Hi, Monday, December 16, 2002, 10:57:15 PM, you wrote:
> When someone comes along looking for something interesting > to shoot, their interest in you is most likely in exploiting > your misery for their benefit. I broadly agree with the arguments you put forward to support this, but as usual there are shades of grey (not just harsh, grainy, black & white <g>). I'd like to present a slightly extended line of argument which justifies a certain amount of admitted exploitation in the name of honesty. David Hurn in one of his books talks about covering a situation honestly, and trying to show it the way it is. He gives the example of somebody covering a 3-hour demonstration during which nothing much happens at all, everything is peaceful and well-ordered, but at one point there is a fight between extremists and the police, which lasts for about 3 minutes and results in a few arrests. Honest coverage would barely include the fight because it is insignificant relative to the rest of the demo. However, many sections of the press (and other institutions) would concentrate their attention on the fight because of its dramatic and photogenic impact. Other people might pretend it never happened at all, because it doesn't suit their interests. Now, when I travel to places like Africa, Romania or India, people often ask me, or tell me, not to photograph some of the uglier aspects of their country. In general my motivation in going to these places is that they are interesting, and I want to know something about them and go behind the obvious cliches like the Taj Mahal and colourful priests. I try to come back with a balanced view of what I've seen, but if anything I accentuate the positive - particularly in a place like Ethiopia, which has had a very bad press over the years. Balanced coverage, in my opinion, includes showing some, but by no means all, of the ugly things that I've seen, but I hope it's done with sensitivity towards the individuals concerned. In the same way I hope that my photographs of my own country are a reasonably well-balanced portrait, although I think I'm entitled to be harder on my own country than I am on others. This means that I do sometimes photograph homeless people - I can think of 2 occasions over the last 5 or 6 years, and they are probably more amusing than anything else. One shows a guy sitting on a car seat in the middle of a crowded pavement, reading a broadsheet newspaper; the other shows a man lying on the pavement luxuriantly smoking a cigarette, while covered in pigeons, so they're not really about misery, but they are probably somewhat exploitative. The pigeon guy acquiesced in the photograph, the other guy didn't know I took it. Now, returning to Hurn, he talks about the photographer being honest to his subject, and defines honesty by contrast with its opposite: as a photographer you should know when you are being dishonest or untrue to your subject and to your instincts, and act (or not) accordingly. --- Bob "Our heads are round so that our thoughts can fly in any direction" Francis Picabia
