International news reporting is a difficult, expensive and often dangerous proposition. Budget tightening at news organizations has reduced the number of foreign staff members, meaning much foreign reporting is done by wire services or freelancers. Freelance reporters and photographers can find themselves operating in dangerous regions with little financial or logistical support. It’s dangerous work, and for women the danger is compounded when working in areas where they are subject to physical and sexual abuse.

Critics also have noted for some time that foreign news often features day-to-day big events. Reporting/photography that explains issues takes time and effort. It can’t be done well by sending in photographers for a short term.

Round Earth Media is trying to change many of those characteristics. The organization is a partnership of world-wide organizations that is training the next generation of global journalists. As part of the effort, the organization is supporting the production of multimedia stories on under-reported issues. Round Earth arranges partnerships between young American journalists and early-career journalists in the countries where the reporting takes place. Veteran journalists from Round Earth mentor the partners.

The arrangement provides some safety for the American journalists, provides understanding from the journalists in other countries and benefits the audience by providing depth to foreign reporting.

Round Earth works to cover the journalists’ expenses. Fees paid by media partners help, and the organization receives grant funding and support from individuals. They also current have a Kickstarter campaign going to fund some specific projects.

I know there are students, and early-career journalists, who really want to cover foreign news, but the options are limited. With more photographers being forced into a freelance career, programs like Round Earth could be beneficial for developing a vision of in-depth reporting from around the world.

Covering conflict is one of the consistent features of photojournalism throughout its history. From Roger Fenton in the Crimea and Mathew Brady and company in the Civil War up through the photographers who are covering Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, we have seen images that convey fighting and aftermath.

Political shifts in the last decade or so have changed some aspects of conflict. Wars are to some degree between sovereign nations, but wars are also being fought between groups of people with a particular view, or between nations and those groups. It seems rules of covering war have changed too. It’s always been a risky proposition, but there has been some respect for those who are there to tell the story. That, in turn, is changing the vision we have of conflicts.

A couple of blog postings this week more sharply focused what had been some fuzzy thoughts for me. Donald Winslow’s thoughts on the legacy of Eddie Adams are featured on the New York Times Lens blog. Michéle Léridon has some thoughts on the AFP Correspondent blog about covering the “Islamic State.”

Both authors note that photojournalists are not the only ones supplying photographs and increasingly are not there to make photographs. The risks to photographers are too great to send them into conflict zones where they have no protection. Some freelance photojournalists are trying to fill the void and paying with their lives. So we don’t have the photographs that would reflect the “disinterested” view of the photojournalist. I put that in quotes because, yes, the photographer is representing the western view (“our” vision) but is not there as a representative of the government. (Debates about the neutrality of embedded photographers aside.)

In that void come photographs provided by the groups with a stake in the conflict, such as the current group hoping to set up an Islamic state in the Syria/Iraq area. They are producing and distributing their own photographs and videos (“their” vision). As Winslow notes, “As they attempt to control the message, honest and ethical journalism risks being shoved aside in favor of images that are pure propaganda, if not outright fabrications.” Léridon also notes AFP’s goal of not being used as a vehicle for propaganda.

So if we don’t trust their vision and can’t get our vision, is the alternative no vision? Do news organizations refuse to give space to images they can’t obtain through their own channels? Is publishing their images giving them what they want? If no one knows about a conflict, will it fizzle?

It’s a hard question, and one that’s not new. Photographers, editors and publishers have struggled with the aspects of conflict that should be presented to the public, and the decisions have varied depending on the nature of the conflict and the role the organization sees for itself within the larger society. I don’t think the answers are any easier now. I don’t want to see photojournalists injured or killed for trying to bear witness for the rest of us, but I don’t want just the images that people with a vested interest distribute, the content of which can’t be verified for accuracy. And I don’t think just ignoring it while the combatants do their thing is the answer either.

I don’t have the answer, but I’m glad people are asking the questions. Take a look at the pieces by Winslow and Léridon.

I saw this item on the PDN Pulse blog this morning. A Pittsburgh photographer has received a $10,000 grant to send newborns home with signed prints from local photographers.

The idea was a response to sending babies (and their parents) home with Pittsburgh Steelers “Terrible Towels.” The photographer thought sending them home with art might have a deeper, longer-lasting impact.

I don’t know whether it will turn babies into collectors. My own experience is that you can provide something for the kid but can’t guarantee that the appreciation (if any) will stick that long. In the long run it may mean more to the parents than to the kid.

However, it’s a creative way to use photography, and it’s great that people with funds apparently are looking for unique visions.

That’s a quote from an online article called “Why photojournalism is still a real job.” The article, on the website CULT#MTL, is a review of the exhibit of World Press Photo winning images currently on display in Montreal. In it, author Lisa Sproull notes that “everyone’s a photographer these days.”

But being a photographer doesn’t make one a photojournalist. Photojournalism is communicating. It’s using visual messages to do more that show something that happened. Photojournalists also convey impact and meaning. As Sproull notes, “A good photo doesn’t just show you what happened — it shows you why it matters.”

Showing people why things matter is a skill, and it’s why photojournalism matters.

I didn’t think there was much more that could be done with the database of Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information photographs in the Library of Congress. Then I was made aware of the Photogrammar project from Yale University.

The project is a new way of looking at the work in the FSA/OWI archive. The Library of Congress has had a searchable database of these images, along with many digitized versions of the photographs. Searching for a photographer or a topic or even a location would return a list of photographs matching those terms. So I didn’t think the Photogrammar project was going to be much more than a different way of accessing the same database.

In some respects, that’s true. The main apparent difference is that instead of a search box, visitors to the Photogrammar site are presented with a map of the US. Different shades of green indicate the frequency with which a location is represented in the photographs of the FSA/OWI archive.

There are a couple of neat things about this. First, the visual presentation means that if I can’t think of the name of a specific location or don’t have the right spelling, I can still find it on the map. I can also easily see nearby areas where photographers might have worked. Second, it’s an immediate look at the breadth of where the FSA/OWI photographers worked during the project. There heavily-covered areas are immediately apparent, as are the ones that got little attention. I like this map for what it says about the sociology of the project.

There’s another aspect of this project that definitely adds to the information available. According to one of the blog posts on the project site the call numbers associated with the individual photographs in the Library of Congress archive had a letter/number combination at the end. A little digging indicated that the numbers presented a sequence, as in the order of frames on a strip of negatives. This led the researchers to investigate further, eventually determining that using the codes could allow them to reconstruct the order in which the photographs were made. So now instead of seeing a list of photographs that a photographer made in a specific location we have the opportunity to investigate the order in which the photographs were made and what that tells us about the photographer’s approach.

That’s kind of cool, and it adds to the potential for teaching and research of the LOC archive of these images. Thanks to the people at Yale for taking on this project. Check it out by clicking on the link or the map above.

This is from a blog focused on photographic lighting, but Joe McNally has some things to say about the industry too:

Too often now, the excellence of photo technology preempts the understanding that there is knowledge and experience needed to put that formidable technology to good use. The game of making pictures is not an exercise in automation and pixels, but a decidedly human enterprise, rife with calculations and enterprise even the priciest camera cannot enact. Sending reporters with Iphones out into the world as a means of cutting through the expensive underbrush of publishing is not an answer.

Well put.

So since the tech makes taking pictures easy, why don’t they lay off reporters and let photographers do the stories?

Most of the photographs we see from news organizations on a daily basis are not controversial. Photographs of politicians, ribbon-cuttings, pleasures of daily life or moments in sports events don’t generally require soul-searching discussions in the newsrooms or incite the ire of the viewing public.

Then there are the handful of others.

The Atlantic has recently published an article about a photograph from the 1991 Gulf War that US news organizations didn’t publish. The decision, according to the article, was not based on military control but because of editorial choice. The photograph is of the type that make editors stop and that generate newsroom discussions about whether the content is too graphic or the moment too personal to publish. They are the photographs that generate discussions weighing whether the public needs to see the image to get the idea.

It’s an old discussion, dating back to the beginnings of publishing photographs in newspapers and magazines. In wartime, photographers might be restricted from areas where such photographs might be made. Or the photographs might be censored for fear of disrupting support until, like George Strock’s 1943 photograph of dead soldiers on Buna Beach, someone decides the public really needs to see the reality of war.

The question isn’t limited to war. Newsroom debates have concerned publication of  photographs of drowned kids, bodies of kids who couldn’t escape fires, victims of accidents or emotional situations that border on intruding on someone’s privacy. Sometimes the decision is made that the public needs to see the image to get the full gravity of the situation. Often the decision leans toward not shocking the readers, letting their imaginations fill in the spaces created by words. Editors, as reported in The Atlantic article, worry about the impact on all readers, including whether children might see the image.

It’s good that these conversations exist. Different outlets serve different audiences. What’s too disturbing for some readers of the daily newspaper who subscribe mainly because it’s local might not be too disturbing for readers of a national publication devoted to politics and criticism. But one wonders what the role of a media outlet is and  whether editors give enough credit to their customers. As the article in The Atlantic points out, it’s a new media world. Not publishing a photograph doesn’t mean it won’t be seen. A determined (or maybe not-so-determined) person can probably find the picture online. Maybe that gives editors whose publications might be seen by impressionable audiences greater rationale for not publishing a particular image.

But is the role to protect or to confront? Or something in between? Are there times when protecting the audience is actually doing more harm than confronting them? There’s no easy answer, and the answer today might questioned two decades later. Still, it’s important that the discussions continue. If they stop because everyone has decided to try not to offend the audience, we will not be the wiser for it.

As I last mentioned, there is an advantage to going to an unfamiliar place. The new environment provides ample opportunity to really take a look around you.

Then there’s the stuff that’s right in front of you and realizing it might be gone all too soon. I ran across a photo series on Petapixel this morning that documents a dog’s last day with his family. The dog apparently had a tumor that could no longer be treated. Robyn Arouty’s photographs are presented from the dog’s perspective (Warning: your monitor will probably start to look a little blurry as you scroll through the pictures and captions.):

http://www.robynarouty.com/i-died-today/

Photographs capture moments and representations of the beings and things around us. They can serve as ways to communicate ideas to others, and they can be aids to our own memory. I’m reminded that while there are big things going on in the world, there are lots of little things that are no less intense to the people involved. And I’m reminded that those little things we see daily won’t always be here. Time to appreciate them, and maybe make a few pictures.

(And rest easy, Dukey.)

There is a distinct advantage to going somewhere new, seeing things for the first time. There’s an initial overwhelming stage of trying to get the sense of the place and getting the pictures that capture where you are. After a while though, you start to look closer.

One of the benefits of this experience in Florence, Italy, has been giving me a chance to shake off the routine and to look at what’s around me. Not just to look, but to see and along the way to think about what I’m seeing. I’ve been thinking about the work of other photographers and their use of light/composition/moment. The perfect moment doesn’t always happen just as you arrive with a camera. Sometimes it’s recognizing the scene and what makes it a picture. Or just seeing a pattern of light and waiting. Someone is going to walk in or out of that light. What do you want to say? Is that person coming out of the darkness? Or heading into it? Patience….

Continue reading →

“Photographs will offer indisputable evidence that the trip was made, the program was carried out, that fun was had.”
“Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.”
– Susan Sontag, On Photography (1977)

Continue reading →