Having read an essay written by German photographer Marco Bohr, on the topic of documentary photography and all its beautiful angles. It has made me question why someone took the picture and not made a stand there and then. An example could be that a starving child on a bed begging for water, when the photographer could potentially help that child, but they take the picture instead. Has the search for the documentary image come at a cost? I remember looking at a documentary image in a book once, and it had someone about to be shot. I thought to myself, ‘why didn’t that photographer make a stand and say no’, if there close enough to take a picture with a standard lenses, they must have some way of changing that situation so there is no need to document the horrible happening. What is worrying me is that, I am focusing on a career that is based (sometimes) on the unfortunate happenings of others, and I am potentially making my living off peoples misfortune. Further more, I am exposing possibly private information about these people as my career, not like a celebrity photographer, but the pictures I take could potentially be exposed to thousands of viewers. I am just the fly on the wall. I have no say in the disaster so in a way that makes my potential job very important to raise awareness, but as a young person, I need to grow up along with the people/events I photograph. I would not be old enough to experience the terror of war, but I want to show people through what I do best, photography. I look at images of starving people, and I gasp and it sometimes upsets you, but I do not act. I do not donate to my local charity which could help. I almost look away. But the scary thing is these images are beautiful, they are beautifully composed and visually beautiful but it is a horrible happening. I don’t think you should glorify war, or any tragedy. For most people, they don’t want to relive the terrible parts in their life, so why should I make my career and life earnings from peoples misfortune. What is a photographer but the people he photographs? I am the people I photograph because I have taken the time to take a look at these people and study them to create this ‘beautiful’ documentary. At first the documentary image to my mind was a reportage image. But as I have read and talked to people, its the context that really matters. You could have a terrible image, but if it was taken second before a major event it is a documentary photograph. But it isn’t a photographer’s job to produce bad images, it is their job to consider exposure, depth of field, composition to almost create a piece of art. So perhaps the problem is the fact people are not acting from these images, and they need to. The article has made me think hard about what kind of photographer I aspire to be, and to consider the story from their side before I start shooting their misfortune. Photography is a brilliant way to expose certain issues; an issue I am very interested in is black cultures and especially the UK grime scene and people inspired by this music. Where these people live, what they do and where they want to go. You see, i don’t see photographing them as taking advantage of their misfortune because my photography has the potential to help these people and show the world who they are and what mark they want to make in the world. If I photograph a starving child, I am effectively the hierarchy and I am abusing that power. Although the world needs to understand horrible things happen in the world, and photography and film is the only way of providing proof I believe the photographer should always consider what is best for the subject and how that photograph could change their situation. Photography is a blessing, but at the same time it can be seen as a curse. I agree with Marco Bohr that:

Although I consider photography being a form of art the product of a documentary photograph may never be reduced to a piece of art. As soon as documentary photography resolves in beautiful pictures, assuming that art is what is presented as beautiful, we have a nice picture of a horrible situation, which reduces the importance of that situation. – Marco Bohr

I also agree that the documentary image is a saw area for the people involved and shouldn’t be taken lightly.

http://www.macobo.com/ <--- see for article which inspired me to write this.

15^th July 2009 23:55