Today, I visited anthropologist Anne Chambers and we started talking about the differences between anthropology and photojournalism. She asked if photojournalists were reflexive? In sociology, reflexivity refers to a process where the observer steps back to examine the causes and effects of a relationship. What Anne wanted to know was whether photojournalists took the time to understand what the act of producing pictures would mean for them as well as for their subjects prior to the act of making images.
My gut reaction to the question was that reflexivity in photojournalism is a luxury and a distraction from simply getting the job done. Stopping to think about the cause and effect or consequences, in many situations, would interfere with the role the photographer plays in terms of capturing events as they occur. In reality, however, reflexivity is heavily context dependent. There are times, for example, when photojournalist are very much engaged in pondering the impact of what they do. Photojournalists, as a group, are a conscientious group of individuals who understand social responsibility is and what it means to be committed to accurate and fair-minded visual reportage.
The biggest difference between anthropologists and photojournalists is more likely one of constraints and limitations. The methods of collecting or capturing human experiences, for photojournalists, is largely determined by deadlines and the inherent role of agenda setting in the news business. Like nurses, doctors, firefighters, and police officers, photojournalists have to suspend emotional engagement and reactions in order to deal with the trauma they witness. Anthropologists, on the other hand, spend long periods of time documenting and engaging with the peoples they seek to understand. There is, in this sense, more opportunity for reflexivity.
Common ground between anthropologists and photojournalists in terms of reflexivity, however, may be observed in the works of people like Mary Ellen Mark, Eugene Richards, and Jim Goldberg. Social documentary photography, of this sort, encourages a great deal more reflexivity than daily newspaper or even magazine photography.