darin3200
TPF Noob!
- Joined
- May 3, 2005
- Messages
- 2,078
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- 28
- Location
- Des Moines, Iowa
- Website
- friedrichsphotography.com
Although I think Sontag's "On Photography" trashes photojournalism a little too much, I came across an interesting passage that perfectly articulated my concerns about photojournalism.
Any thoughts?
I have looked through a lot photography books, many of which were war and conflict photography. I was stunned by the lack of captions on most. Many books had brief captions tucked away in an index in the back of the book that weren't displayed with the pictures. All that is presented is a scence of destruction or conflict with no other information. This is contrary to the claims of war photographers when they say their pictures can make some positive difference in the world. What difference can isolated photographers with no references, no information provide? I went VIIphoto.com and looked through the essays. One of the essays was on Chechnya by Christopher Morris, the main caption for all the pictures isContrary to what is suggested by the humanist claims made for photography, the camera's ability to transform reality into something beautiful derives from its relative weakness as a means of conveying truth. The reason that humanism has become the reigning ideology of ambitious professional photographers-displacing formalist justifications of their quest for beauty-is that it masks the confusions about truth and beauty underlying the photographic enterprise
All the other captions for specific photos were also short and uniformative. 3 or maybe 4 sentences basically saying that there is a war, and he can't describe it. Then why bother? Why take these pictures if you can't even describe the place? What differences are you're pictures going to make? It seems that this type of photography is no different than photography done for artistic purposes with a lot of novelity and humanist cover."Real War" For this is how one photographer described Grozny to me. On my arrival coming to the realization that this was by far the most dangerous place on the planet at this time. Nothing I can say can describe the place. Just imagine.
Any thoughts?