Category Archives: Learning Log

Research Task: Critical Thinking and Analysis

You have been developing your skills and confidence in critical thinking and analysis throughout all the projects in this unit (and previous units on the degree). The learning outcomes for this unit include showing your abilities to ‘examine… compare and contrast… outline your understanding… and critique. The project 6 exercises and Critical Review assignment support further honing your critical skills.

Take a moment to reflect on your confidence and understanding of what is meant by critical analysis and review. Familiarise yourself with the library resources and guides available to support skills in Critical Thinking. Post a reflective note on your learning log and on the Ethics and Representation Forum about using writing and speaking.

Reflection

Before my studies on this degree course, I spent over 30 years in engineering, with a long period of that time being both a scientific researcher and electronics engineer. One of the key attributes of that profession is the need to not take anything at face value. If a assumption is made, it must always be verified through some form of testing and the acquisition of data to support a conclusion. That has always made sense to me, but until the past couple of units on this course I hadn’t considered the application of this style of thinking to the creative arts. Critical thinking ideas that have been learned here mirror those concepts in engineering, where an assertion or argument is assessed using supporting and contradicting information. The creative world is entirely subjective, and I have learned that in many cases, particularly regarding photography, that subjectivity is categorised or classified as a result of critical thinking that identifies commonality or consistency in a series of works. A good example of this is the coining of the term ‘Documentary’, which is used to describe photography as a medium for capturing and representing an event, cultural trend or some other pattern of life. Photography was used to carry out this kind of work for decades before John Grierson started to use the expression to describe moving picture documentary, resulting is a retrofitting to the earlier work of photographers like Lewis Hine, Alice Hughes and Walker Evans. In learning about photographic genre and codes in the previous unit, I was able to further relate analysis to photographs with established ideas as the basis for a critical review. My essay last year asked the question about when a photograph does not comply with the usual visual codes of a genre, using Mohamed Bourouissa’s series about Paris’ Le Périphique, a ring road that divides regions of Paris with different social issues. I saw the image that I chose as documentary, while there was an assertion that it was landscape. By looking at the claim, investigating the corroborating and conflicting evidence, assessing against the widely-held ideas of the genres, I was able to draw own conclusions about the work. The evidence was more akin to established practice and historical art than the tested, measured data of my previous career, but I could see how the two uses of critical review could be applied in the same logical way.

In this unit, we have considered questions that point to whether a photograph should be taken or published from the perspective of whether it is ethical or not, and whether it represents the subject faithfully and respectfully. Key to this learning has been the application of critical analysis to my own practice. By being able to assess the work of other artists and a their ethical standards or otherwise, I’ve been able to ask those same questions of myself. Factored into the thinking is time as context, because those questions are here and now, but often compared with decisions made during a different era. For example, the famous image of Kim Phuc, known as Napalm Girl, could be considered as historically important because anecdotally it helped change the US people’s perspective on the Vietnam war. Ethically, the photographer was doing his job, but the subsequent actions of his editorial in identifying the girl and beginning a spectrum of problems from the shy embarrassment of her nakedness to her use as a propaganda tool, that followed her as she grew up. Contrast this image with Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl (1984), which depicts a young girl staring directly at the photographer. This image was shot by another photojournalist, but it doesn’t specifically depict the horrors of the ongoing Soviet-Afghan war beyond the identification of her as an Afghan refugee. It’s a striking image, but more as a portrait of a girl showing both defiance and vulnerability in her aesthetically beautiful eyes. What happened after the picture was taken echoes the experience of Kim Phuc, although the girl wasn’t made aware of the image’s existence until 28 years after it was taken. In 2019, The Wire reported that the girl, named Sharbat Gula was angry when she was first asked about how she felt about the image (You’ll Never See the Iconic Photo of the ‘Afghan Girl’ the Same Way Again, s.d.). She went on to describe being coerced into showing her face to this total stranger, which for a muslim woman is considered sinful. The article goes on to question how McCurry and the publisher didn’t know or appreciate this at the time. For me, there is a vast difference between documenting a war and manipulating its victims into being photographed.

In terms of representation, we have looked at how to build relationships and earn trust with subjects ranging from complete strangers to vulnerable people, which may not appear at first to form part of critical analysis. However, by learning about our subject’s story in their own words, we are gathering evidence that may support or contradict our initial pre-conceptions. Working collaboratively moves us to a position where we avoid ethical issues such as harm or embarrassment, but also helps us avoid fixating on a single part of their identity. In the case of my planned SDP, achieving a balance between telling a story about the problems faced by LGBTQ+ and representing them as who they are: people who are not defined by their gender identity or sexuality. I recently wrote a post on my personal blog about unconscious bias and the danger it poses to our being able to see the real story.

https://www.richperspective.co.uk/blog/2023/10/check-your-bias-at-the-door

Conclusion

If critical analysis is defined as a lifecycle of description, analysis and evaluation, we have demonstrated its application to both works and behaviours in the context of ethics and representation. The benefits of reasoned argument, comparing and contrasting other practicitioners’ takes on a similar situation and supported by the clear and concise way that the thinking can be communicated. I asked one of my SDP subjects to consider how he wanted to be represented as a man, and as a gay man, before our shoot. When I arrived at his house, it was clear that he had conduced his own critical thinking on my question, because he identified three ways in which he believed people saw him. He asked himself whether he was subconsciously playing three different parts and to what extent these were defined by events in his life. Once he was able to articulate this, we were able to shoot images that represented all three. Critical thinking is a life skill, not limited to photography or engineering, and this unit has helped to reinforce this crucial point.

References

You’ll Never See the Iconic Photo of the ‘Afghan Girl’ the Same Way Again (s.d.) At: https://thewire.in/media/afghan-girl-steve-mccurry-national-geographic (Accessed 17/10/2023).

Project 6, Exercise 1: The Case of Kim Phuc (Review)

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We looked at this photograph at the very start of this course. Let’s consider it again. Please revisit your very first learning log entry for this course. Read what you have written.

Write another short (200 word) response to your original entry.

Has your opinion on this photograph changed or stayed the same?

What have we covered in this course that has shaped how you think about this image?

The Photograph

*Nick Ut (Huỳnh Công Út) The Terror of War, children in flight from a napalm bombing during the Vietnam War, 1973: in Batchen et al (2012) Nick Ut, Accidental Napalm Attack (1972) Pg 146*

Original Response

Project 1, Exercise 1: The Case of Kim Phuc

Review

My views on the ethics of taking the picture are unchanged. Ut had a responsibility to capture the war, and this photograph epitomises the suffering of victims of napalm attacks, with the emphasis on children. However, the image does not tell the story of the event itself, being a friendly fire incident, rather focuses on Vietnamese children as victims of general atrocity which, while correct, is a single story only. Ethically, the photographer behaved honourably in saving Phuc’s life after taking the picture, but in editorial, she was not protected as a vulnerable person. As soon as she was revealed to have survived, her identity should have been withheld. Instead, she was turned into a propaganda tool, which undoubtedly made a difference to public sentiment regarding the war. Although the image has been a positive influence in Phuc’s later life as a campaigner, nobody could have forseen that at the time. Retrospectively applying an ethical approach to the image, might lead to the conclusion that it should never have been taken. However, retrospectively applying the same standards to editorial reveals issues of Duty of Care, as well as singular narratives that could have been given more consideration.

Supporting Reflective Notes for Assignment 5

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Introduction

Project 5 has taken the idea of socially responsible documentary on from photographing people that might be unfamiliar, but from a similar culture, through to those historically termed ‘the others’. We have seen how cultures have been both actively and passively appropriated over time, and how contemporary artists are seeking to address these historical issues in their work. Most of the artists included in Project 5 were connected directly with the communities or cultures they were representing in their work, e.g. Ryan Christopher Jones with both his Mexican and American heritage, but what happens when the photographer is a total stranger to the ‘others’ they are trying to represent?

This assignment calls for a review of Assignment 2, in which we engaged with and photographed a community we were not part of, and I had chosen the Malvern Hills Trust volunteers. Reflecting on that work, I question whether the group could be considered as ‘the others’, given my connections to the town. Consider the questions posed by the brief:

What assumptions did you have about that community before you started the project?

Malvern is a largely white community, with only small number of Eastern European and Middle Eastern making up the general populous. It is also largely known as a retirement town, with many retirement homes and complexes in the area. These two pieces of knowledge led me to assume that the volunteers would be older white people who had retired and had the time to carry out this type of work. When I attended the shoot, my assumptions were largely correct, with the exception of the group leader (employed by the MHT) and Giles, a man in his early 30s.

The leader Ben with Giles in the background, both much younger than the other volunteers

Looking back at your project now, how did your assumptions shape the photographs you took? What stereotypes or visual tropes did you replicate?

My assumptions guided my thinking on composition in the opposite way to the stereotypes of older people being somehow slower or frailer than younger people. The work they were doing was manual, gruelling, and required the use of tools, which is what I wanted to represent in the series. In the picture above, I show the leader of the group, Ben, operating a chainsaw with Giles just behind him. Although only Ben was trained and insured to use the chainsaw, the image visually conforms to the older people stereotype; the youngster uses the heavy equipment. I put this down to my own unconscious bias that is created by my being middle-age. In the rest of the series, only the images of the tea break conformed to a visual stereotype of British people in that tea breaks are very much part of our working culture.

The fact that everyone was white was considered almost a given because I had no control over the group that I was engaged with. The other assumptions that I made were about the scenic nature of the work. Malvern is known to be a beautiful landscape, and my images visually represent this with the shots all being of the work and where it was situated. The dominant colours are derived from the greenery and the sky, and the light being typical of British summer.

Did making that work challenge your assumptions? How else have you learned to challenge your assumptions?

The only assumption challenged in the work is that the older generation cannot do physically demanding work. I was consciously seeking to reveal this about them after we first met. Aside from that, I don’t believe that I did enough to represent their passion for their own environment, focusing on the work more than the people. At this point in the course, we had been introduced to the ideas of getting to know the subjects, and I did spend time with each of them to do so. However, we had yet to encounter artists like Anthony Luvera and Margaret Mitchell, who had made their projects over many years, inviting more collaboration from them. This is something I am currently addressing in my SDP, having spent hours interviewing my subjects and exploring how they represent themselves before considering the context and balance of future series about the LGBTQ+ community. Ryan Jones’ work made me think about how an intended story can change as the work progresses and assumptions are disproved, with the idea of documenting housing issues in New York becoming a commentary on the inversion of the ideas of US prosperity and Mexican destitution.

If you were to re-do this project, how would you approach the project differently?

Approaching this project again, I would consider starting from a different place, as with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk. Perhaps the series should have started with the need for the maintenance work and the efforts of MHT and its role in the community. Exploring the way MHT raises the profile of the environmental needs of the Malvern Hills could anchor the series in the socio-political landscape where climate change is a continuing worry. The call to arms nature of what the Trust’s volunteers could set the starting position for a documentary series about the work that introduces the people without any predisposed bias. It’s clear, as with Jones’s project, that the story could evolve to be more about the people involved the work and their motivations for being involved. I think this approach would reduce the risk of dwelling on stereotypes related to age.

With regard to my Self-directed Project

While there are a few stereotypes relating to Assignment 2, this reflection is probably more appropriate to my planned SDP. We learned that colonisation doesn’t only relate to race or culture, but also gender and sexuality. In Authority Collective (2020). The Photographers Guide to Inclusive Photography”, two authors gave advice on socially responsible photography of gender and, more specifically, the LGBTQAI community. As my project is about that community, its struggles and the continuing need for Pride, the latter of the articles resonated with me. In particular, I was drawn to the dangers of seeing the community as a curiosity and photographing the people as if they were some kind of show. The article makes the point that sexuality makes up only a small part of our identity, which is something I’ve observed in my interviews with my SDP subjects. We don’t walk around with a label that states our sexuality or gender identity, but for some reason people who are LGBTQAI are given labels and judged on the basis of them. One of the themes I want to explore is why straight people feel the need to label and categorise people who have one aspect of their identity that is different. With catagorisation comes stereotyping; all gay men are flamboyant and camp, all lesbian women are either classically glamorous or somehow masculine, etc. My subjects have universally raised the idea of referring to them as a community, as if they were some kind of social group, where the opposite is in fact the truth. From my perspective as a straight man who is an ally to LGBTQAI, I have to find away of staying clear of these stereotypes and the dangers of telling only one story about people that I have built relationships with, that have so far revealed interesting and complex lives behind identity.

EAR Self Directed Project Notes: An ethical conflict

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Context

My current idea for my SDP is a documentary series about Malvern Pride, and event that I photographed in a professional capacity in 2022, and will be repeating this year. In preparation for the event, I met with the organising committee and volunteers to discuss the practical details of the day. I had the opportunity to talk to the assembled group, most of whom are part of the LGBTQ+ community, about my social documentary project, and in particular the ‘socially engaged’ element. I told them that I wanted my work to be from the perspective of people within the community, rather than as seen by an outsider like myself. It would require voluntary interviews and collaborative portraits of the individuals. There were many people who were interested in taking part.

The Group for Mature Lesbians

One of the committee members said that she wanted to be part of the project, but I might want to talk to a group that she belonged to that was founded by a friend of hers. It was formed to support lesbian women living in Malvern, acting as a social network because the founder felt that her demographic was under-represented in the town. She thought that I could tell the story of the group and its members as part of my project. I reflected on whether this could be the total focus of my SDP as an alternative to Pride, but said that I was interested in meeting with them to discuss further.

The Difficult Conversation

During this discussion, we were joined by another woman in her 60s who said that she’d only recently moved to Malvern and was volunteering for the first time. She asked me about the project and why I wanted to do it, which I explained. During my description, I used the terms positive and negative to describe the two sides of the meaning of Pride, the positive being the celebration of the LGBTQ+ community, and the negative being the ongoing protest against prejudice and the demand for equality and respect. Her reaction was instantly anger, which made me quickly realise my blunder. She demanded to know why protest was ‘negative’, which I answered by immediately apologising for my clumsy use of language. The other woman jumped to my defence, pointing out what she saw as the meaning of what I’d said. She suggested that the lady was overreacting, which didn’t pacify her. I continued to apologise and explain what I meant in a couple of alternative ways, until she calmed down and we moved on. I believed that things were now ok and we continued to discuss Pride and its importance to the town.

Aftermath

About a week later, I bumped into the committee member in the street, and our conversation soon turned to the group that she was a member of. She informed me that she didn’t think it would work, because the woman from the meeting, who was a member of the group, had mentioned me to the others. The content of the discussion wasn’t clear, but the result was that the members were now anxious about engaging with me. While the committee member was going to talk to the founder privately, she didn’t think the damage could be undone.

Reflection and Learning Points

It was clearly a disappointing outcome that occurred because of my carelessness with the language. In the follow-up discusson, my friend suggested that it wasn’t a big deal, but clearly it angered the woman.
Ethically, it’s my responsibility to navigate the sensitivities around a subject where a subconscious bias might be at play. I genuinely don’t see protest or campaigning for rights as ‘negative’, but I can imagine that many straight people do. Protest is a basic human right in this country, but as we see in the media coverage of disruptor protests such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, the wider public finds the methods to be frustrating and problematic. Ironically, that’s the point of their methods. In my case, I represent to the woman, a middle-aged, middle-class, white heterosexual male, who is most likely the demographic responsible for categorising LGBTQ+ people to suit their own ends.
I acted appropriately and did my best to recover the situation. I later learned in another encounter with her that she is just a generally angry person. It wasn’t aimed at me personally, but it was sufficient for her to have (allegedly) spoiled a potential constructive relationship with an interesting group of people. I learned to quickly move on and look for alternative subjects and ideas.
While it’s an important learning point, it’s also set in a much wider context of the project, which isn’t focused on a particular gender or sexuality group within the LGBTQ+ community. I have alternative options, so am not dwelling on what is a fairly small incident.

Project 4, Reading Task: Case Study of Family Consent

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The Brief

Read the article by C. McKinney: “Leibovitz and Sontag: picturing an ethics of queer domesticity.” Shift Journal [online].

Reflect on and summarise the ethical considerations of the case study (150 words) andpost this to your learning log.

Reflection

McKinney raises the problematic nature of photographing outwardly private people, against a backdrop of homophobic perspectives on domestic life, perpetuated by Sontag’s blood family. We see how consent, first implied in the posed portraits, is questioned when Sontag became perceivably too ill to comprehend being photographed. All evidence points to her tacit understanding of pictures having distribution as their primary purpose, so how do modern sensitivities around privacy and respect for the dead influence our view of art? A point is made that family see themselves as the owner of a loved-one’s posthumous representation above all others, this case including Sontag’s 15 year romantic partner. Core themes of ‘disrespect’ run through criticism of Liebowitz, possibly because her photographic craft often transgresses perceived decency, but also because of her gender and sexuality. The piece highlights the strength of family influence, and how this must be considered in the context of gaining, and maintaining, consent.

Project 2, Exercise 3: Exploring Approaches

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Introduction

The research part of this exercise can be found here:-https://oca.padlet.org/richard5198861/project-2-exercise-3-exploring-approaches-epuck7e6y0kmy983

The final part of the brief for this exercise calls for an analysis of works by two of the photographers from the lecture[1]. I chose Handsworth Self-Portraits (1979) by Bishton, Homer and Reardon, and Imperial Courts (1993 – 2015) by Dana Lixenberg for this part.

Comparative Analysis (450 words)

The first, observation about these works is that they are both traditional ‘documentary’, namely they are recording the lives of two communities. These communities share common themes too, with Lixenberg’s subjects being marginalised African-Americans living in a prosperous US city, and the Handsworth project being a multicultural district in Birmingham with similar challenges and tensions. Their approaches differ, with Lixenberg seeking to be both insider and outsider simultaneously (DANA LIXENBERG – Interview 2017 – YouTube, s.d.) in a semi-directional style, as demonstrated in the photograph below.

Fresh, Real, Flave and 4Doe (Real Fresh Crew), from the series “Imperial Courts”, 2008 (Dana Lixenberg, s.d.)

Here a group of young men clearly posing for her portrait. In 2017 interview, Lixenberg tells of the boys wanting to flash their gang signs. After discussion and the showing of Polaroid test images, she got them to understand that the work wasn’t explicitly about their gang, but their place in the wider community. The result is a collaboration between photographer and subject, established over time.

From the exhibition Handsworth Self Portrait: 40 Years On by Derek Bishton, Brian Homer and John Reardon (Smyth, 2019)

By contrast, the second image from Handsworth, shows the subjects taking complete control over their representation. The photographers have set up the camera given them the camera trigger, allowing them to engage with the camera as much or as little as they want. Rosler dicusses the camera’s ‘power’ as seen by the subject and the effect it has on their reaction. We see a different reaction to the instrument when the photographer is directly involved. Bishton et al democratise this power by conceding the ‘moment’, while Lixenberg dilutes it through continual dialogue. Neither image is more ‘truthful’ than the other, as all the subjects play ‘characters’ of themselves. However, where Handsworth removes environmental distractions, the decaying infrastructure, evidence of intolerance etc, by using a plain background, Lixenberg supplements her work with carefully selected backgrounds, landscape, and still-life images. With the former, we gain a knowledge of the people and their cultural and personal differences, and the latter, a narrative about the place as well as the community. Other similarties include both artists engaging with their subjects in a transactional way to build trust, either through the giving of Polaroids (Lixenberg) or the offer of prints (Bishton et al). They built a reputation with their subjects that encouraged even the most reluctant take part in the work and avoid the pure spectator approach described by Bey (Bey D, 2019) or the ‘super tourism’ postulate by Sontag (Solomon-Godeau A, 1994) by living or working within the community. In doing so, their approaches challenging the concept of ‘binarism’.

The viewer recognises in both, the humanity of people and a hint of what their lives are like, even without any real knowledge beyond judgmental media portrayal. Both series achieve this via different routes, but the effect remains very similar.

Bibliography

Martha Rosler, Post Documentary, Post Photography? — Are.na (2018) At: https://www.are.na/block/1791938 (Accessed 02/06/2023).

Bey, D. (2019) On Photographing People and Communities. The Photography Workshop Series. Aperture Foundation. pp 26-75.

Solomon-Godeau, A. (1994) “Inside/Out.” In: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Public Information: Desire, Disaster, Document, Part 1. pp. 49-61.

Figures

Smyth, D. (2019) Handsworth Self Portrait: 40 Years On. At: https://www.1854.photography/2019/03/handsworth-self-portrait/ (Accessed 01/06/2023).

Dana Lixenberg (s.d.) At: https://www.deutscheboersephotographyfoundation.org/en/collect/artists/dana-lixenberg.php(Accessed 02/06/2023).

Project 2: Reading Task: Relating to your “subject”

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The Brief

Read these two articles:

Cohen, A. (2018) “What Do Photographers Owe Their Subjects? Four Photographers Weigh In.” Artsy [online].

Molitor, A. (2017) “Every Photo Comes with Built-In Debt, or: The Ethics of Photograph.” Petapixel [online].

Reflecting on your experiences in photography so far, describe how you feel about your relationships with the people in your images. What kind of relationships do you have with them – if any at all? What responsibilities do you feel towards them? Have these articles prompted you to think differently?

Reflection

The first article discussed what the photographers owe in terms of a specific debt to their subjects, and introduced some cases that resonated with my own experiences. I’ve long been interested in the work of Philip-Lorca diCorcia, in particular his portraiture and advertising work, because of his use of the constructed tableau. His Hustlers series, which is discussed in the article, incorporates a fantastical scene in which a male prostitute is seen. In terms of representation, the scene conflicts with the title of each image, which is restricted to the model’s name, age, location and fee. diCorcia uses the fact that they were paid their usual fee for sex as payment for their image to anchor the pictures in a common aesthetic that is associated with sex work. Reflecting on previous learning in this degree, we know that accompanying text like a title can dramatically alter the meaning of a picture. In this case, a strong narrative thread is created for a series of images that could simply just be portraits of young men. Ethically, the payment made to the models also influences the way they react to the photographer, potentially responding more to direction because of the ‘contract’ between them. The NPPA, which I looked at in part 1, has declared the payment of subjects in photojournalism to be unethical, which is understandable in the pursuit of so-called ‘truth’. Perhaps diCorcia’s earlier career as a fashion photographer distinguishes his work in Hustlers from the traditional photojournalist. Whatever the reason, there is a thought that the subjects were essentially ‘for hire’ and that perhaps any characterisation of them within the circulation of the images is perhaps less damaging than their choice of profession. I don’t think this excuses any disrespectful representation of them, however, which arguably this series is from an ethical perspective. I’m facing a similar ethical question this summer with the photographing of Malvern Pride (discussed in Part 1), because this year I am being paid to do it. Does this make a difference? Previously, I volunteered to document the day as I saw it, which as a straight man was somewhat biased towards the significance of Malvern holding the ‘party’. The committee were very happy with the work, but with this year being the third event there is a pressure to reinforce the messages of equality. If I am being paid to shoot the event, ethically I need to carry out the assignment as the committee wants it, but as an artist my own interpretation of the meaning of the event is also important, since objectivity doesn’t really exist in photography. I am going to have to discuss the needs of the community and the organisers carefully in order to help me make the work. This relates to the experiences of Gillian Laub, whose Southern Rites series depicts the newly integrated school proms. Her work with the organiser of the ‘whites only’ prom was intended to be an honest representation of the individual’s role. She had expressed the desire for the series to not depict her as racist, which is how Laub approached the shots. However, when the images were viewed by the public, racism was a significant reaction, which caused the subject to suffer online abuse. Ethically, the artist had done their best to represent them respectfully, despite disagreeing with her views. In my case, I am part of the Malvern community, but not the LGBT+ community, so while I will do my best to respectfully represent the celebration and the campaign for equality (I wholeheartedly support their position), I am aware that, despite my efforts, there will be some sections of the public that are triggered by the series.

My conclusion from the first article isn’t really a surprise as Respect was one of my key ethical values in Project 1. Our responsibility to the subject and how they are represented comes down to a ‘best effort’. The focus on the first article is on collaboration, the relationships between the photographer and their subject, with some examples being directional (diCorcia and Laub) and some that depend much more on ideas from both parties (Dubois).

In the second article, we are introduced to an ethically unsound use of context. The image that LensCulture used to advertise their competition was taken out of the context of highlighting child sex trafficking, which was the artist’s original aim for the project. For me, the direct contrast between the intent and subsequent use causes two major issues. The first is that the public reaction to the advert, which is entirely justified, demonises both the image and the artist, without understanding the context of the work. The artist specifically asked LensCulture to not use that particular image, but instead to use another from the series. We can make the argument that he relinquished his ethical debt to the subject rather too easily, but also that he’d transferred it to the editorial at LensCulture. The article explains the artist’s position on his own work, citing the subject of the picture as having asked him to photograph her (a little hard to believe from a Western cultural perspective) and that this constituted ‘consent’. My takeaway from the article as that the subject may well be abhorrent and shocking as in this case, the artist’s attitude may come across as being arrogant or misguided, but from an ethical point of view, did he represent his subject faithfully and respectfully? I am definitely in the camp of be disturbed by the idea of documenting abuse of children, but have to accept that the artist is behaving loosely in line with my perspective of photographic ethics. It also reinforces the idea that ethics are defined personally and are not a set of rules that everyone works within. The best we can do is to understand why people have different reactions to the work. Art is defined as being a creative medium that invokes a response in the viewer and the kind of work definitely achieves this. For their part, LensCulture subverted the meaning of the image by using it for a commercial advertisement. I would say that they failed in their responsibilities in respect of the subject, the artist and its readership. In my own experience, I’ve had images stolen by others and repurposed for other uses without my permission or control. However, the difference has been that the thief has been the subject of the picture themselves. In this scenario, there is no harm to them and the situation is easily remedied by setting more rigid terms and conditions and pursuing transgressors.

Conclusion

These two articles were interesting in that they introduced the concept of ‘debt’ within the idea of ethics. There are different approaches to representation that involve directional or collaborative, but when a photograph is of a person, there is a responsibility that the photographer has to that subject. In some cases, this debt can be transferred, as in the example of editorial, but it must be discharged ethically (respectfully and with the intent to do no harm). In my own work, I’ve become acutely aware of these points. I’ve recently had a highly constructive discussion with a client, which resulted in my perspective on ethics influencing his thinking about the series that he’s after. What I mean here is not a manipulation of his requirement, rather providing new ideas for him to consider. I’m interested to see how this course continues to influence my approach.

Reading Task: Photographic Truth

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The Brief

Read “Chapter 1: Images, Power, and Politics” in Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Practices of Looking: An introduction to visual culture (3rd ed.) (2018) Oxford University Press, available on the unit Reading List.In your learning log, write a response to the chapter (300-400 words). How do you understand “truth” in your photographic practice? What relationship do your images have to truth? How does the learning from this project and Sturken and Cartwright’s chapter prompt you to think about your own practice or about work produced by others?

Response

In my work, “truth” is a concept that I have only recently begun to explore. Until the end of the unit Context and Narrative, I shot photographs to rigidly document what I saw before me, primarily as a way of remembering a moment. When I started to work more in constructed tableaux, that changed. I consciously started to reverse-engineer cultural references related to my life experience using Barthes/Saussure’s ideas of semiotics in visual language. Incorporating denotive elements that offered a variety of connotations allowed me to change formal reality to something more interpretive. This culminated in Modern Monsters in the previous unit.

In considering the reading chapter, I would say that my work points to relationships between people and circumstance, in a largely fabricated way. I relate to the work by O’Sullivan and Van der Born as they create something familiar and believable, but less so the power relationships of Alfridi et al and Orr, who present injustice directly to the viewer through iconic references. This chapter made me think about the act of observing and then connecting the elements of the composition with other meanings, as in the case of Frank’s Trolley and Lange’s Migrant Mother. I am interested to know to what extent the moment contributed to these photographs and how much was reflective after the fact. We know that both were taken during long documentary trips that yielded many similar situations, so how did the context of the rest of the shooting (that day, that week, that month) influence the production of a particular image to represent power (or lack thereof)? I concluded that this is probably what holds me back in photographing events unfolding before me, and drives me towards the more fabricated image.

In considering how the ideas of power, ideology, iconography and cultural representation will affect my own work, I believe the focus will be more about planning how to represent the subject before taking a single picture. As well as the central ethical questions about ‘should I?’, I’m going to explore what I want to say in more detail.

Project 1, Exercise 3: Finding Common Ground

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Share your list of principles with your peers in the Ethics and Representation Forum.

Spend some time comparing others’ lists with your own. What would you add to your own list that you see on someone else’s? Engage in a discussion with others about the choices you made when compiling your list using the forum thread.

Afterwards, reflect in your learning log about anything you may have learned from your peers. Revise your list of ethical principles if necessary, and explain any changes you make as a result of the group discussion.

My Ethical Principles

Respect for the subject. Not to be confuse with deference of having to like the subject. The person or persons, their story and the context in which I’m photographing needs to be done respectfully in terms o what I am trying to represent, without any actions by either side to bend the ‘truth’
No Harm. To do enough work to understand the potential impacts of my work in the future, whether I am comfortable that my intention remains the same and how, if at all, I can control it.
Honesty. Being open and upfront in my communications with the subjects and also the ‘users’ of the work.
Understanding the wider context. Simply the act of doing the due diligence to identify and potentially correct any ethical concerns I might uncover before creating the work.
Collaboration. Not being the expert on a subject. Where there are unfamiliar aspects to a person’s story, work with them to balance my own perspectives.

Note that these are my ethical values based on previous experiences, and that they will undoubtedly change as the course progresses.

Reflection on the Forum Posts

It’s clear from reading the other student’s lists of ethical values, that there is much natural common ground. We all see respect and doing no harm as being core to our photographic practice, with additional ideas such as justice, health and beneficence being highlighted. In reflecting on the areas where we differ, I conclude that I have similar ideas, but articulate them differently. For example, informed consent in my value is a combination of collaboration and honesty in communication. I currently struggle to make a case for consent where it assumed, rather than specifically gained, as demonstrated on my Morocco trip in 2015. During that visit, I took a picture of a homeless lady, who gave me her consent to do so because I had just given her the spare change in my pocket. Having learned the cultural sensitivities by then, I would not have assumed consent because she was sitting in a public place (the difference In Moroccan law notwithstanding). Was the consent informed though? I don’t believe so, because we didn’t discuss why I wanted to shoot her, nor did we consider together what the image would subsequently be used for. There were good reasons for this though, the principal one being that we didn’t speak each other’s languages. My view on that photograph (below) now, is that I am uncomfortable about the transactional nature of it, my perspective as a tourist in making an image of a homeless person despite my best intentions not to exploit her situation, and the lack of understanding between photographer and subject. Portraits of this kind are, or course, very intimate which means that my ethical values as I now seem them, need to be considered more carefully.

Homeless woman of Marrakech, shot in 2015

There is discussion in the forum about ethics being somehow ‘bent’ in the face of a split-second moment as in the Napalm Girl image. My personal view on this is that rather than bending ones own ethics, there is comfort in operating within those of another. In the case or Nick Ut’s image, the situation was within the constructs of photojournalism, as he was in Vietnam to document the conflict. His pictures would be governed by his own vision and perspectives on the way, so I agree that his own personal ethics would be the guiding force. However, the incident that led to Napalm Girl was a split-second decision, after which Ut behaved in a very human way, saving Phuc’s life and forming a lifelong bond with her. His actions in shooting the picture first are not, in my view, momentarily compromising his values but working within those set by his employers. This is where I see issues with having ethics. As the learning to date makes it clear that ethics are personal to the photographer, we will all differ from each other. This difference is magnified when an editorial is involved. Ut selected Napalm girl as the most powerful image, but he effectively lost all control over how it would then be used by the press, the public and the politicians. Whatever his original intentions, they would have been diluted through the editing and publishing stages. It reminds me of Eddie Adams equally famous image of the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém in 1968, which was one of many documentary images that he took of the arrest of the Viet Cong soldiers.

Eddie Adams’ famous execution image, 1968 (Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, 2023)

Like Napalm Girl, this image won the Pulitzer Prize for the photographer and went on to fuel anti-war sentiment in the United States. It differed in that when published, the revulsion at the act depicted was focused on the man who pulled the trigger. The idea of doing no harm, that may well have been a personal value of Adams, was lost through the editorial. The press ethics really centre around the faithful representation (as much as it can be) of an event, without exploitation, interference or undue influence. To that extent, the picture met the press standards, but not necessarily that of Adams.

This picture really messed up his life. He never blamed me. He told me if I hadn’t taken the picture, someone else would have, but I’ve felt bad for him and his family for a long time. I had kept in contact with him; the last time we spoke was about six months ago, when he was very ill. I sent flowers when I heard that he had died and wrote, “I’m sorry. There are tears in my eyes.”
(Adams, 1998)

In conclusion, our ethics as people are usually enough govern how we approach our own work. In that regard, my fellow students and I clearly believe the same ethical values, with language being the main separator. Our ethics can be challenged by others when we no longer have control over our image. In these cases, our best intentions are the best we can aim for.

References

Adams, E. (1998) ‘Eulogy: GENERAL NGUYEN NGOC LOAN’ In: Time 27/07/1998 At: https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,988783,00.html (Accessed 10/04/2023).

Nguyễn Ngọc Loan (2023) In: Wikipedia. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan&oldid=1146876860 (Accessed 10/04/2023).

Project 1, Exercise 2: Identifying Ethical Principles

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The Brief

What ethical principles guide your work as a photographer?

Do some independent research and self-reflection to generate a list of ethical principles that are important to you in your work as a photographer.

Define each principle in relation to how it relates to your practice. You might want to include some examples to illustrate the principle. Complete this exercise in your learning log, we recommend you define 4-6 principles that feel authentic to your work. Reference where you drew any of the guidelines from.

Response

Research led me to consider the concepts laid out by the National Association of Press Photographers and the Photography Ethics Center, when applied to a number of practitioners, some whose work I admire and others that I do not. The research for this exercise can be seen here:

https://oca.padlet.org/richard5198861/research-for-project-1-exercise-2-fbzq4v0a2ov52rog

In considering my own ethics, I conclude that these are my ethical principles:

Respect as much of the facts as possible

This first principle is a tricky one to define, because the concept of fact and truth are themselves complex. What I mean here is that whatever the situation or story, I see to understand as much of it objectively before deciding on how to represent it. An example would be my experience in Marrakech [1], where I knew so little about the culture, I could only offer my perspective as a tourist.

Avoiding causing direct harm or distress

In looking at Bruce Gilden and his attitude towards his subjects, I realise that I’m not a street photographer. He and Cohen (the other photographer in the Padlet) place themselves directly in confrontation with their subjects. While it’s legal to photograph people in public places in the US and UK, the way that some photographers obstruct their subjects makes me uncomfortable. In Cohen’s case, there is occasional collaboration between subject and photographer, but Gilden appears much more aggressive. All of the street work I’ve done in the past has been from a distance, using a mid-zoom lens. I think it’s that discomfort that makes me work in this way.

Be interested in the wider context

Listening to Sally Mann talk about her projects that involve her family, it’s clear that any doubts she has are eased by considering the wider implications of her work. In particular, photographing her husband, who is very ill, she relies on his bravery in telling his story to counteract the pain of photographing her loved one.

Be open and honest

I think my biggest learning to date in this regard, came from Identity and Place, where we had to photograph people we hadn’t met before [2]. When I started the assignment, I was looking for some kind of segue way into a conversation to convince them to let me shoot them. What actually happened is that I simply talked to them about the course, my objective, where the pictures would be shared and what I would be using them for. This was a much better strategy in terms of building trust between photographer and subject and resulted in pictures I was happy with. I still see most of my subjects from time to time and we still chat, even though the pictures were taken nearly 2 years ago. Honesty helps people understand what their image or representation is going to be used for and offers them a way of challenging or rejecting anything that conflicts with their own values.

Collaborate

The idea of collaborating for me covers many things, including an amalgamation of ideas, representation that is respectful or challenging in a given context, and consent. The Photography Ethics Center uses the example of photographing children as a case for collaboration. A child isn’t developed enough to be able to understand how they are being represented. By collaborating with their parent or guardian organisation who knows them, we can reach an agreement that will avoid issues of safety, long-term harm and influence that might effect their development. This is not a straight-forward transaction, as demonstrated by the case of Spencer Elden who was photographed for the famous Nirvana album cover when he was a baby. Collaboration took place between the artist and his parents, but many years later Elden had a problem with the image. There are wider issues raised than a matter of ethics, with Elden being accused of indulging in the fame of the picture until that fame had diminished. Ultimately, his civil case regarding harm done to him was dismissed by the court. Where children are concerned, Collaboration in the form of open and honest discussion and consent to take a picture are key to avoiding any harm being done.

Conclusion

When I reflect on these principles, I see that they are closely interlinked and that they align with how I try to behave in other aspects of my life. The key learning point is that the camera doesn’t give us, as photographers, an excuse to alter our behaviour towards other people because it somehow anonymises what we are trying to represent. In the case of Napalm Girl, the photographer was employed to document the war visually, so when the attack on the villagers happened, his first thought was to shoot, what he saw. His instinct as a human being was to help the children, in particular Kim Phuc, who was in the most danger. He is credited with saving her life, which in my view balanced the decision to shoot first, help second. What Ut could not have been fully aware of, nor could he control, was the way the image was used for the next 50 years. He probably wasn’t aware what damage he would cause Phuc psychologically during her formative years, through the embarrassment of her nudity and vulnerability. In their case, a strong relationship formed after the fact, which would have provided both with insight into the impact of the decision to shoot and the impact it would have for both of them. When we look at the NAPP ethical values as an organisation, we can see that Ut did behave in an ethical manner. That may not have been how the world saw it when the image was published, but I don’t see how a conflict photojournalist could predict that in the decisive moment that presents itself. I was interested in the evolution of the Ethics Center and the concepts that were at odds with the historical video of Bruce Gilden. Gilden proclaimed that he had not ethics and that photojournalism was all ego, something he later retracted as being sarcasm. I personally think his comments at the time were the accepted norm and that history has rewritten the norms. If we consider how his approach to work would be received today, in an era where everyone has a cameraphone and everyone is being photographed largely without their consent, it stands to reason that modern ethics has had to remind photographers what their responsibilities are to their subjects and stories. For me, the experience of street photography is governed by my own ethics to the extent where I avoid it as a genre. This isn’t a positive situation either, as an artist shouldn’t be self-governing to the extent that they don’t produce work. I’ve self-edited to my detriment in this course previously [2], and having conducted some preliminary research into ethical practice, I would approach the shoot differently. My particular issue centred around not wanting to publish images that might cause my subjects issues (causing harm), but could have been offset by clearer communication (open and honest), which might have steered the work differently, but prevented my wanting to keep it from being viewed.

In summary, I am interested to see how my ethics change, if at all, as I progress through this module. What I’ve learned so far has made me think about my approach to work in a different way, so it will be interesting to see how that affects my future work.

References

[1] richardfletcherphotographyblog (2021) Assignment One: The non-familiar. At: https://richardfletcherphotography.photo.blog/2021/04/11/assignment-one-%e2%80%8bthe-non-familiar/ (Accessed 02/04/2023).

[2] richardfletcherphotographyblog (2021) Assignment Two: Vice versa. At: https://richardfletcherphotography.photo.blog/2021/06/25/assignment-two-%e2%80%8bvice-versa/ (Accessed 02/04/2023).(Password: Leitz1957RF)