[March 31, 2010]

This week has been a little bit crazy with work. We are in the middle of a busy time dealing with several NGO projects concerning our Team. The good thing about this is that each of these projects will provide help, and assist development to the people that we love and care about.  I had prepared two posts for this week (besides Friday’s 10.Q); the one that you’re reading now, and a 2-Consider that is really linked to what I’m talking about here, so make sure to read that one too (coming soon).

To start, let me share one of the quotes that motivated this post. When I read it, I thought that I was going to publish it under 2-Consider, but there were a lot of other things to chew on so I decided to write it here.

“Valérie Payen-Jean Baptiste, a Haitian elementary school principal who lost all of her possessions, her home and school, and nearly her family, in the quake, was sickened by the images. “I’m not criticizing journalists [who] talk about the facts of the earthquake,” she wrote in a follow-up e-mail. “But my critique is about the tone of unnecessary pictures and videos that showed pieces of bodies, dying people, the nudity of people, or the misery/tragedy of people in line for food and water. Seriously, is this cruelty really necessary to mobilize massive humanitarian action? “

(This is a quote from a very long post about Haiti and the earthquake photography already mentioned)

When I read that article, the words that resonated within me, were the ones of Valérie.  The reason? Because she is part of the subject; she belongs to the people being captured by photographers and she even mention the humanitarian actions as well. Now, I don’t want to enter the land of “how the media/news should cover these events” (or not), or perhaps the ethics of that. No, that’s not my intention at all. Today I’m speaking to humanitarian photographers and to those who aspire to be one.

When we talk about humanitarian photographers, we are not merely talking about photographers shooting for non-profit organizations. We are talking about people that care for humanity; that deal with human beings and their complex situations as a subject. David duChemin said:

“Humanitarian photography, for me, is shooting images for the international humanitarian NGO community, but on a broader scale I think it’s creating images used to move the human heart to broader issues of justice and compassion. I got into this because I was passionate about it and these were the stories I wanted to tell,” (10.Q Interview available this Friday).

So, if we agree that we are photographers that care for other human beings, for justice and compassion, we also have to think of how we can project that; how we can show our respect and give dignity, among other things, to our subjects.

I think we have to stop and think of how the people that we shoot feel after they’ve seen their own pictures published.

Do they regret having met us? Do they wish they had never have been captured by our cameras? Or, do they feel that someone, somehow had shown compassion for them? That someone is telling their story out there so that their kids won’t have to go through the same thing? Do the people in our photos somehow feel hope?

Sometimes, their own society or government neglects people. Do they feel that some “outsiders” are at least trying to do something? My question to you is, “How does your subject feel about you and your photography?”

Don McCullin said this in an interview:

“when I operate alone I try to approach them with dignity. But there is no way of being dignified with dozens of newsmen around, pushing and shoving and punching each other over one injured soldier, shouting to another “You spoilt my picture”, while almost depriving the man from the oxygen around him. I look at them and think, “Who are these people?” At night, in Beirut, they used to meet at the bar, talking about day-rates. Or someone would say to another one : “If you get the cover, you buy us champagne”.

McCullin was sharing some of the things that he witnessed as a war photographer. After all of this, he shoots landscapes today… I wonder why…

What do the people in our photos mean to us?
When we see them in their poverty, in their hardship, do we think of the next photographic competition, or do we empathize with them?

Don McCullin once said:

“Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures”. And then later after another question he reply: “I can tell you which pictures seem to me more meaningful. One is the Biafran mother. Another one is the Indian family, with the woman lying on a stretcher. She had died of cholera, the children were crying and banging the ground, I was looking up to the sky, trying not to let them see that I was crying. I am very emotional, but people don’t know this, I am expected to be the big tough John Wayne of war photography – which I don’t want to be. The man kept saying, “What will I do, how will I feed my children?”

I want to share another great article from a Chilean photographer working for Reuters. He narrates this during what he called,
“His best photo from the earthquake but the one that he never sent.”

“An earthquake survivor carries the dog that he rescued from the ruins of his home, along a street devastated by the earthquake and tsunami. “Take my picture with the dog,” the survivor tells me. I take it as if ordered to, and see that his face shows tremendous pain. “I lost my home, the sea took my son and my wife, and this is all that was left. I can’t leave the dog here. He was my son’s.” He pauses. “I found my wife (alive), but my boy is still missing.” Before he finishes speaking I lower my camera and cry. I walk together with him thinking what to say to lessen his suffering, but there is only silence.”

In this job there are moments where we have to lower the camera… that’s my opinion.  We must make time to share with the people that fuel our passion, or that help us keep our jobs. I invite you to try this if you haven’t already; to really engage with your subject, not just during the shoot, but before and after as well.

It’s not just about our careers or photography, the subject matters as well! If you engage with them, you will see you photography improve, I promise you that. James Nachtwey does, Ami Vitale does, Don MacCullin did, and so have many others. So, not to make this too long…

How do we show/give dignity to the people in our photos? How do we engage with them?

I don’t have a complete answer to this. I’m still experimenting, I’m still learning, I’m in the process, but I already seen some clues that are worth talking about here:

- Do we approach and talk to people? Or do we act like the paparazzi?
- Are we really listening to them? Or do we want to tell our own story?
- Do we care about their perspective of things? Or Ours?
- Do we put our camera down? Or do we just keep shooting (rushing) as if the world will end today?
- Do we come back later to thank them and show them results? Or do we just keep celebrating the last “trophy”?

Sebastiao Salgado said:
“If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture. That is my way of seeing things”.

If you want to keep reading about this, here are some links:

Read question 7 in all the 10.Q Series
Read 2-Consider that I will post this week
Read these links 1-2-3 from Matt Brandon
Read about Ami Vitale in Nikon Magazine Fall 2009… She said among other things: “I think the better work comes when people know you and trust you”.

Follow people like Gavin Gough, David duChemin, etc.

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