The Digital Age

Fred Ritchin is currently the director of pixelpress.org, he is the former editor for The New York Times, he has written multiple books, taught at Tisch and NYU, and he is overall known for his commentary on the "Digital Age".
I looked into Pixel Press a little and this is a direct quote from their "About Us" page on their site:

" At PixelPress our intent is to encourage documentary photographers, writers, filmmakers, artists, human rights workers and students to explore the world in ways that take advantage of the new possibilities provided by digital media. We seek a new paradigm of journalism, one that encourages an active dialogue between the author and reader and, also, the subject."

This quote shows what Ritchin likes about photography, we can conclude from this quote and the reading, After Photography, Into the Digital, that Ritchin is supportive of contemporary digital photography that can be used to show the 'real' in the world not a subjective manipulation of it.


 In After Photography, Into the Digital Ritchin opens the first chapter saying hat photography is ending and enlarging. He goes on to talk about how technology in general has changed the contemporary lifestyle. On page 16 he talks about how machines (Mac's in this example) have been made out to be seemingly more intelligent than their human owners.
On page 17 he says, "the digital inhabits the land of the in-between, and beyond". I believe that here he is talking about how digital photography is not real in a sense. While it is striving to capture things in the real would it is made up of data not light like film is. [Side Note: This makes me wonder if Ritchin is more supportive of photographers who shoot film but then scan it, rather than just shoot digital?] Because digital images are less tangible Ritchin also hints at the fact that this makes them loose their meaning after  they are used over and over. Digital also gives the photographer the room to shuffle information or to manipulate the image. Ritchin calls this photographer the, "postmodern visual disc jockey."
He see's digital as being too at hand or too quick, because of this the images loose an aura. This reminds me of Walter Benjamin's The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, and how a repeated image looses it's aura. On page 22 Ritchin talks about author Don DeLillo and the story of the aura of the most photographed barn. How no one even sees the barn because it has such an aura created by photography. It has become something more.
Photography has always been used in multiple ways but it has always been regarded as a medium that could be trusted. This believed fact has never really been true but according to this article we must now question photography more than ever because in the digital age, images have become very easy to manipulate. This effects how we perceive images seen all around us, in the media, advertising, and art.

To more blatantly answer the question, as to what Ritchin's position is about how and why digital changes photography; I would have to say that because digital photography is so immediate, all around us, and easily manipulated it affects how we see things and we must now more than ever question the truth and the realness of what we see in images.
So what about digital photography and the real?
The digital age already makes us experience moments in life through a screen instead of in actuality. This is one way that digital photography affects the real. On page 21 Ritchin says,
"It is not because it makes it more immediately "real" that we prefer the image, but because it makes it more unreal, and unreality in which we hope to find transcendent immortality, higher, less finite reality."
Does this mean that the age we live in now is more comfortable in finding something more perfect than the real?
Ritchin himself mentions how young people take many photos of themselves to achieve the perfect facebook or myspace image, this could be one example. Another could be the staged shots by celebrities managers or advertisements trying to sell us the perfect product. Are we so incised by perfection that we are allowing ourselves to be manipulated?
Ritchin mentions Sontag on page 23. They interestingly seem to share a like of photography that documents real life struggles. He quotes her saying, " A photograph is not only an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask." He then says, "the 'real' she was referring to was the scene itself."
We read previously Sontag's dislike of the mass bombardment of images in the media that has come from new technology and ways of sharing and taking pictures. At the end of the chapter Ritchin says, "In the globalized marketplace both image and sham are spreading, intertwined." "Once the world has been photographed to is never the same." To him, it seems that the digital's relationship to photography is that the viewer must now question what they see.
Many of the photographers and images that we discussed surrounding photographing the pain of others would be example of the kind of photography Ritchin likes and believes to be 'real'.
Paul D'Amato might be an over used example, but I think that he's a great photographer who is a good example of a documentary photographer of the 'real'. Paul documents chicago neighborhoods like Pilsen ad Cabrini Green.

Another example I found on the PixelPress website, one of their photographers, Joseph Rodriguez, documents many rough subjects in an array of locations but his project highlighted on the website was East Side Stories where he explores the lifestyle of L.A. gang members. 

Jorge Ribalta is a Spanish curator, critic, artist and author of Molecular Photography. In Molecular Photography Ribalta denounces Ritchins argument in After Photography. While it can be said that Ritchin is arguing that photography is dead, Rivalta argues that photography is not dead but simply modifying with time. In fact to me it seems that Ribalta and Ritchin share a common thought about the importance of contemporary documentary photography. 

On page 179 Ribalta talks about how photography comes from the industrial age already a time of great change in the world. Since photography's beginnings it has grown and changed through out time. He goes on to talk about anyone working the in field of photography in the 90's "experienced a sense of losing materials" and how digital has been replacing older processes. I can attest to this fact myself years later. From the time I have been at Columbia studying photography I have seen and hear a lot about the changes. In fact there is even talk about how the into color photography class is going to be changed in to a Lightroom class. Perhaps this change is so bothersome to me because I really loved my color photo class, it was something new and exciting that I got to learn but sadly color darkrooms are disappearing and being replaced with digital means of image making. 

On page 179 Ribalta continues to speak about digitals integration into photography. He talks about the sad but true fact that the digital world allows anyone to be a photographer. Point and shoot digital cameras replace disposable ones and give the user even more control, and with Photoshop anyone can be their own post-producer. As he says Photoshop "privatizes" photography. Because of this easy access to capturing and editing images a new sort of visual culture has been created. Thus in a way the ammeatur world of photography has forced the professional world to attempt to change in whatever ways necessary. 

Ribalta says that traditional photography has/is dying but digital technology is allowing something new to be created. He says on page 180, "Photography dies but the photographic is born." He then says, "photography becomes molecular" or in other words photography in a way has died but it has now shifted it's past energy into something new. He goes on to say how. "digital photography is an imitation of analogue" and that "photography's indexicality is eliminated by the artificial construction of digital photographs. After Photoshop realism is an effect." 

All of this leads us to the question he then proposes in the following paragraph, "Is photography without realism culturally possible and politically desirable?" 

Heres a mix of his ideas with mine:

1. He more or less says that loosing realism means that photo loses its historical importance as means to archive. I agree in a way but doesn't it mean that we just have a new way to archive and a new way to capture a world that is already radically different?

2. Ribalta thinks that photo without realism is not important because it holds no greater meaning, he says that it is "literally dead." I'm starting to think that he's as much of a downer as Ritchin. I get the point documentary photo intrinsically trys to show the truth in the world, but even then it doesn't always. A camera is made to record but it is always as subjective as the person who is behind it. Also isn't it a fact that even though work like Loretta Lux heavily manipulated image seen in Ritchin's article is still a representation of our time? Yes it might not be a depiction of life but it's a depiction of our means, it is a representation of a process that is new to our contemporary. Ribalta says that doc photography holds a 'power' I agree but these other processes can hold a different importance or power.

3. Ribalta says that we must now find how photography can still be socially relevant. Like I said above in 2 I believe that it is in a new way. He says that we need to find this in photo naturalism but I argue that   social relevance to our time can be found in many formats of photography. 

Ribalta quotes Martha Rosler on page181 saying how important documentary photo is and will always be. I found this ironic myself because Rosler's well known work is far from documentary. These images are from her newer take on "Bringing the War Home, done in 2004.

Ribalta calls for a turn away from photoshop and manipulation and says that what he calls molecular photography now needs to be a molecular revolution. Is he saying that he wants us to fight for which way photography shifts instead of allowing it to natural flow? He says that documentary methods need to be re thought, which I agree with. I think that documentary photos can still function when the artist adds a little more to them (in though when shooting, not post production.) He uses the work of Jo Spence, a british artist who works with self portraits that deal with image, world and health issues. While her work fits his arguments it is a but dated.

These images are in a sense documentary but they have been made purposely by the artist. The writing on herself is a direct to-be-seeness. This work also has a amateur-ish quality to it (in a good way) as well as a therapeutic quality. This work makes me think of Gillian Wearing and her project where she approaches people on the street and has the write on signs. Would Ribalta be a fan of hers? She is documenting people but she is also initialing or has a hand in creating the moment. 

He begins to describe molecular documentary as a collaboration between multiple artist or even historians. He talks about Patrick Faigenbaum's project that documented the outskirts of Barcelona with the help of historian Joan Roca that was displayed at the Museu d'Art Contemorani de Barcelona. I found an interesting review of the work is anyone is interested in reading further. Ribalta talks about an exhibit at the museum that is a survey of Barcelona much like the FSA project of the 30's in the U.S. Museum spaces are important to him to keep archives and to share knowledge. He talks about how great of a communicating tool it is but to me it seems like photography's very basic starting point. It can do so much more. 

Ribalta stresses that we must find the real in photography and maintain it as a way to archive. 

Corey Dezenko is a PhD student in the Art History department at the University of New Mexico. She is also the only one that this point who I agree with and didn't seem to contradict themselves at some point in her article, Analog to Digital.                                                    She begins by stating the same fact as the others that digital has accelerated and enlarged the scale of traditional photography. Where Dezenko differs is that she notices that the fact that digital changes the indexical connection between image and reality is a theory and that the two previous theories I have blogged about overlook the fact that people still read digital images as being revealing. In other words people still read digital photos the same way they would analog ones.

Dezenko say's, "Photographs are perceived to represent reality in their reference to a subject in time."Here she is stating that yes photography by nature records things but she also acknowledges that it has other abilities. She also states that yes digital images are now made with data instead of light but again this doesn't affect how most people would view the image. 

Damian Sutton an Irish professor of film say's in his essay Real Photography, that "photography has always been "dubitative"... and this characteristic is not the province of the digital image alone."I brought up this point earlier that photography in the ages before digital could also be un-true, staged or manipulated. 

The example Dezenko uses of the real life garden that online viewer took care of was very interesting for the argument that digital can be real. (Ken Goldberg's Telegarden). Even more interesting was that over 10,000 people participated in the online project. This shows that it is not just a select few people who are not turned off by the integration of the real and the digital. She goes on to list other digital formats that are still widely accepted as real. For example, online newspapers or magazines and digitally captured images that are put in newspapers. 

So what about heavily manipulated images that can still be believable? She uses Kerry Skarbakka as an example. 

This image (Stairs, 2002) is a slef portrait made by Skarbakka by using climbing gear to simulate falling, he then photoshops out the gear. To those more familiar with photography we might be able to realize that this image is not believable but to others it could be. Dzenko ads in that this image was featured on the website, faliblog.org where online users commented on the photo believing that it was real. While the fall is simulated there are parts of the image that are indeed "real". The camera captured him and these stairs at this time. 

This work makes me think of other photographers like, Ben Gest, Kelli Connell, and Nathan Baker who all digital manipulate their work.

Ben Gest

Kelli Connell

Nathan Baker

Dzenko ends the article with saying that no matter what changes continue to happen in the switch from analog to digital that they will not change the viewing process of images. 

I agree with Dzenko on that topic that digital or analog, images are read in a way that does not matter. I disagree with photography being dead, the world is changing in every aspect so of course photography is as well. I think that we should learn to embrace these digital methods and make them work for ourselves in the realm of professional photography. I think it is important that pros find a way to keep their world separate from amateurs now that everyone owns a digital camera of some sort and has access to Photoshop. As far as documentary photography is concerned, I don't that it is the only form of photography that matters but I do think that it plays a special role in capturing the world at a certain time. 

The Contemporary Concept of Race in Regards to Photography (week 7)

[I apologize for the weird spacing, I'm having weird issues with blogspot today. sigh.]

Howard Winant is an American sociologist and race theorist. He is most well know for his collabrative work with Michael Omi, Racial Formation in the United States. Winant and Omi's theory of racial formation is that race was created in the United States as a way to organize people in society, however this way of organizing is ever changing through what they call racial projects. In The Theoretical Status of the Concept of Race, Winant identifies different theories of race, dismisses the ones he doesn't agree with and then projects his own concepts at the end of the article. Here are some of the key theories that Winant brings up but does not agree with:

Idea #1 Race as an ideological construct:  This idea is strongly held by historian Barbara Fields. This idea is explained as a sense of "false consciousness". Fields believes that the idea of race developed in the states as a way to explain slavery to society or that "it arose to meet an ideological need." According to her this illusion that race was formed upon then becomes a reality. Fields says that race is not genetic but it is something that is learned and handed down through time. She is quoted saying "once historically acquired, race becomes hereditary." Fileds also believes that race is only around today because we continue to create it in society.
Winant calls her theory. "extreme" and says, "that at best it can only account for the origins of race thinking in a social context." He says that this theory fails mainly because it does not recognize how race forms social organizations and identity. Winant more or less states that without a racial identity one has no identity. (p55)

Idea #2 Race as an Objective Condition: This theory objectifies race identity and meaning. Theorist Daniel Moynihan, William Julius Wilson and Milton Gordon follow this theory where race is less fluid an historically defined. They deny the biological formation of race and say that racial groups formed due to social and political happenings. This theory does not allow a lot of room for change and more or less creates racial stereotypes where members of specific races must identify and behave within the constructs of their given race. As Winant states on page 56, this theory puts people in American in one of five skin color based categories, black, white, brown, yellow and red. Winant dismisses this theory by making the clear point that "nobody really belongs in these boxes; many people do not fit anywhere." Winant also brings up that this theory does not account for or accept people of a specific race who do not "act" like their race.

Idea #3 Toward a Critical Theory of the Concept of Race: Winant's own theory recognizes the way that history has framed the idea of race as well as the social constructions of identity. On page 58 he makes a great point by saying, "racial space is becoming globalized, and thus accessible to a new kind of comparative analysis." Immigration is changing the way many countries racial identify.
Winant also makes the point that now more than ever we live in a world where people have imidiate racial awareness, it is a way to instantanously identify with someones culture (though it is not always fitting). However he also remarks on how some race identities are becoming "raceless" over time. For examples white identity has become so mixed from so many nationalities that it is starting to lose it's transparency according to Winant on page 59.
He basically sums up his article by saying that the idea of race has changed over time just as the world has globalized over time. The concept of race is still changing. He believes that the change to come is that race dosen't/ won't signify anything about a persons identity or any sort of difference among people. Each "categorized" race will eventually be watered down (if you will) in a way that will no longer matter, we will all be humans, just a variety of humans according to Winant.

Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self" was an exhibit on display at the International Center of Photography in New York in 2003. The exhibit was curated by Brian Wallis and Coco Fusco (who is also an artist). The review in the New York Times by Holland Cotter, who describes the show as both "confounding and confusing". The show included a wide range of images, spanning in time from pre WW1 to contemporary digital images; all of the work addressed the "American Identity, especially the idea of race.
Cotter says in the third paragraph, "The show proposes that race, far from being a biological fact, is a value-laden social concept, fiction that many find useful. It argues that this concept permits a certain group of people to control other groups by establishing a system of hierarchical ranking..."
A key part of the exhibition was that the curators did not include text other than the titles to explain any of the pieces. Cotter says that, "the data deprivation leaves you in an interesting state of innocence." The viewer gets to figure out the context of the images in their own, how they work together and what they say about race on their own.
The artist in the show commented on different aspects of race in society in different ways. One subsegment was about racial hierarchies an dhow photography can capture these and reinforce a certain way of thinking. In this segment there was the expected imagery of slaves and their owners but there was also Ken Light's image from 1994, "Strip Search, Shakedown Room of Visiting Area."

The exact context of the image is unknown when seen at this exhibition but the racial hierarchy here is obvious.
Racial stereotypes as a form of control and society is also brought up in the show. The article from the 1941 issue of Life magazine on how to tell Japanese and Chinese men apart is especially troubling. These images not only talk about these aspects of racial issues but also show us how racial thinking has changed over time.

Carrie Mae Weems used historical images to make contemporary art. She appropriated the pictures of slaves taken by scientist to support racist social darwinism theory and uses them in a way that relates to how she understands her own historical identity in the piece, "From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried." 

Also included in the exhibit were images that were especially difficult to look at, like Ernest C. Withers's l image of Emmett Till's brutally beaten dead body. Thinking about these brutal images makes me think about Azoulay's article and how these images can hold an importance in society. I think it is important for us to realize that these things have happened and the impact that they have made on history. 

Cotter wraps up the article with commenting on how race remains an "unbudgeable fact of American life." Race will always be something that we individuals will automatically identify with and it is still something that has become such a prominent part of our countries history. While images commenting on these issues can be difficult to view I think that they are important to view and understand. 

A few years perviously Cotter wrote another article in The New York Times on multiculturalism. When I hear multiculturalism I automatically think about the work being made in the 1990's; how it was the first time that identity, in many forms, (gender, sexual, race and ethnicity) was heavily brought into the art world.  I always associate multicultralism with the early artist working in this way, especially Jimmie Durham and James Luna who both make work that encorperates their Native American identity. 

James Luna, Artifact Piece, 1987

However Cotter's article brings up what I think is an important aspect of multiculturalism now (even when this article was written almost ten years ago). While since the rise of the multicultralism movement in the art world more artist from different races and ethnicities have been able to show their work they are also often sort of pigeon-holed or put off into their own categories. Cotter says. "The deal was, you could get inside the gates, but your movements were restricted." Artist who self identified as a minority artist could get into the art world but the danger was/is that they might not ever be able to break out of that world and into the larger at scene. 

For example the "Freestyle" exhibit in Harlem, that Cotter mentions, was made up of 28 African American artist and was also curated by Thelma Golden (an African American woman). Golden called the exhibit, "postbalck art" but creates a confusion. All of the artist are black and much of the work is based on identity (if I am correct) so regardless the term "postblack" seems confusing. Historian, David A. Hollinger comments on how labels like "postblack" seem progressive to the people of that movement but these names still separate them from the majority. Sadly still today in 2011 the typical successful artist is a white middle class man, we think of the contemporary as being so much more progressive but then why is it that the man group getting ahead (in almost every aspect of society) is exactly that. 

This article made me think of Ayanah Moor, who happens to be a black woman artist but she also refuses to identify herself with solely black, or African American shows. I'm not saying there is a right way or a wrong way to try to make it in the art world. I myself have applied to shows that are only for women artist, I think it an alright way to get your feet wet when maybe there are not as many options open to you (as a non white, non middle class and or non male artist) but I certainly understand how constantly identifying oneself as a minority artist could almost be detrimental to ones career. Ayanah Moore works in a way that embodies her identity as a black female but she does not let herself be solely confined by those labels. 

Krista Thompson is an Art Historian who is especially interested in visual culture in Africa Diaspora. She currently teaches at Northwestern University. She wrote the article The Sound of Light: Reflections on Art History in the Visual Culture of Hip-Hop.      Thompson starts the article out by describing an extreme side of black youth culture; the senerio is that of black youth who go to extremes to "be seen being seen". In multiple cases girls have no only rented expensive vechicles to show up in but they also hired photographers to act as paparazzi. These teenagers are striving to make the moment of being made into a representation. 

Early on when hip-hop first started in the 70's it was all about making comments on politics, but that quickly changed in the 80's; in the 80's hip-hop content changes from politics to pleasure. This turn to pleasure could also be referred to "hyper-capitalization" or an obsession with showing wealth. In the 80's hip-hop also starts to digitalize (much like contemporary art) it becomes more accessible. At this time hip-hop magazines start to circulate and hip-hop culture's visualization spreads, it also starts to spread through album covers, tv and music videos. 

The word Bling is coined by B.G. in 1998 and goes on to enter the Merriam-Webster Dictionary where it is defined as, calling attention to a moment where wealth is being displayed in light and sound. This is what hip-hop artist are doing through their music but especially in their music videos. Images of "pimped out" cars, gold jewelry, champagne and scantily clad women become symbolizes of bling-bling or wealth. 

Thompson talks about Hype Williams effectivly using this idea of light and sound in the videos that he directs. Hype uses a lot of shiny, reflective surfaces in his videos, bright lights, shiny cars, jewelrey and even black women's skin are used. Hype says that he has been inspired by Rembrandt's use of light in his paintings. In art historical paintings light was used to emphasize materialistic quality Below is the video, Feel So Good, by Mase, directed by Hype William.

The Nightwatch by Rembrandt, 1642

Hype is also known for his use of a fisheye lens, referencing a magnifying glass and the idea of voyeurism.  One of my personal favorite videos of Hype Williams and a good example of his use of the fisheye lens is Busta Rhymes' Gimmie Some More. 

The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein, 1533

Like Rembrandt, Hans Holbein was another historical painter that used a sense of tangibility in his paintings. Thompson brings up his painting, The Ambassadors for its success in showing tangibility and wealth. (and who can overlook that creepy skull at the bottom?) But of course more importantly is how the light highlights the mens "bling" or signs of wealth. Could it be that rich noble men from this era were an influence on hip-hop visual culture? 

Could the portrait of King Henry VIII by Holbein be the founding figure of hip-hop, probably not, but look at that bling bling and of course his lifestyle was somewhat indicative of hip-hop culture. Paintings like this emphasized the shinnies of the mens material objects but never of their skin. Making the skin shinny would make it an object, which makes me think of the hip-hop videos where black women (or any woman's skin) is shown as being shinny as being even more sexist than I thought it was before. By making the woman's skin shinny they are being seen as objects. This also makes a negative reference to the way that slaves were oiled up before being sold. 

Kehinde Wiley was quoted in an interview in 2004 saying, "I'm interested in history as it relates to bling-bling." Wiley a MFA Yale grad is well known for his shinny oil paintings of black male youth in the style of european art historical paintings. Both styles include the spectacle of their cultures and also gives the subject a sense of power. Wiley is inspired by the use of light and the shininess emphasized on material objects in the art history paintings. He is also inspired by the white lights used by Hype Williams. Wiley incorperates the use of the white lightings into his process of making his paintings. Wiley makes his paintings by finding black youth who are dressed in the hip-hop style from off the urban street, he then brings them to his studio where he photographs them under many lights. He then uses light again to project the image onto the canvas where he then paints the image with oil paint. 

Female Prophet Anee, Wiley 2003

Wiley places with space in all of his paintings. He adds a decorative pattern to the foreground and background as a reference to the decorative objects in the historical paintings. The patterns are also indicative of designs used in the 16th century. His paintings highlight how African American youth often perform visibility and represent themselves through visual effects much like how the ornate details of the rich merchants are shown in the historical paintings. Wiley says the way the black youth dresses is about "the importance of being seen being seen." This is much like the teenagers who used paparazzi to gain attention at their proms, they want to be looked at the way celebrities are. Wiley makes his models feel like celebrities through his process.

Wiley is also interested in how male power is depicted in hip-hop culture, he is also interested in the hyper-sexualization of women in hip-hop culture. Thompson describes Wiley's work as homoerotic, which is interesting in the context of a culture that is generally homophobic. Wiley is a gay man, perhaps this is why there are no women depicted in the sense even when his painting is a reenactment of a historical painting that featured a woman. 

Overall Wiley describes his paintings as being about, "The consumption and production of blackness and how blackness is marketed to the world."

Immaculate Conception, Kehinde Wile, 2003

Untitled (Single Floating Cheerleader, a.k.a. Hoochy Goddess)

Luis Gispert (also a MFA Yale graduate) is best known for his large format photos of young girls of different ethnicities dressed as cheerleaders on green screens. Gispert is largely influenced by baroque paintings and how they over use ornamentation much like hip-hop culture, to emphasize this he weighs his models down with bling. He uses cheerleaders because they are a wide known symbol of American pop culture through all races. Gispert poses the girls like virgin mary's, saints and religious figures, they have super natural qualities in the way that they are able to levitate. He is interested in perceptive and scale and how they can create the illusion of gravity and floating in space. 

Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Bartolome Esteban Murillo, mid 1600's. 

Gispert uses the overzealous amounts of bling to make the humans in the images secondary subjects. This is apparent in his image, Car Toes. There is another aspect of bling in these images because the images are large (tableau) glossy prints.

Photography and Ethics (week 6)

To me it is interesting that our readings this week are both from two female authors and theorist. Susan Sontag and Ariella Azoulay both write about the ethics of photography. I personally find it intersting that this point is brought up my mainly female theorist. I think that this is an important fact to regard, even Sontag herself brings up a point in her own essay of women being more compassionate or involved towards images of suffering.

Author, theorist and activist, Susan Sonatg has written many things about the ideas of war and photographing it. In Regarding the Pain of Others she reforms some of her ideas on images of war and suffering.
She reinstates two ideas in the beginning of this reading that I think are the basis for the rest of her thoughts.

Idea #1: public attention is steered by the attentions of the media. "the CNN effect" or that pictures make things (like war) real.
Idea #2: there are too many images in the media today; we are overexposed and this makes the images loose their effect on the viewers (even the really important images).

In other words, without photos, war doesn't seem real to those of us who are distanced from it, but with too many photos of war it becomes "less real" to the viewer or the viewers become detached. I believe that this is true in our contemporary. We live in a generation powered by technology and media, now more than ever people are able to access the media in so many ways, tv, internet, and even on their mobile devices, smart phones, ipad, ect. Sontag comments on how some people think that we are now seeing more images of war than ever but she states that this feeling is most likely do to the fact that viewers are just exposed to these images in more ways than ever.


On page 104 Sontag mentions the critique of modernity, "Modern life consists of a diet of horrors by which we are corrupted and to which we gradually become habituated." I think this is a perfect way to describe the way that we are now impacted by images. Like I mentioned previously now more than ever we are constantly exposed to images of war and violence through the media, this impacts how we respond to such matters and it even becomes a part of our daily lives. We are suddenly able to over look something horrible though we have no real way of actually experiencing it.
Essentially  this is Sontags' whole discussion, the viewers of war photography and images of suffering are usually not people who have ever experienced such horrors so they are not able to connect with the subjects and on top of that the viewers have seen so many of these images that it is now hard for them to not be numb towards them.
On page 109 Sontag mentions how "we live in a society of spectacle", we only see these images as spectacle through the nightly news. Or we see them in the other format, as art, hung on walls in galleries that are so far removed from the world of the suffering. I myself have experienced this feeling a few times at galleries where images of suffering are displayed. Every once and awhile I will see an image of suffering and think "oh that's awful" to myself but then I just move on. It is easier to just forget about the image because I feel as the viewer there is nothing I can do other than acknowledge what is happening in the image. On page 115 Sontag talks about how remembering is an ethical act itself but how it is human nature to forget suffering in order to live in peace. We do this on a small scale in our own daily lives, we are almost trained to react this way to larger things that we can not experience or relate to.

About a mont ago I went an opening at the Stephen Daiter Gallery, on display was the work of Alex Webb, photojournalist and Magnum photographer. His images seemed very different than a lot of other photojournalist images I have seen that come out of area of poverty and/or suffering. It seems clear to the viewer when seeing a collection of Webb's work that he is trying to show a sort of beauty or other side of what he is photographing, he incorporates vivid colors and interesting perspectives into his photojournalism, but do these aspects of beauty take away from what is really happening in these scenes?

Another exhibit that comes to mind is La Frontera that was up at the MOCP in 2010. The show was about the impact of Mexican migration to the U.S. One photographer, David Rochkind's work stands out in my mind. I remember hanging the photograph of a dead man who had been shot in the head on the wall and questioning how I felt about it's presence. I for some reason didn't feel  compassion that I feel bad for lacking but I had no real way to connect to the concept. Of course I felt bad for the family of the man but the feeling that I first really felt was fear. It is scary to think that I am looking at an images of someone who was just recently brutally murdered, but at the same time it didn't feel real enough. It was a strange mix of feelings I felt, it was as if I wanted to care more than I did, I wanted it to move me but instead I feel more on the numb side, I just wanted to remove the image from my presence because it bothered me not only in the way of what I saw but also what I felt. Rochkind is a photojournalist, the images below are from his body of work, Heavy Hand, Sunken Spirit where he is documenting the violence and impact of the mexican drug cartel. The first image is the one that I talked about my experience with. 

As viewers it is easy for us to distance ourselves from these rough images because of our actual distance from the subject matter but are these works exploitive? Is it wrong to see the pain of others in a gallery space as art? Maybe it is maybe it isn't, Sontag doesn't really state her opinion and I'm not sure if I have one. In a way I think it could be wrong depending on if the photographer is making finical gain off of other peoples suffering (this seems horribly wrong to me.) On the other hand Sontag mentions, how else would we even see images like this? Sure we are overwhelmed by these images but there is not other way to experience it. Also there is the role of the photographer themselves, while one might say they are exploiting theses people, they are also risking their lives to get these images, one might infer then that these images must really mean something to the photographer, it must then be important for some reason for the photographer to get them out into the world. 

Ariella Azoulay is an Israeli author and theorist. Like Sontag she often writes about the ethical issues of war and suffering photography. While she is like Sontag in the manner that they both are addressing the same general subject and both relate that subject back to women, Azoulay talks more in the favor for photographing suffering than Sontag does. It is also interesting that as an Israeli, Azoulay has a personal connection to many images of suffering that are still being documented even now.
In the intro of The Civil Contract of Photography, Azoulay talks about how as a child she had fictional images of conflict in her head from things her mother would say. As she grew up those "phantom images" as she refers to them were replaced by the real images of the Israeli, Palestinian conflict that she would see in the media. For Azoulay the people in these images seemed to be speaking to the viewer addressing them in a way that seemed as though they were not looking for pity but perhaps it was just that the subject felt like they needed to be seen. Azoulay mentions Barthes, Baudrillard and Sontang and their opinions on the bombardment of images of suffering in the contemporary and how that forces viewers to loose interest. Azoulay seems to be fighting for why it is important that we hold our interest in these pictures as viewers. (p.11) Also on page eleven, without saying it, it seems to me that she is almost  making an argument against the idea that these images are explotive (or at least not when they are taken).

 She says, "there is something that extends beyond the photographer's action, an no photographer, even the most gifted can claim ownership of what appears in the photograph."

This makes me think of Barthes idea of the punctum. To me she is speaking of the unintentional emotion or thing that hits the viewer of the image, the photographer didn't even plan it and is not even aware of it perhaps. 

On page 14 Azoulay says, "One needs to stop looking at the photograph and instead start watching it." I take this in a way that means us as viewers must rethink the "gaze", we should not just take a glimpse at an image of suffering but we must watch it in the sense that we must understand that this is something real happening in a real time and the place depicted still exists in someway and the person depicted is real  and that there are unseen moments after this image was taken. I almost leaves me wishing that there were always a contact sheet hung on the wall with the art work, reminding me that there was a before and after other than the frame chosen to serve as the representation of the moment. Azoulay says that watching the photograph, "becomes a civic skill, not an exercise in aesthetic appreciation." (p.14) We can train our eyes to see these images as messages not just art. Being the spectator of the image turns into  the viewer performing a civic duty toward ( or for) the subject (who still occupies that place).

Azoulay talks about how a subject of suffering engages the camera and the viewer they are not being exploited but rather they are being given the chance to be a "citizen". Her argument for this makes a lot of sense when put into the context of the Israeli, Palestinian conflict situation. She more or less says that in the world of the camera, photographer, subject and viewer in these situations , none of them have a particular power to govern the other, there for the subject is free (maybe for the first time) to show their own truth. They are not governed, they can be a citizen in that moment and maybe in that image. Azoulay uses the image of the merchant by Anat Saragusti as an example of this idea.

The man stands in front of the camera obviously aware, showing us the result of his lack of citizenship in the real world but here by posing and speaking his mind through an action he regains an importance or a citizenship as Azoulay would say. She also says something along the lines of (on page 18) that when subjects of suffering acknowledge the camera, this shows a common recognition  that this situation is intolerable for the viewer to understand.
In the case of the daguerreotype of the branded hand by Southworth and Hawes, Azoulay talks about the collaboration between the aware subject of suffering and photographer to reach the assumed viewer and try to make an image that will not only interest them but also ensue their civic responsibility that at least acknowledges the injustice shown in the image.
Though she is interested in many aspect of photography invloving the suffering of people Azoulay seems most concrned with how an image of suffering can give the subject (usually when aware of being photographed) the power to be seen as a citizen again and to share their injustice with others.

I had a hard time thinking of a war photographer with a good amount of images where the subject is aware of or making a connection with the photographer and viewer. I eventually thought of the image of the survivor of a Hutu death camp in Rwanda in 1994 by James Nachtwey. Though the subject does not confront the viewer with their eyes it is obvious that they are aware that the image is being made, thus in Azoulay's thinking they are regaining their citizenship, or perhaps in powered in the way that they can share this experience of suffering with others.

Ariella Azoulay also wrote an introduction for photographer Gillian Laub's book, Testimony. In this project Laub documents the Israeli city on the beach Jaffa, where Jews and Arabs both live. Azoulay's interest in these images is clear even without her explanation of them. Gaub's images are about the peoples depicted identities through the use of clothing and objects. If you look long enough at the subjects you can notice the ways in which these individuals have suffered because of the conflict in the country they live in. While some people have clearly suffered physical suffering you can sometimes read the emtional suffering through the others. Laub also had her subjects write about their experiences to include in the book. I think that by doing this the idea of the subject of suffering becoming a citizen and regaining some sort of power is even stronger. Laub is giving her subjects a voice visually and through words.