The Photographer as Director or Documentarian?

It's all in the context.

A photographer enters a scenario as an observer or participant. Usually one or the other. A reportage shooter takes the pictures presented by the reality of the situation. A participant creates an altered scenario to present a 'reality' that is contrived. The former is sometimes the purview of 'news' photographers and some fine art photographers. The latter is the world of advertising photographers and some fine art photographers. And, before the letters come, there are many intersections of the two.

A news photographer can choose a 'view' by framing, exposure, angle and more. An art shooter can do the same... frame a certain view and it can take on a whole different meaning. A photograph of a wounded marine in a moment introspection gives one pause. You wonder at his nobility, shrink a bit from the confrontation with someone who has given far more than you have even been asked to, and write your narrative in your brain. You write a narrative that reflects on your own view. That narrative can be changed by text, context, image title, and presentation. It can also be drawn from existing narratives that have made themselves at home in the confines of your perspective.

Context. A photograph conveys something we all understand... when we understand the context. Without any external context, we draw upon our own. As photographers we use tools for context... editing, light, composition, processing, cropping, presentation and titles. Take a photograph of something innocuous... a glance while eating a salad... make it black and white, gritty even, and give it a title: "Even while eating broccoli, the bastard hated her" - or something. It changes the whole meaning of the image to viewer as it was given external context that may not even represent the reality of the image. Want to make smokestack smoke look non-problematic... shoot it with front light. Process with less contrast. Want to show that same smoke as devastating to the environment? Ok, shoot it backlit with lots of contrast. Same smoke... different context... added by the photographer and his narrative.

Here is a review of an editorial / fine art photographer's 'take' on images of returning Iraq vets. Read it, and consider how often context is referred to... whether in the editing of the photographer or the narrative of the reviewer. I wonder if the person who reviewed this show actually looked at the images, or were they too ready to insert their context, construct it within the narrative that is 'politically correct' and write a political piece. I would have preferred a review of the images... but then, that is just me.

Nina Berman - Art - Review - New York Times: "Ms. Berman took this picture, which is in the solo show at Jen Bekman Gallery, on assignment for People magazine. It was meant to accompany an article that documented Mr. Ziegel’s recovery, culminating in his marriage to his childhood sweetheart. But the published portrait was a convivial shot of the whole wedding party. Maybe the image of the couple alone was judged to be too stark, the emotional interchange too ambiguous. Maybe they looked, separately and together, too alone.

“Marine Wedding,” the portrait’s title, was not Ms. Berman’s first encounter with wounded Iraq war veterans. She photographed several others beginning in 2003, and 20 of her portraits were published as a book, “Purple Hearts: Back From Iraq” (Trolley Books, 2004), with an introduction by Verlyn Klinkenborg, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times. These pictures, accompanied by printed interviews with the sitters, have been traveling the country, and 10 are now at Bekman."

The images are frank and spellbinding portraits, but where the NYT critic sees a political indictment, and seems almost giddy at times with a self-important agenda that puts the photographs into a tired, pre-designed narrative, I see powerful images of men who have been irrevocably changed. Forever. And the awkwardness of facing their changes while sitting in the comfort of my home, knowing they were willing to sacrifice this... and more... to allow me that privilege is at times overwhelming.

In these days of 24/7 coverage of underage sluts going to rehab, it is sometimes stunning to see the kind of people who sometimes are seemingly forgotten. These images will not be.