If you haven’t visited photographer Alec Soth’s new weblog yet, perhaps you should. On there I came across a post on the amount of coverage post-9/11 as the most photographed event in history. It is odd that when there is any sort of event nowadays, people have the urge to get the camera out and take pictures of it, be it of a catastrophe or your child doing something “special”. What does this say about us?
It should worry us that there are cruelties in the world that are not photographed or reported enough or not at all. It should also worry us that some of the events in “our world” i.e. the western civilisation are excessively reported on. This imbalance of attention needs to be questioned more.
Here’s my response to the thread on Soth’s site:
I think it is very important that images of these events are made, and made in great numbers, by ordinary people, and by ordinary I mean no sleight. The argument of enough is enough should only apply to those making a profit – media, really – which isn’t then to say that professionals should stay clear, just that…. ah, hell, what am I trying to say here?
As historical lesson, no matter the politics attached, it is important to have the memory of such incidents fresh in the minds of all. We can’t learn from history if it is hushed, buried, sanitized, etc. Frankly, the side that demands sensitivity from photographers, that seeks to do away with the imagery and focus on the healing, is really looking for help in forgetting the horrors, and that, in my opinion is as misguided as those who exploit events like WTC to goad the nation into a fight it neither needs nor can justify.
Thanks for the comment Craig. Please also note my other two points: 1) why do we have the desire to photograph everything and to the extent we do? 2) Are events/issues in our cultural realm overly reported on and others in the rest of the world underrepresented (glorification vs. ignorance)?
Dirk, your first question has no definitive answer; akin to asking “what is reality?”. I’m not sure why I am drawn to photography in the manner of moth to a flame, let alone comprehend the We portion of it.
I admit being a bit of a voyeur.
I admit having had a dull and troubled youth.
I admit stumbling along in life and not finding my way into bright lights/big cities/good job/etc, and so perhaps much of what provokes me to photograph people is parasitic in nature, my trying to have something other than my life by snapping moments of others.
That said, I recognize both prince and pauper within me, and I am as eager to photograph the clean faces of college-aged boys out drinking on a Friday night looking to fuck-or-fight as I am the town drunk who’s shat his pants again in broad daylight, an abject embarrassment to his city, family, self. I’ve been on both ends of the fence, and now somewhere in between, the observer.
What would I have done on 9/11? If I’d had a camera, I would have, without a shadow of doubt, been shooting like mad. No camera? Probably dead after rushing into the towers to assist as best I could.
Your second question… out of sight, out of mind.
I do not think most humans are wired to be concerned with much beyond their own predicaments. Where’s the food coming from? Where’s the rent? Who wants what I have? Who has what I want?
The dumbing down of my own countrymen has occurred through a well-orchestrated mass-pandering to the basest desires possessed by all; this stupid American Dream of have it all, have it now, have it for next to nothing… what is reported-on here, in the USA, is what best drives the gears in our form of Capitalism. Issues/Events are only important and worthy of reportage if they benefit the bottom-line of revenue-generating fear and avarice.
I don’t know how to best answer your question other than to ask in return: How can we expect others to think or care about other societies if they scarcely care about their own?
Your ball.
C.