ed_boucher

Sorry Andrew, I didn't mean to offend with 'faux courtesy', it's just that I didn't think it proper to call you 'Andrew' as I didn't really know you and was uncertain as to the level of formality on this board. And I apologise for getting your name wrong; accidents happen even at the keyboard ;)

I was also under the impression that the naked girl running down the lane had been hit by napalm, so I hope I didn't confuse anybody by making referrence to another picture that I haven't seen. Thanks for information on who the author is, I'm not great with remembering names.

Right, that said, here comes the inevitable defence.

First, I still feel it may be an appeal to popularity although I think words may be failing us at this point. In my mind there is a difference between recieving compensation for providing a needed service and 'profitting from misery'. The first has no real moral component whilst, for me, the second implies some malign purpose. I would argue that someone taking a deliberately artistic picture of someone else's suffering just so they can sell it falls into the second category.

Thus, justifying one by the repetition of the other doesn't work, because the fact that it is morally wrong still remains. But I'm prepared to concede the point- all this could just be in my own head and not what you meant at all.

Secondly, I never suggested that PJs take 'bad shots', I was trying to suggest they take ones that are properly informative and relevant to the story. That should be the criteria for whether a picture works as a piece of photojournalism.

Calling these 'bad shots' because they aren't deliberately artistic is like calling a news article 'bad literature' because it doesn't read like a text by Oscar Wilde. Sometimes- and perhaps often- the two aims may coincide, but not always.

This is what I was trying to illustrate by posting the reuters picture- it has nothing to do with the subject matter it is covering and it is deliberately artistic. It's a good picture, and the PJ was probably right to take it when he had the chance, and as Lucas said it might have been all he could get; but as a piece of photojournalism it completely fails.

How quickly they are taken, or under what circumstances doesn't matter in the least. It's about having a proper attitude towards the subject matter driven by the desire to inform, and not publishing pictures that don't. Hell, it might be nothing, but it's certainly something to consider.

I hope this has cleared some things up- I've probably been a little clumsy with my language, as I am sure you are all a little more used to this type of debate than I am.

I haven't been able to get to a computer for a few days- sorry I haven't replied to any of this. I also haven't been able to track down the offending picture, but I have placed one below from Reuters which is almost as offensive. The boy pictured is on the Mekong delta, which as many of you may know is at risk from destruction by Chinese dams built up-river. He is going to lose everything he has.

But hey! Look how pretty that sunrise is! Isn't that just a great use silhouette?

I hope this clears up some ambiguity- what unsettled me about the picture was not that the execution brought home the horrific realities of war- it was the exact opposite. The photographer might as well have been taking a picture of a bowl of flowers, or a nude model. Instead there was a child in a Hamas headband. There was a callous and uncaring attitude towards the subject matter.

Compare that approach to the famous image of a naked child smeared with napalm distubs. Putting that photo besides most of the highly rated photos on this site makes it look quite badly composed and technically inept.

What it does offer, however, is an unmediated view of a terrible scene. To me, this is why it is good photojournalism. It does not arrange corpses in the background in an aesthetically pleasing manner. It does not bend the focal length so we can see more than we could with our own eyes. It does not pick out a teddy bear sitting burning in the rubble. It just gives it to us, warts and all.

Is this not what journalism should be? Not about 'conveying a message' but about taking a snapshot of what is there.

My two cents.

I accept the comments that perhaps there isn't an alternative, possibly by the very nature of what photography is, and good composition may be of great use a lot of the time.

I also take the point that it is the business of selling newspapers- the vast majority is highly editorialised these days, and if it wasn't, I imagine people wouldn't enjoy reading it so much. I can see that the editors greater sway over what is put in the paper than the photographer herself, so thanks for pointing that out.

As for Mr. Andrew Summerset's point: "Profiting from the suffering of others is not in itself wrong. We all do it all the time"

Uh... that sounds somewhat like the 'appeal to popularity' fallacy. The fact that 'we all do it all the time' does not necessarily mean that we *should* do it *at all*. Pragmatically, you possibly have a point, at least if you want to perpetuate the status quo- but I won't take issue with that here, because I don't think this is really the place to do it ;)

Anyway, thanks for all the responses, it's been enlightening<div></div>

Hey- never posted here before, but I thought this was the best place

to open a discussion

I opened the paper today- The Guardian- and was confronted with a

photograph of a young boy wearing a Hamas headband, flames burning

behind him, his face set into a grim expression. It was wonderfully

composed- the angle was wide, the apeture small, the focus on his grey

eyes, and the flames in just the right place to give maximum aesthetic

appeal.

The trouble was that it rather unsettled me.

Some photographer had gone out and deliberately tried to capture

misery, fear and hatred on camera in it's most appealing fashion. It

was as if the subject matter was subordinate to the artistry involved

in taking the picture.

Is this journalism? Is this art? Is this ethical? Is this bullshit?

What are people's opinions on this? More and more I see this in papers

and on TV, and I often wonder if it is a good thing or not.