 |
| "All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers." --Francois Fenelon |
The photograph featured above holds within it two members of the very large and wonderful Somalian family I tutor. (*I previously asked and received the parents' permission to feature the picture of the children in my blog post). This past Saturday was the spring picnic for the Somalian families, school faculty, and tutors at Arsenal park. Spending the day with the children allowed me more than ample time to focus on my assignment for my blog post this week.
Capturing this image could have been simpler, for when I first asked the children if they would like to take a picture, they each assumed their picture pose of smiling. "We alter our behaviors when we think we are being observed-either by humans, or by extension, by seeing devices such as cameras" (Newton, 2009: 86).
Since my initial photograph idea was to capture the violation of children's dignity that takes place during times of war, I asked the children to not smile. However, due to limited attention spans, 50% seemed a success to acquire.
Although they may not have recognized it, I felt a power dynamic between the children (the subjects) and myself (the photographer). I feel there was an imbalance present in this power dynamic; there was an obvious difference between the great power I possessed-manipulating them into a pose I deemed fit-and their minimal power-as they obeyed, their innocence only intensified their helplessness.
The children didn't seem to recognize this imbalance, they saw a camera, and instantly knew what it was, evidenced by them saying "cheese" to create a picture worthy smile. "The very familiarity of the camera kept it from being seen as an intruder or a manipulator" (Alia, 2004: 101).
Even though I was manipulating the children for the 'shot' I was still making a conscious effort to uphold their dignity. It was no intention of mine to make any mockery of them, although at one point I did hear Kant's words chanting in the back of my mind, as I recognized my use of them as means to an end-this assignment.
I was surprised at how guilty I felt about taking the picture, even after receiving parental permission and making an effort to uphold the subjects' dignity. In our modern day, social networks such as myspace and facebook, hold thousands of pictures featuring various individuals-including myself-why did this one picture leave such an impression on me? I wasn't sure then, and still am not complete aware of the reasoning. Perhaps this was just the first time I thought about pictures in a negative sense-especially after exposing myself to this week's readings. Although I am unable to pinpoint the exact reason of why I felt such tremendous guilt from taking the picture, I did find it interesting that when I captured pictures with both myself and the children and I felt that action didn't violate anyone's dignity at all. At first I thought this was because I was only seeing my side of the argument, but then I realized by being featured in the picture it was a record of the personal union between this Somalian family and myself.
"When a stranger brings a camera into a community, the intrusiveness is obvious. But what about the instances in which the camera and the photographer are invited, even welcome" (Alia, 2004: 101)? The picnic with the children was just this case, the camera was welcome to capture the events of this joyous day outdoors, the first among many spent inside. The children were overly eager to take pictures to capture the beautiful day and their freedom to be outside. This seemed to help me provide rationale for my actions and in turn, lessen my guilt.
Throughout the excerpt from Valerie Alia's Media Ethics and Social Change, Alia discussed the impact of a single shot, and the greater intensity it holds than hours of videotaping. Rather than use her reasoning of this argument, I will instead provide my own. I feel that imagery, specifically one image, is more powerful than words and other mediums due to the ambiguity a single image holds within it. The popular coined phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words," is a perfect explanation of such a phenomenon. The phenomenon I'm referring to is how two individuals, with relatively similar backgrounds and experiences, can view the same image and have two completely opposing interpretations of what the image represents.
With words you are projecting ideas into an individual's mind, there's some flexibility on how the texts can be interpreted, but it is not as great as the potential for multiple interpretations present in imagery. This difference is similar to the concept Alia discussed regarding the author of non-fiction's necessity to "abide by conditions of his lease...The writer is under contract to the reader to limit himself to events that actually occurred and to characters who have counterparts in real life, and he may not embellish the truth about these events or these character" (Malcolm, 1990: 153). The creator of texts has certain rules he must abide by, there is in a sense, only so much the author can say, but the photographer has the luxury to capture what words cannot describe.
The openness that a photograph allows for interpretation, reminds me of only one author's text George Kateb. Within his works, Kateb's lack of examples for his reasoning, forces his readers to 'fill in the blanks' much like photographers do for their viewers.
This assignment has been great practice for my group's upcoming art show, it has helped me to open my mind while viewing some of the photographs that have already been submitted. While viewing each piece I have tried to focus on idea of capturing the image as though I were the photographer. While imagining I am the photographer of various photographs featured at the show, I will be asking myself the same questions supplied as prompts for this post, along with other ones I have independently cultivated from this past week's experience.
To conclude this post, I would like to simply skim the surface on images and the media today. I mentioned before about social online networks such as myspace and facebook which I feel-after this assignment- take away from human dignity. Our normalcy of constant electronic interaction is a threat to our privacy, and the individuals being violated are often their own primary offense, due to their ignorance.
As William Deresiewicz said in his work The End of Solitude
"A constant stream of mediated contact, virtual, notional, or simulated, keeps us wired in to the electronic hive — though contact, or at least two-way contact, seems increasingly beside the point. The goal now, it seems, is simply to become known, to turn oneself into a sort of miniature celebrity. How many friends do I have on Facebook? Not long ago, it was easy to feel lonely. Now, it is impossible to be alone."
The only addition to the dignity violation is perhaps the images uploaded by people in our modern day society; the photographs range from everyday events to provocative, to evidence of meeting someone famous, to documentation of something disgusting and beyond.
The media is a great connection to the Colloquium's semester long theme of human dignity because the media is often responsible for the desensitizing of individuals to certain events that were once viewed as traumatic or profound due to chronic exposure. Julianne H. Newton makes this same observation when she discusses the ability of Americans to ignore images of war scenes from Iraq, due to the image's similarity to dozens of other Iraq war scenes that have previously been broadcasted (Newton, 2009: 86).
~~Imagery is a powerful tool, not to be played with, but respected. (personal observation).
References
- Alia, Valerie. "A Picture Is worth a Thousand...:ethics and Images." Media Ethics and Social Change. New York: Routledge, 2004. 100-14. Print.
- Deresiewicz, William. "The End of Solitude." Chronicle of Higher Education (2009).
- Newton, Julianne H. "Photojournalism Ethics:A 21st-Century Primal Dance of Behavior, Technology, and Ideology." The Handbook of Mass Media Ethics. Ed. Lee Wilkins and Clifford G. Christians. New York: Routledge, 2009. 84-100. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment