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Photojournalism
is dead!
Is photojournalism
dead?
I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside the day the music died.
Welcome, brothers and sisters. On this sad day we gather to remember the
presence in our lives we called photojournalism. The proclamations have
been made - photojournalism is dead - and many believe it to be true.
But this a memorial service rather than a funeral because we have yet
to discover the body. The proof hasn't been found.
My comments today will reflect both my love for photojournalism and my
respect for its basic tenets. One of those tenets is truth or, in my mind,
honesty. So let's be candid. Maybe it's good that photojournalism is gone.
I don't say this with bitterness or defeat. I say it with hope and a sense
of adventure. Photojournalism may be dead but new paths are in front of
us, if we chose to take them.
Photojournalism, we must remember, was invented to bring us from one stage
to another. College professors championed the term for their courses designed
to educate newspaper photographers and elevate them from cigar-chomping,
blue-collared ruffians to serious journalists. The goal was to move from
common laborers who filled photo orders to independent reporters who strove
to show readers images that found truth in the objective reality of photography.
Ah, truth. There's the rub. We believed that if we
used small, unobtrusive cameras and hunted for candid photos that
such images would be patently truthful. There was excitement and challenge
as we entered the hunt, stalking our subjects with stealth and savvy.The
goal was to disappear from the scene to the point that one became
like a fly on the wall.
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With respect to the family's
wishes, there are no photos from this memorial service |
But, my friends, is there any moment more annoying than a dinner with
flies? Is it any wonder Fellini coined the term paparazzo in his film
La Dolce Vita to describe a photographer who swarms like a pesky
insect? Simply observing a scene doesn't insure truth. That was a weakness
in photojournalism - perhaps its fatal weakness.
We were blind to this malady. We made photos in available light because
a flash would change the reality. Some of us were shocked if we saw another
member of the order chatting with a subject as a photo was made. Such
conversation, after all, would challenge the candidness of a photo. We
pretended that we could slip in and out of people's lives, quietly stealing
images, and present those fractions of a second as the truth of person's
life.
We held contests and rewarded ourselves for following the canon dictated
by photojournalism. We began to believe that by its very style, photojournalism
was truthful. Our circle of acceptance grew smaller and smaller and we
operated in an atmosphere of assumptions. Our photos began to repeat themselves
and we narrowed the range of acceptability. We became obsessed with the
doctrine of photojournalism and our justification was "the truth."
And we were wrong.
That doesn't mean we were liars. We relied on the medium of photography
and the commandments of photojournalism to declare the facts around us.
We told the truth as best we could. but it was a partial truth that showed
people at their emotional extremes, in visually simple images that could
be glanced at quickly. We forgot what what photojournalism should have
been.
Now, photojournalism is dead. It's been killed by the giant corporate
media companies that want to increase profits by cutting staff and resources.
Newspapers are anxiously searching for answers in the face of declining
readership and news photography isn't a marketable "news you can
use" commodity. Newsprint is too expensive to publish large photo
stories. It's over.
Alas, photojournalism may be dead but I am still kicking and I want to
make pictures. What now for me and for you, my brothers and sisters? Where
will we go now?
Let me suggest that we remember the spirit of photojournalism when it
was young and take it on in our lives. Let us take a camera and instead
of being being slaves to the hot-spot news of the moment, use it to document
the way people live on this planet. Let us interpret the "journal"
of journalism as a personal statement. Let's experiment with new ways
to make images in the emerging multi-media age. Let's take on the responsibility
for the truth of a photo instead relying on a photography style so that
viewers, when they see our pictures, believe them not because they believe
photography, but because they believe the photographer.
There is no greater gift than the ability to see. The parable of the Good
Samaritan is about giving, but it is also about vision because the man
from Samaria was the only one to really notice a man lying on the road
who was so sick that he appeared to be dead. The other important people
of the day walked by without seeing but the Samaritan noticed his fellow
and stopped to help. The Samaritan could see.
If you ever loved photojournalism as I did, wipe away the tears you've
shed on this sad day and prepare yourself. We will need clear eyes to
see our futures.
Amen.
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