brendan_turner1 Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 There is a term used by photojournalists to decribe images that show real human suffering and/or violence. It's known as "bang-bang." But what does this type of photography really prove? What does it show us? I've heard the sort of comment, "wish I had the guts to shoot that, what a payoff!" in the critique forum enough times to be disgusted at humanity. Is human suffering an open source of imagery? Or does it harm more than it helps? As an example, what do you think the politics and consequences are behind always showing people in a certain country in a certain way, esp Africa? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leslie_cheung Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 >>>As an example, what do you think the politics and consequences are behind always showing people in a certain country in a certain way, esp Africa?<<< first of all, africa is a continent and it contains many different nations. what do you mean by showing people in a certain country in a certain way? can you be more specific? and from what viewpoint are you refering to as for politics and consequences? the subjects? the photographers? the viewers? the media? though it is a good question, i think you would get better answers if you scope it down alitte even if it is a philosphy forum imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_milner2 Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Continuous portrayal in mass media of cliched images of particular regions can lead to a generalised and inaccurate impression being created in the mind of the public. That is not the photographer's fault. It is the fault of the media outlets who editorialise images and of the public who fail to look deeper than the obvious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arjen van de merwe Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 The way the continent Africa is portrayed in the media here in Europe is a bit one sided. Problem is: many media see good news as no news. On the other hand Africa is a troubled continent, and I find it a tough area for the inhabitants. i have made and sold many positive images from Africa. Both the run of the mill wildlife stuff, and social photographs. I have photographed many development projects, and have found these images publishable too. And personally I am not the kind of person looking forward to photographing human suffering, but if I feel I can contribute to the knowledge of the public I will not back off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
._kaa Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 <p><i>There is a term used by photojournalists to decribe images that show real human suffering and/or violence.</i> <p>Well, actually the term is used to describe images which produce a strong emotional response from the viewer. Often it *is* suffering or violence, but not necessarily. <p><i>But what does this type of photography really prove?</i> <p>I don't thing photography is about "proving" something. <p><i>What does it show us?</i> <p>Images with strong emotional impact? <p><i>Is human suffering an open source of imagery?</i> <p>Of course. Why not? Do you want to pretend it doesn't exist? <p><i>As an example, what do you think the politics and consequences are behind always showing people in a certain country in a certain way, esp Africa?</i> <p>As people have pointed out, Africa is not a country, but a rather diverse place. But I haven't noticed that African images "always show people in a certain way". Perhaps you ought to widen the circle of publications that you look at... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d. light Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 >Is human suffering an open source of imagery? Or does it harm more than it helps? < Inspiration, enthusiam, hope, solitude, to see the good in the bad. That is what creative people should work for, and the great, immortal ones mostly did. Sadly, the reality is that the human mind often enjoys the dark, i.e. bad news sell better than good news. If and when suffering is the source of imagery, it should use the dynamics of the moment to lift that suffering out of the ashes with sympathy and understanding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d. light Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 ... as a side note: Even Bush said Africa is a great country. .... as we can see there is room for improvement in Americas education system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brendan_turner1 Posted February 11, 2004 Author Share Posted February 11, 2004 Sorry, my grammar was a bit off. I should have said "certain places in a certain way, esp Africa." Sorry for the confusion. It seems to me that many of you think that the purpose if bang-bang is bang-bang itself. But if that were the case, why do many photojournalists see themselves as humanitarians and not as vultures? In the case of Paul Watson, his image of Somalis dragging the body of a dead american serviceman through the streets of Mogadishu ended up as an efficient (not effective) cause of the American withdrawl from the war-torn country...over 10,000 people died in the fighting and famine that followed. His colleagues note that this was not his intent at all. He is indeed a very compassionate person, but people reacted to the image in a way that he, as a Canadian, could not forsee. In a similar vein, the pulitzer for stories of the same year went to a south-african photographer named Kevin Carter. If you've seen the image it's bang-bang in it's highest form. But what has it done for the starving child? Carter said later that he wished he had done something, but the scene was too hard to take and that he sat under a tree and cried. If you know of Kevin Carter, you'll know what became of him. With this background then (I would have posted it before, but I thought it would be too long) what do these sorts of pictures actually gain? Are they worth shooting when the real payoff (be it in the form of action or simply shock value=newspaper sales) is not necessarily connected to intent? People seem to know that there is hunger and starvation in the world. If you don't, you live in a box. But when we repeatedly show suffering and that suffering is repeatedly happening in a certain place, or diaspora, what does that DO to help anything at all? Or is it just being a vulture? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_somerset1 Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Come on, Brendan. Are you suggesting that it would be ethical to conceal casualties? Or that Carter's inability to help the child is somehow related to his taking the picture, and therefore not a red herring? I'd agree with one of your ideas, that the biggest ethical issue in journalism is the question of what is news, and how important a story is. But your attempt to link this with images of violence is about the weakest argument I've ever read. If violence is the news, which it often is, then why is it unethical to cover it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathan_brewer1 Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 In my earlier years, I practiced my budding photography in MacArthur park here in Los Angeles, besides families, couples, couples w/their kids, and just about anybody else who like the park, there were the homeless/near homeless/folks down on their luck, they were called at that time 'bums' as nobody then had heard of political correctness. There was also a lot of backgammon/chess played in the park, so I could shoot, play some backgammon or chess, and wait for some interesting shots, I kept my camera with me, 'cold stares' greeted me when I first showed up at the park, eventually as time went on the 'cold looks' faded away, people got used to me and I became kind of 'invisible', I learned a lot about people, and not just photography by spending time in that park, for instance, some of the so-called 'bums' were quite wealthy, one man who always wore tattered clothes and lived out of a one room 'dive' near the park had died, and $125,000 was found stuffed in his bed/mattress, some of these 'bums' were ex-lawyers, ex-docters, ex-businessman who for some reason or another, rejected their former lifestyles, yes, some were crazy, lost, or running away from God knows what, but a common thread connecting all these folks was that calling them 'bums' never would/could sum up their lives, nor could photographing many of them in rags/tattered clothes give you any clue whatsoever as to what person you were photographing. Coming to understand this helped me and helped my photography by helping helping me to learn that you have a responsibility to the people you photograph to leave them with dignity on some level despite how things 'look' because people are not always what they appear to be, there are some rich folks who have it all who are the lowest form of scum, and there are poor folks with so much class that despite their poverty I would consider them kings, that's why I will not photograph human suffering, or poverty, unless I can include something/anything in the shot that helps people to retain their humanity, their dignity. An expose' to create awareness in an attempt to help somebody is different, but many folks go out looking for human suffering to make a name for themselves because as soon as they get the story or the shot, they're gone, they take something but don't give anything in return, I shot a family in South America, it was obvious they had nothing.............except a lot of love and support for each other, the shot I took wasn't about their poverty even though they were poor, I think that photographing human suffering where that is the only thing that can be connected to the subject you're photographing is wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathan_brewer1 Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 The incident that to me has always been the worst abuse of this very issue involved a 'so-called' new reporter/journalist who asked the ex-wife to appear at the cemetery at the very time she knew the husband would be showing up to mourn the death of his small son, a death which he blamed on his ex-wife, she and her cameraman walk over to the ex-wife and interview her as the ex-husband shows up, and the ex-husband gets out of his car, walks over to where the interview is taking place, and kills the ex-wife on camera with several shots to the head. ALL FOR A STORY. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_milner2 Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 >ALL FOR A STORY. This is the reporter manufacturing a scenario rather than the photographer documenting an existing situation. That's a very different matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james_oneill Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Some pictures change stuff - sometimes for better sometimes for worse. Certainly response to famine has been mobilized by people seeing the images of starving people. If a photographer is there, you could argue that they have a duty to do something about it and the best way is to use their photographic skills to bring it to peoples attention. Helping a starving child seems like the right thing to do, but putting images of dying children on the TV news will deliver more help to more children. There's a bit of doublethink here, on the one hand I don't have any problem with say, Don McCullin, having a tremendous reputation - and I guess the money that goes with it, but I would consider someone who did that *to become rich and famous* to be sick. Which means asking questions like "why did this person take this picture" and "why do thy want me to see it" are important when you look at any kind of reporting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathan_brewer1 Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 >ALL FOR A STORY. 'This is the reporter manufacturing a scenario rather than the photographer documenting an existing situation. That's a very different matter'............................................................but then it became a story in and of itself, the tragedy, the senselessness, and her motivation, as has been mentioned already in this thread, the fact that she manufactured a situation is EXACTLY MY POINT,............this is where this is leading,........from the mindset of looking to get a shot for personal gain rather than out of some social concern. We are at a point in the evolutionary scale where a part of us that is still savage wants to see violence/the infliction of pain, that's why we still have cockfights/dogfights and so forth(as long as it's not happening to us and to somebody else), my point is that to pander to that 'side' of us is wrong, as opposed to the part of us that feels outrage for the suffering of others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_somerset1 Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Jonathon, perhaps you could post the name of the reporter, the news organization, the date and the location of your alleged incident? Because it reads like urban legend to me. Quite apart from which, the story proves nothing. You can't seriously expect that an example of something that is clearly unethical journalism -- beyond the pale, really -- can somehow be used to condemn journalism in general? Finally, this notion that photojournalism appeals to our darker side rather than causing us to feel outrage at the suffering of others is ... I'm looking for the right word ... ah, yes, bullshit. Outrage is precisely what most people feel when they see images of people starving, etc. Many of those people then direct their outrage in the wrong direction -- often at the paper that publishes the images. All the arguments presented so far rely on red herrings. If someone does something that crosses established ethical boundaries, this has nothing to do with people who are working inside those boundaries. If someone is overcome by a situation and is unable to intervene directly, this does not mean that his photography -- which by definition does not include intervening directly -- is futile. These problems are external to the question of whether the work can do any good. Obviously, you can either do this kind of photography in a sensitive and ethical way, or in an sensational and unethical way. The fact that some people do it badly doesn't mean it is always wrong or useless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hans_beckert Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Human nature has not changed and never will. If we had cameras in ancient times, we would have had nice records of Nero and the lions devouring the Christians, I am sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathan_brewer1 Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 'Jonathon, perhaps you could post the name of the reporter, the news organization, the date and the location of your alleged incident? Because it reads like urban legend to me. Quite apart from which, the story proves nothing. You can't seriously expect that an example of something that is clearly unethical journalism -- beyond the pale, really -- can somehow be used to condemn journalism in general?'..................................................... .................................It's been on 60 minutes and several other shows, and I don't care what it seems like to you, also don't put words or your 'bullshit' into my mouth, you're suggesting that what I said is a condemnation of journalism in journalism, I never said that, so take the time to read what I said before you get diarhea of the mouth, and in the future just don't respond to my posts, I talked of dignity and respect, if you can't conduct yourself that way with me, then go show your ass to somebody else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d. light Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 The example that Jonathan brought up is extreme. But certainly journalism today is in service of a newsindustry that has to follow the rules of a market. Nobody can deny this. If reporting about a disaster causes to give the story a new, positive spin than of course it is good. But to know who has slaughtered his neighbour last night,- what do we gain from it? Really, hardly anyone will care about the tragic not even to start speaking of helping. These coverstories are just meant to activate the animal instint in humans, anger, vengefulness etc.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d. light Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 >Human nature has not changed and never will.< Oh,.... yes of course how was that? hmmm... i remember: we were born in sin, we live in sin, we will die in sin. or something the like. Certainly people with this mindset will only see the dark, everywhere. Go on and dig your own grave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_somerset1 Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 "These coverstories are just meant to activate the animal instint in humans, anger, vengefulness etc" No, they're meant to report the news. There isn't an agenda to "activate the animal instinct." The question is why it's news. Does news have to serve some pragmatic purpose? Does it have to be for the betterment of mankind, as people here continually suggest? Or is it news because when it happens, people will want to know? Ask yourself this: if you found out that something was happening that affected you, and it hadn't been reported because it didn't serve some greater good, wouldn't you be annoyed? So, is the level of violence in our society, or the rate of traffic fatalities, not issues that affect our lives? So is the real issue the fact that this stuff is being reported, or is it a question of how it's reported? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_somerset1 Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 OK, Jonathon, I did go and re-read your post, and you're right. You didn't say what I said you did. So, I apologize. Mind you, if you had said that, it would be BS. I guess I've read that particular line of BS so many times here and elsewhere that when I read stories like that, I just roll my eyes and say. "here we go again." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d. light Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 >The question is why it's news. Does news have to serve some pragmatic purpose?< They do already, face it! The question is only what is your choice, as a newsmaker or as newsreader/newsconsumer. >Does it have to be for the betterment of mankind, as people here continually suggest?< In the long run, yes, for what else if not for this? >Or is it news because when it happens, people will want to know?< Know what? Thousands of things are happening every day. One day something gets neglected and the next day a similar thing is a coverstory because it didnt not happen in Timbuktu but in NY. Why did we get the pictures of 9/11 hammered in over many month and an earthquake in Iran is forgotten after a week? Dont be naiv. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brainbubba_motornapkins Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 The news is what fills the space between advertisements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d. light Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 >Ask yourself this: if you found out that something was happening that affected you, and it hadn't been reported because it didn't serve some greater good, wouldn't you be annoyed?< For this you need to put an example. No general answer possible. > So, is the level of violence in our society, or the rate of traffic fatalities, not issues that affect our lives? So is the real issue the fact that this stuff is being reported, or is it a question of how it's reported?< How + what, that is the issue. Also, why is the focus often so onesided on the bad news? Is a good news not equally valueable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_somerset1 Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Well, that's a valid point. I'm not being naive. The biggest ethical decisions are what is news, and the relative importance of the news. But my answer is that it is news because it happens, and people will want to know. The importance of a news item depends not on how many people die, but how relevant it is to the audience. Thus the Iranian earthquake disappeared from the news in the US fairly quickly. Is this right? Well, I don't like it -- not in that particular example. The Iranian earthquake was important news, and should have received more coverage. This leads to the chicken and egg question: does the public not care about that earthquake because the news didn't stay on the story, or did the news not stay on the story because the audience doesn't care? Both, probably. But you need to ask this: if that quake had been covered exhaustively, what purpose would it have served? More aid would have come in, perhaps? That's about it. So is the purpose of news to prompt a reaction from the public, so that aid will come, or is it to tell people about events? The first is essentially propaganda, not news. The second is purely news. And if you think the second doesn't matter, you might want to consider the question from the perspective of an Iranian expatriate living in Detroit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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