fair to capture people in their mysery for the sake of exploitation ? If we were the ones

being photographed, would we want to be photographed when we are not at our best ? I

certainly would not want somebody taking my picture on a Saturday, or Sunday morning."

 

What you say is symtomatic of most westerner's who don't have any experience beyond

their spoilt and selfish lifestyles of utter luxuary and priviledge. Poor people are no

different from us except that thay have less material goods. They are not terribly self

concious and self aware that you need to photograph them by appointment, or concerned

with the very shallow western consumer lifestyle.

 

Poor people have as much right as any to be treated with dignity. They should not be seen

as lepers or as people to be avoided because we perceive they are less fortunate than

ourselves.

 

I would not presume that we are better than them, just different. I would hasten to say that

spoilt westerners have much to learn about their own roots which they have covered so

cerefully in the trappings of consumerist waste. Whereas the poorer people of this world

are not yet corrupted in this manner.

 

WWII seems to have been tucked away conveniently while we wallow in wealth and point

fingers of pity at the poor. When during and after WWII so many Europeans were dying of

starvation, disease and were every bit as desperate and poor. There are people living in

the UK and in Europe who have parents, particulalry mothers, who starved to death in

order to feed their children. These children are now Baby Boomers - any many of you visit

this site.

 

The pendulam could swing again, and we, the priviledged ones, could lose it all over night

as we did just 60+ years before.

 

Worst of all, one only has to walk the streets of London, New York and Paris to find people

in the same desperate condition as some of the poorest in the third world and the shame

is that they are under our noses and no-one seems to see them. People walk by

pretending they don't exist.

 

The poor want to be recognised as people. Being poor doesn't mean you are stupid, deaf,

dumb or insensitive. Poor doesn't mean you don't have dreams, aspirations and feelings.

They want to be treated like you want to be treated, no different.

 

So photograph them and take an interest in their lives. You could do worse than learn

some basic life skills from a poor person. If you want to make a difference live in a third

world country and do some meaningful work amoungst the ordinary people, the ones we

think are poorer than ourselves. You'll find they have a richness we could envy.

[DickArnold]

To quote a line from Miss Saigon, "they all are human, too". Well said Jennifer. I think that's what bothered me about this thread to begin with; it sounded somewhat elitist to me and counter to my own attitudes about the subject. John. There are some notables who exersised there "no go decision". I went at the age of thiry-six, the father of four kids. We just had a reunion of my pilot training class. Most of us went. Some did not come back. It was not remarkable it was our job. My mourning was not about humiliation. It was for my brothers.

[Allen Herbert]

Being poor doesn't mean you are stupid, deaf, dumb or insensitive. Poor doesn't mean you don't have dreams, aspirations and feelings. They want to be treated like you want to be treated, no different.

 

 

There's a thought. A thought most folk are aware of but choose to ignore.

[marcofrancardi]

good mornig people. Sticking to the power of the image and if it is worth using it, I cannot avoid to notice that what "the silent majority" sees on TV, newspaper and so on, is only the censored "quota" of the real thing, and this quota is always carefully chosen by the "few" who can, not to shock the public, nor to attract too much attention. Maybe that's why it (the majority) remains silent.

 

Have you ever watched, on TV, a death penalty execution's footage longer than a couple of second? no matter if it's from WWII, Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, Viet Nam or US today. you are allowed just a glimpse of it, not enough to follow the man's terror in his eyes before, nor he agonizing later.

 

Have you ever whatched disturbing pictures of half bodies in the nigth news report? Not half of it, not a single third of the real thing.

 

Now, I can understand children need to be sheltered from such a miserable show, but don't tell me we have seen it all since WWII. It is simply not true. When average people see those images, I can see jaws dropping, not "tsk,tsk,tsk".

 

I think that, from time to time, we, the rich western countries, need disturbing pictures. Disturbing our lazy, modern, plastic life with some "shots" of real world life. We need to be "shoouted" at.

 

Once again, I'm not saying it's possible, but I'm hoping that if it were, it would make a little difference.

 

So, to conclude, in a line of principles, I would want to take "that" picture (religion, local social custom or culture not withstanding, or the subject being noticibly uncomfortable with it), and show it to my friends, for it might make a little difference.

[jtk]

"Most of us went. Some did not come back. It was not remarkable it was our job. My mourning was not about humiliation. It was for my brothers."

 

Dick, I don't question your mourning, but there's this:

 

"War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"

 

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.03/20-hedges.html

 

Dick, You expressed today's most accepted analysis of Vietnam, beloved by some Vets, taught casually in public schools by people paid by my taxes. The majority probably agrees with you. We all do weep at the Memorial.

 

"Our job" was also the job of the men who shot McCain from the sky above their water buffalo.

[jtk]

Dick, I don't mean to diminish your mourning, and I never have failed to respect people who fought. I think it's crucial for these polarized ideas to be discussed, shouted if necessary, rather than glossed over. You wrote beautifully about your long, complex experience. Mine wasn't as readily honorable-seeming, on another American side.

[DickArnold]

John, I don't weep at the memorial, I get pissed at the needless loss. I do not agree with current war and did not agree with the Viet war. When I said it was my job I meant that I took pay for it for fifteen years in peace believing that it was my profession. Making discetionary war then and now does not fit that belief but I still believe in this country and served another twenty five years after Viet Nam. Your writing is a little fuzzy and I have trouble understanding what your side was. I totally agree with you that these things need to be loudly debated. I also believe in what Jennifer said. That we need to photograph other, not so fortunate cultures in order to understand them better. That's what they have been doing at National Geographic for seventy or eighty years.

[jtk]

Dick, my side did active opposition to the adventure in Vietnam. "Life changing" to use your phrase. I'm still on that side.

 

You are of course right, as are Marco and Jennifer and others about the hope for photography.

 

Did you know that our invasion of Vietnam destroyed the UN's Mekong River Delta Project, intended to bring protein (farm-raised tilapia) to all of Asia? Scientific American reported in detail before I learned we intended to kill thousands of those Vietnamese heathens.

[DickArnold]

John, I flew over that river a few hundred times. It is wide and muddy, and it marked what we called the fence, which was the western boundary of the combat zone. While there I rode my motorcycle from Korat to Surin, I think straying into Cambodia, to see the elephant roundup. I had my old Minolta in my saddlebag. The roads we took were just dirt and had huge pot holes. I hit one of those pot holes and the rear wheel bottomed out. When it recoiled, the Minolta, which was a clone of a WWII Leica rangefinder, came out through the top of the saddle bag and, according to my partner, went about forty feet in the air. The subsequent impact with the ground ended the life of the Minolta. I never got any elephant photos but I did ride one. We were also lodged and fed for nothing by a friendly Thai family. I was welcomed by these wonderful people every where I went. No matter how little they had they always offered to share it with you. In the long run, despite my feelings about the war, I felt I could have more impact working inside the system rather than out. It turned out the protesters were, in my opinion, reflective of the opinion of many Americans and had a significant impact on the outcome of the war. The only way to get anything done, based upon my eighteen years in DC is compromise. It sometimes takes some time to achieve that compromise and people get hurt and die sometimes while we wait. You played a small role and so did I in moving to a difficult outcome.

[jtk]

Dick, Good story. Better than elephant photos.

 

I stayed in the system too, in my mundane way. Most everybody did, no matter their politics, though for some reason 80% of my college graduating class (1965) can't be found, over 3X the missing of the preceding and following years.

 

Demonstrations may have been significant, but I think violence at home was more influential. I think "protesters" were largely noise in the system ...they didn't have commitment to enforce their stated goals the way civil rights activists did, as we now see in Iraq.

 

The right-wing friend that I mentioned earlier keeps a half-time house in Vientienne (Laos, a vintage "Peoples Republic"). It's becoming scary, as the comrades are evidently not capable of maintaining civil order...armed gangs etc.

[DickArnold]

John Kelly. Never was much of a government in Laos. The country is mountainous and tribal and therefore disconnectd which does not lend itself to strong government. However, after three years in Taiwan and Thailand I understand why your friend went Asiatic. I knew a lot of ex-patriots in that part of the world. You can live pretty well on very little. At least you could then. My "hooch girl" who cleaned our place, which housed eight officers, did laundry and made beds was from Vientiane. After she was finished with wash she would come into the washroom, which was open ended to the hot and sticky breeze and full of big bugs and she would smack whoever was shaving in the butt with a towel and then utter this hen cackle of a laugh and she would run like hell. After about six months of this I finally caught her and extracted some harmless but slightly stinging revenge. I laughed like hell myself. Anybody who says Laotians don't have a sense of humor doesn't have one themself. When I left Thailand I went downtown and bought her a Seiko watch. She cried and then pranced around our billeting area holding the watch in the air showing it to all the other hooch girls. I almost cried. They were so poor it just seemed a bit tragic that it took so little to make a difference. To again quote Miss Saigon, "the all are human too". I agree that the riots had a profound effect on what our government could get away with and upon the Viet war and its outcome. So endeth my contribution to this thread and my stories from the jungle. Thanks for the dialogue.