Recently in Documentary Category

Alas, nomenclature is sadly lacking in the field of 'art'. Am I a news photographer? A press photographer? A photojournalist? An artist? I deplore the latter moniker because the word is so misused. For me, art is the melding of form and content, and as that is what I strive to do then perhaps 'artist' is correct. But I'm happy to be called a photojournalist!

"The devious lie of a snapshot" is a marvelous phrase. It is not the photographer who is devious, but the nature of the snapshot itself, which isolates and freezes action, disconnecting it from context and sequence. Photographs seduce us into believing that they are objective records, but, in fact, all images are interpretations, texts that must be read.

Ashley Gilbertson has been photographing in Iraq since 2002. The latest issue of The Virginia Quarterly Review features a long, detailed article by Gilbertson and his wife called "Last Photographs" covering various experiences in Iraq, all centering on death and photography in some way. "Last Photographs" refers to the times Gilbertson has been the last person to photograph someone before they died, whether a US soldier or an Iraqi matriarch. In June, he was interviewed on NPR to promote his new book, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. The interview sheds some light on Gilbertson's motivations, including how his pro-intervention views have changed after years of covering the conflict. Photographs from the book will be on exhibit in October at Gallery Bar, 120 Orchard St.

Suaada’s dentures by Ashley Gilbertson

For comparison, listen to this interview with Time photographer Christopher Morris, from July 2003. At that time, according to Morris, photographing the wounded was allowable, but release of such photography was delayed to allow for notification of families.

Morris covered the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, and like a lot of the photojournalists that covered that war, was outraged that the US did not act faster to intervene and put a stop to the genocide. Asked whether the US intervention in Iraq represented a change for the better in this regard, Morris squirms and says "I don't know if my role in society is to give my opinion." That strikes me as an astonishing position for a photojournalist to take, but maybe not for a modern Western journalist who believes journalism truly can be, and is, wholly objective and the only opinions that appear in a paper are on the editorial page. Compare to the position of Philip Jones Griffiths from a generation before: "To me, there is no point in pressing the shutter unless you are making some caustic comment on the incongruities of life. That is what photography is all about. It is the only reason for doing it."

He goes on to say, "We have bit off more, ah, than we can handle in the sense that we are in a region, as part of the world where we are not liked. No matter what we do, what good we do, what our intentions are, it will be turned against us. And I think we have opened a very serious can of worms that we will have to deal with for a long time." That was in the summer of 2003.

The photo book review blog 5B4 has posted a review of Bernd and Hilla Becher: Life and Work. If you are unfamiliar with the Bechers' work, this is a good place to start.

Their approach to photographing was to reduce every aspect of personal style in order to emphasize the impersonal aesthetics of the buildings.

I'm not sure I would go along with this description, perhaps I'm misunderstanding the wording. When I look at the various catalogs of forms that the Bechers' created, "impersonal aesthetics" seems counter to the evidence. Most of the structures they photographed had a strictly utilitarian purpose (grain silos, water towers, gravel plants lime kilns etc.) and while there is a consistent familiarity of form across the structures of any type there is also an amazing variation within any particular type.

As part of the Magnum 60th Anniversary, WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show interviewed Jonas Bendikson, Alec Soth and Mark Lubell (Magnum's director). Includes an interesting explanation of how the Magnum membership process works. In the recent portfolio review session, they culled down 250 submissions from each of the four Magnum offices down to 4-8 photographers being reviewed by all the members to become a Nominee. Last year there were no Nominees selected. Nominees have two years to create a new body of work for review before moving up to be an Associate Member. Associates then have two years to create another new body of work to be submitted for Full Membership. Full Members are members for life.

Listen in the embedded player above or on the WNYC site.

Perhaps someone can explain this one to me, because it makes absolutely no sense to me, and not just because I can't speak Portuguese. Sao Paolo-based ad agency Neogama/BBH just won a Cannes Gold Lion for an anti-smoking campaign using the post-Katrina photography of Robert Polidori to represent the internal damage smoking can cause.

Is it just me or does this seem like a highly inappropriate use of such photography? Heck, I felt a little uncomfortable viewing these works in a museum setting, like I was some sort of death voyeur, but seeing them used as an ad, even for a "good cause", strikes me as wrong.

Two James Nachtwey shows are reviewed in today's NY Times.

Beauty is a vexed matter in scenes of suffering, cruelty and death. The difference between exploitation and public service comes down to whether the subject of the image aids the ego of the photographer more than the other way around. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I recently commented on War Photographer, a documentary about Natchwey.

The Sacrifice
401 Gallery
401 West St
(212) 633-6202

World Free of TB
United Nations
Visitor's Lobby
E 46th St & 1st Ave
(212) 963-4475

Check out the NY Times' article on the LOOK magazine archive exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, if only for the amazingly bizarre Stanly Kubrick photograph accompanying it.

Willing to Be Lucky: Ambitious New Yorkers in the Pages of LOOK Magazine
Thru Jan 7 at the MCNY
1220 5th Ave at 103rd St
(212) 534-1672

Two weekends back, I was astonished to find a long and prominent article in the Wall Street Journal (page 1) about the history of a single photograph. The photo depicts the execution of Kurds by Islamic revolutionaries and the article traces the history of the photograph in an attempt to identify its photographer, hidden for years by a shroud of anonymity for fear of retribution by the Iranian government. After being unable to find the article for free online (or the images), Google has helpfully pointed me to other folks more 'Net savvy than me.

Firing Squad in Iran, 1979 by Jahangir Razmi

No real time to comment beyond a couple of thoughts. First, though the article indicates that the photo was reprinted far and wide and generated great international condemnation of the revolutionary government, the lack of real action and change further underlines the limits of photojournalism even as powerful as this. Second, the visceral reaction to this particular image and why it was picked from a couple rolls of film to represent this event seems to be its similarity to "great execution art" of the past, as illustrated below. The aesthetic elements of even repulsive imagery simultaneously attracts our attention while dulling our understanding that such a picture represents a true event.

The Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid, Francisco de Goya

The Execution of Maximilian, Édouard Manet

More on Manet.

Jason Kottke has grabbed a few examples from the Library of Congress' "Bound for Glory" online exhibition of 1930s color photography and applied some Photoshop kungfu (color correction) to bring a sense of "taken today" to these photographs. Striking and I'm embarassed I hadn't thought of it before.