"Take" a Picture: How Photography can be a Vehicle for Peace

I wrote this paper for my Pen and the Sword honors civilizations class at BYU.  We had the opportunity to write about anything we wanted to talk about from the semester.  We had spent class one day talking about visual representation of war, and it got me really thinking about some of the lessons I learned about photography while on my field study in Ghana in the summer of 2011.  These lessons I explored through Myra, my photographer avatar, or the way I chose to mediate my experience on that given day.  I just thought including this paper here would be a nice conclusion on some of the thoughts I have about photographic representation and the ethical dilemma I ran into.

“Take” A Picture:

How Photography can be a Vehicle for Peace

            On March 29, 1993 Kevin Carter’s infamous photograph, an emaciated child being stalked by a vulture (Appendix 1), showed up in the New York Times to document the civil war going on in Sudan (Lorchspecial A3).The response from the readers was overwhelming.People from all over the world called in wondering who the starving child was, what happened to her, and why the photographer did not help her.  A few months later, just after winning the prestigious Puzzler Prize for the image, Carter committed suicide at the age of 33, unable to live with the things that he had seen and photographed in his troubled world (Macleod).

            There are many benefits associated with photography that other mediums do not offer so readily.  However, if we look at Carter’s story, the ethics of photographic representation are seriously called into question.  On one side of the issue, we have the irate callers who blamed Carter for not saving the girl and for so heartlessly abandoning her, but on the other side we have the overwhelming response in general to an article that might not have been given a second glance had there been no photograph of the crisis in Sudan.  This story is a useful example of the current tension that seems so representative of the field of photography, and it is a conflict I have certainly experienced personally as a professional photographer.  Despite these concerns, I argue that photography can be an extremely viable medium to bring about peace, but only if certain limitations are acknowledged and fundamental rules observed.  First, a photograph must be recognized within its limitations and problems as a medium, and second, we need to understand what the process is to improve the authenticity of a photograph and ethically represent the subjects.  Last, I will address my personal experience as a photographer dealing with these tensions.  By coming to terms with these three points, we can better understand how and why photography can be used to bring peace and raise awareness. 

Kennedy Center Photo Contest

After my experience in Ghana, Africa this summer, knowing what I know now about the nature of photography and the problems it poses for authenticity I have mentioned earlier, sitting at the awards ceremony for the annual Kennedy Center Photo Contest for international study programs was an interesting experience.

These two pictures here earned me two honorable mentions. I was the only one who received two awards, which is fun.  However, looking through my thousands of other pictures, I can't help but wonder why these? I had probably 50 "really good pictures" to submit.  Looking at the other winners, I wonder again at how subjective their submissions were, and I never before questioned what it must be like to be a judge for one of these things. I am not sure I could do it.  There is so much more that goes into a photograph than what we see in our two dimensional image. 

Conclusion on Mediums

Not only was the avatar, or perspective I chose to see my experience in, important to my project on the authenticity of experience in Ghana, but the mediums I chose to record it in.  The avatar and the medium were equally responsible for the representation I came up with.  After my experience, I think that there are certain avatars that work better with certain mediums.  If you are someone who relates to one more than another, then considering those recommended mediums could be beneficial.

First, for all students or travelers interested in going out into the field I recommend a jotting notebook and a diary.  A jotting notebook because our memories are just too fragile, and you can lose important information as well as a viable medium, and a diary because there will always be something you want to express that isn't field note appropriate.  

Ava- The Romantic Anthropologist- This avatar was the student avatar.  Having an academic approach with course contracts, books, etc for this experience was great for me, but I realize that might not be for everyone.  I felt like I got more out of it having had that mindset.  To me, it did not feel forced, and it helped me stay positive when dealing with culture shock and some of the other things that come with integrating into a new community.  If you are someone who relates to her, I found that typed field notes were better than handwritten field notes.  I had a lot more notes when I was using a computer. 

Conclusions

This summer I set out to Ghana with an idea.  An experiment.  A crazy out there theory based project that I struggled to describe in one single sentence.  I wanted to know more about the nature of experience and the authenticity of travel documentation.  It was frustrating to see how European explorers like Henry Morton Stanley and Joseph Conrad had contributed to the stereotype of a “dark continent” of Africa based off of their limited interpretations of their experiences.  As a writer myself, I understand the desire to experience and the need to try to express these experiences as a personal kind of truth.  Still, how often do we consider the nature of how we experience a world foreign to ourselves, or the “truthfulness” or consequential effects of these accounts in regards to their cultural authenticity?  Whether these truths are more “truthful” than what really happened, we could find a copious amount of arguments stemming as far back as Aristotle’s Poetics, but truth was not what I was questioning here.  I was more interested in authenticity.   These questions were the fuel of my project proposal.  A lot has happened since I wrote my objectives, but I have been pleased to see that my project was a success.  Our experiences are indeed significantly subjective based on the way we see the world and the mediums we chose to record it in. 

Myra- The Photographer Avatar

In order to look at how limited experience really is, I chose to look not only at how the medium I recorded in impacted my experience, but also at the way I chose to see it in.  I divided different parts of my personality into different avatars to show these different view points and how different my experience was by being different avatars.  My photographer avatar, Myra, has been quite the learning experience.  The medium of digital photography itself offers a lot of questions about the authenticity of experience and brings in a lot of ethical questions.  However, what interests me the most about my Myra experiment was the difference between an “essence” and an “authentic” photograph. 

Somewhere along the lines I realized that my photograph experiment was failing.  I did not feel right about “taking” pictures of people that I did not know with little intention of giving anything back in return.  It made me serious question National Geographic, and more than ever I believe that establishing proper rapport is necessary to get those kinds of images.  Out of my frustration, I developed a new idea.  I would take a picture every hour on the hour and juxtapose that to the “essence” picture, or what I considered the posed National Geographic type of image that would go in a portfolio.  They are not pretty to look at, but it shows a more accurate presentation of my experience.  Granted, it is not purely authentic.  I could have taken a picture on the half hour, or the five-minute mark, and had a completely different experience.  I just think that it is one step closer to authenticity. 

Here is a slideshow of one of my favorite days where I did this every hour on the hour experiment.  To see the more of these photos click here.

Digital Photography as a Medium: Benefits and Limitations in Fieldwork

As part of my research, I looked at how my experience was mediated by both the mediums I chose to record my experience as well as the actual way I viewed my time in Ghana.  By dividing parts of my personality into different lenses, which I called avatars, I was able to better see these limitations.  I will talk about Myra, my photographer avatar, and what I discovered with her in terms of an “essence” vs. authentic picture, but I think that since digital photography is so encompassing I want to break it down and look specifically at it as a medium through which I filtered my experience in Ghana.

Walter Benjamin is a great resource for understanding the digital photography as a medium.  It has altered the world of art and assisted in a push towards postmodernism by its lack of relationship with an original.  In his book Illuminations we get a clear feeling from him that photography is a medium that problematizes the notion of an “original” because it is created solely for reproducibility.  He states that “the presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity” and that the translation has no regard or relation to the original, thus having no relationship to it (Benjamin 220).

In the words of Clifford Geertz from The Interpretation of Cultures, all fieldwork is just our personal interpretations.  He bluntly states that “we do not understand the people” because we are not natives, and says that all “anthropological writings are themselves interpretations” and “second to third ones to boot” (15).  This idea that we cannot be native or express a native point of view because of our lack of context is critical for ethnography, travel literature, and any document that attempts to translate a foreign experience outside of the original context.

Pros:

Rapport- Having a camera was a great way to build rapport in the community, especially among the kids.  Showing them their image on the back with that immediate feedback was priceless.

Glimpse of Myra: To "Take" a Picture

As I am taking in all of my data and making sense of my different avatars I want to re-post something I wrote on the byu field study blog about the ethics of "taking" a picture.  It was one of the most valuable (and surprising) lessons I learned in the field.

"Take" A Picture

Posted by Rachel Adventure 14 June 2010 4:32 AM

Labels: ghana , sp/su 2010

Up till now I had not given much consideration to the word “take” in “taking a picture.” I’ve done it my entire life. I’ve even created a job for myself out of it, but here in Ghana I am forced to wrestle with what it means.

After weighing the advice of my mentor and my own better judgment, I still chose to haul my professional D700 across four continents in search of the National Geographic image. I was mortified to discover that my disappointments have come not from water damage, weight issues, or theft, but in my own inability to snap a picture.

The challenge is not the aperture or the shutter speed. Not my ISO and not my white balance. It is from getting my fancy camera out of my bag and stealing an image of someone I don’t know, or of something that I don’t really understand, with little intention of giving anything back in return. It is hard to justify, and I now understand why it took Stephanie (the Nt. Geo photographer from the prep class) eight months before she could access the community. With minimal language skills I can only imagine how long it would take me to get the image I thought I was setting out to take.

When I started taking pictures of the goats and the ceiling fan I knew something had to give. So I’ve had a new idea. As part of my project I still need to be a photographer, but I’m mixing it up. I’m taking one picture every hour on the hour. It isn’t pretty. I still cringe with embarrassment when I watch my group members look through my images. I have to remind myself not to edit them in a frantic, abysmal attempt to salvage the composition, but I think it will add an interesting flavor to my project on the authenticity of experience.

I may not come home with a single picture for my portfolio, but I’m coming back with something better. As Maggie keeps reminding us, “Even if your project plummets, you won’t fail your experience.” So here is my shout out to having some expectations unmet, and some surpassed, and my new-found appreciation for flexibility in the field. I just wish I had more time to go through and read all of the other posts and comment on them, but it might have to wait till we get back.

Preliminary Predictions and Where I'm Going From Here...

Well, I am back. Not all the way, but I need to start somewhere. It is time to reel in my five avatars and speak as a slightly less skitso, multiple personality disorder victim, and be just Rachel—a name that started to collect a little bit of dust.

Here is an overview of what I am hoping to do for the rest of my time on this blog and a prediction of what I think I captured before I dive into my notes. Time to decode, interpret, and assign the meaning to a polished, tweaked experience. Ghana in retrospect.

I think that my project was a great success in ways I never anticipated, and the way I see it, I can look at this through two different frames. First, how did my avatar—the way I chose to look at my day—affect my experience, and second, how did the medium I chose to record the experience alter what I captured? Here are my preliminary predictions.