Via Jigsha Desai

HonestReporting.com uses one of AP photographer Enric Marti's images to convey to us how the media is manipulated by Palestinians.

I went looking for other stories about photojournalists on that site and I found a story called “Something Fishy at AFP,” taking a jab at how an Agence France Presse photographer covered the bombing of a suspected terrorist's home.

HonestReporting.com calls itself one of the largest media watch groups. I found the anti-Palestinian stance to be too much of a coincidence. So, I dug a little deeper to find out if the site was at all independent.

Give them credit for being, um, honest. HonestReporting.com says this about itself:

Since October 2000, in addition to fighting an anti-terror war, Israel has been fighting a media war. In news outlets around the globe, journalists regularly misrepresent Israel as the aggressor and Palestinians as the victims.

In response, HonestReporting was established to scrutinize the media for anti-Israel bias, then mobilize subscribers to respond directly to relevant news agencies.

While they make somewhat convincing arguments about the photographs and the methods used to “capture” the conflict in Israel, I get the feeling that they would rejoice the end of the Palestinian perspective altogether.

Is there bias in the media? You bet there is. If there wasn't any, it would all be rather boring. No one can deny that corporations, governments and individuals have agendas. Who narrates the story and how is of great consequence. But let's see these stories all played out in the open. What we should be wary of is the temptation to snuff out these different perspectives. And I think that's where I disagree with HonestReporting.com.

Play fair and, um, be honest!

The NPPA sponsored Northern Short Course 2004 will be held March 11-13, 2004 at the Crown Plaza Hotel, Warwick, RI. It's the 23rd such gathering of photojournalists.That's three days of education and inspiration from some of the leading photojournalists in the country. The early-bird deadline for registration is February 28. So, jump to it.

Download the registration form here and enter the NSC 2004 photo contest here.

I'll be attending two out of the three days, and you can be sure that I will blog my impressions of the event on Tiffinbox. I have signed up to take a couple of location lighting workshops and a seminar on digital photography (workflow and business issues).

Continuing our discussion of photojournalism and war, here are two links that you should check out – a wonderful article by J. D. Lasica and a page that lists links to digital photojournalism during war time.

“Great storytelling requires time — time to understand what's going on, time to spend with your subject, not at the laptop transmitting but really making great pictures. We're still hindered by the production toolsets that are available. In the next few years we'll see a dramatic improvement in the way people can put stories together and package materials.” — Brian Storm, vice president of news and editorial photography at Corbis

Via J. D. Lasica

“Northeastern University's Public Safety Division has posted 24 photos apparently taken by students wielding cameras (and perhaps camera photos?) during some post-Super Bowl vandalism on campus.”

Hope these morons get caught! The questions I have are – who shot the images and what's his/her life like now that the pictures are up on the site? I hope the police is protecting her/him (can we assume it was a guy taking these images?)

Whether it is writing, photography or artwork, the act of revealing, of stripping away to the very core of a human being or culture can be a violent process. Indeed, some cultures around the world rightfully fear that their soul is being robbed when a camera's lens is focused on them. Compounding this is the use and tone of our language to describe the photographic process. We “shoot” pictures. Then there is the “snap-shot,” or this one – “shooting from the hip,” as if our cameras were six-shooters slung in a pair of holsters.

In Bullet Dodger, I described photojournalist – turned artist – Luc Delahye's work as epic. In Vision of Peace?, I published photojournalist Harikrishna's take on war photography. In his comments to Emerging Photog, he summarily called all war photography as pornographic. I am not sure if that makes all war photographers pornographers, but that pornography is a form of violence is a well-known fact. Perhaps he means that the resulting images from a war are simply consumed by us with sadistic pleasure?

Thanks to Joerg Colberg's blog – Conscientious – I read how Paul Roylance at Melancholy Rhino really goes after Luc Delahye's “epic” work and recent exhibition. In his critique, he says:

“all war photographers are naïve, in the sense that naïveté is a precondition of heroism, and all war photographers are either cast in or aspire to the heroic mould, but most, consequently, are unwitting commercial if not political stooges.”

Remembering Hari's comments, I sent him the link to Paul's post and he promptly asked me to check out an interview on The Brooklyn Rail with David Levi Strauss. While Melancholy Rhino is appalled and very critical of how images from war have become a commodity (under the pretense of art), the Strauss interview is concerned with issues of representation and propaganda during war time.

I am also in the midst of reading Susan Sontag‘s article Looking At War: Photography's view of devastation and death, in the December 9, 2002 issue of The New Yorker.

I am tempted to post this well after I have munched on all of this heavy reading. But let me put this out there. Comments welcome. If you have other readings or interpretations of war photography, please chime in.