Playing that funky music. Photo by Dennis Dunleavy
A student at Southern Oregon University plays his guitar to a lunch time crowd.
There were times in the newsroom when a photographer would come dancing out of the darkroom with a smile on his or her face and a picture in their hands. Sometimes this picture would be a reminder of the grim frailties of life -- a train wreck, car crash, or gang violence. The photographer was happy not because they were literally holding a representation of death, but because they got the shot -- they fulfilled their obligation. All the energy dedicated to capturing a moment in time was relieved in knowing that the picture was a "good" one.
For me, publishing a picture displaying pain and suffering creates a paradox of consciousness. On one hand, the image may tell the truth about something horrible that needs to be shown, but on the other hand, there's an emotional conflict between what can be called a public moment and what is to be kept private.
Journalists often will not allow themselves to contemplate their roles as moral agents or arbiters of value and taste in society, because by doing so they will have crossed the blurry boundaries of impartiality and objectivity.
Often I feel that despite the importance of an image of suffering, there is also this overwhelming feeling that the photographer may be exploiting the worst moments of another human being.
How does someone reconcile the exploitative side of photojournalism?
Halla Belloff observes:
"A good photographer will take, and then further select, pictures that convey in the image the particular message of happiness, malaise, dominance, defeat modernity or tradition that is appropriate to his or her view."
The question emerging from this sense of the "appropriate" brings to mind that a photographer's view is always loaded with subjectivity and ambiguity. As photographers develop the thick skin needed to deal with difficult situations they learn to make images that meet the expectations of others and themselves.