Re: Off-Topic, New Orleans Images - on topic

I also think Christina raised interesting issues - I enjoyed reading her
post (as I do her many of other postings). The ethics of the practice of
photography and of the presentation of photographs themselves is a great, if
not never-ending discussion topic, and relevant to alt-photo-process-l too,
I think. But the suggestion that list members should be protected from
seeing some kinds of photographs, for me, highlights several important
issues including the differing values among so-called first world, western
countries.

I am confounded by the suggestion that Dan's photos were inappropriate for
the list, and, therefore, something 'we' should not see and, by inference,
images that no-one should see. To call for censorship of some photographs on
a photography list is a worrying thought. I understand that images of the
coffins of US soldiers killed in Iraq may not, and are not, reproduced in US
media. Specific images of the reality of war are therefore being censored
and cannot be seen by citizens. That kind of censorship is not the case here
in Australia (yet). I suspect that some shocking images of the New Orleans
tragedy seen in our news media were not shown in the USA.

There have been some truly devastating natural disasters recently. A cyclone
has just recently flattened a town in north eastern Australia. Another
cyclone/hurricane is hovering around Darwin at this minute. (Darwin was
completely destroyed by cyclone Tracy, some 25 years ago.) The quite
horrific tsunami in the Indian Ocean is the best known massive recent
natural disaster. The aftermath has been widely photographed, often in fine
detail by journalists and others. Some of this journalistic work has also
been shown in museums and art gallery contexts. Taken by capable, thinking,
caring, photographers the photographs tell terrible stories. But these
photographs also have a life as aesthetic objects. A practised or good
photographer or photojournalist learns how to make exciting photographs (or
at least images worth looking at) through sheer practice and work, and
develops their own picturing means. The suggestion that Dan's images should
not be seen on this list, also implies that there is some kind of rule about
how disasters, for example, should be photographed. It implies that some
techniques or aesthetics or composition or appearances should not be applied
to difficult or potentially sensitive subject matter - as if there is some
neutral photographic stand point for disasters - or for everything else that
the camera faces. As if there is such a thing as a pure, neutral photograph.
As if Salgado's monumental images are neutral.

I, for one, most particularly appreciated Dan's images both for what they
illustrated and for how they looked. (I'd never heard of HDR before he
mentioned it so here is yet another tehnical digital thing I'll need to
learn.) Dan's images were really worth looking at in my opinion. I thought
that the extreme wide angle view really, really worked - it's a lens with
limited application in my opinion, and yet, here, it was absolutely right.
And other qualities such as slightly de-saturated colour and texture all
combined to make a really evocative and fascinating image of a place IMO.
They made me look, and think - about New Orleans and about photography and
about the two together and I thought it was fine. I might add that from time
to time I have found images put up by list members not to my taste at all. I
don't look at everything posted of course, but, nevertheless, I do
appreciate the effort taken to allow us to see work. Clearly there are many
who do appreciate images that I don't or can't, for whatever reason, and
they say so. That's great. The list's a broad church as they say. But
censoring images for everyone because one person won't use the delete button
is a bit rich, and a bit scary too.

I hope that list members will continue to put up their images for all to
see, and thanks Dan for yours.

Catherine
Received on Wed Apr 26 00:44:11 2006