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.