Censoring War Photographers

Photograph © Zoriah Miller-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times features a slideshow and accompanying article on the increasing control (aka censorship) by the American military on graphic images from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both slideshow and article make reference to Zoriah Miller, the photographer who posted images of marines killed in a June 26 suicide attack in Iraq on his Web site. Miller was subsequently forbidden to work in Marine Corps-controlled areas of the country. (For background on this, I've posted a Zoriah Miller slideshow on TTP just a week ago).

The thrust of the article is that photographers increasingly say the military allows them to embed but keeps them away from combat. Many say that they've been repeatedly thwarted by the military when they try to get to the front lines. I'm surprised at this since if we are to believe the news reports from Iraq, the so-called surge is working, and according to the Republican nominee for President, we are succeeding...so why keep away photographers from the battles? Shouldn't we enjoy seeing what our military might has caused?

The NY Times article is well worth a careful read, especially since it was co-authored by Michael Kamber, a war photographer himself (he recently published a scathing report on the Leica M8's performance) and based in Iraq.

The American military's argument is that it's protecting the sensibilities of families of the dead soldiers. Let's accept that this could be a valid argument to a certain extent, but let's also recognize that the American military's increasing censorship has more to do with preventing further erosion of public support to this unnecessary war than being "sensitive" than being attuned to the sensibilities of bereaved families. Sanitizing the horrors of war is what this is all about.

In the British newspaper The Guardian, Robert Fox penned an article titled Truth And Other Casualties of War, and refers to the Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner which graphically depicts a dead British soldier, and which was considered an outrage when it was unveiled in 1925, and he ends his article by saying this:

"It is a fitting testament to the dead of that war – as Miller's pictures are of his war in Iraq."

Richard Vogel: Photojournalism

Photograph © Richard Vogel-All Rights Reserved
Richard Vogel is chief photographer and photo editor for the Associated Press (AP) in Vietnam for the past 8 years. He's responsible for covering news events, developing feature stories, and providing assignments to photographers, and editing their work. He also photographs, edits, scans, and transmits final images to AP for worldwide distribution. He also worked as a photo editor in India which included coverage of the Indian/Pakistani standoff in Kashmir.

His web portfolio consists of 105 photographs made over the course of his career, mainly in South and South East Asia. In my view, his work is that of the consummate photojournalist; work that doesn't rely on sensationalism to be effective...work well worth of studying and appreciating.

POV: Model Releases

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
I mentioned in my earlier post on Olivia Gay's environmental portraits that I would add my point of view regarding two issues that frequently crop up whenever I photograph people in Asia or elsewhere.

The first question/issue relates to model releases, and is often asked of me during my photo expeditions by participants who are worried as to whether they'll be asked by the eventual buyers of their photographs for signed releases from the people appearing in their photographs.

Generally-speaking, any photographs of people who are not specifically asked to pose do not require releases. Photographs of people taken during a photo shoot in a marketplace or a temple for example, do not require model releases. Such photographs can be sold and published in magazines, newspapers, periodicals, books and websites, and even exhibits. Photographs used for storytelling and informational purposes do not require model releases.

On the other hand, when people are specifically asked to pose for the photographer and the images are used for advertising such travel brochures or similar commercial publications, it would be wiser and safer to obtain a signed release.

Having said that, I must confess that I seldom bother to ask for anyone to sign a model release for many reasons. The first reason is the time factor. In most photo shoots, there's seldom enough time to ask the subjects of my photograph to sign a model release in a language they probably don't understand, especially since its whole concept is meaningless to them. Sure, I could hand out a handful of releases to my translator/fixer who could then ask the subjects of my photographs for their signatures, but practically-speaking that wouldn't work.

The second reason is that asking for releases would create an unnecessary complication. In India for instance, I've already been asked a few times (interestingly, by meddlesome onlookers and not by the subjects of my photographs) as to the purpose of my photographing people, and occasionally accused of "exploiting" my subjects to "make a lot of money". In fact, I recall photographing indigenous tribal people at a market in Chhattisgarh, and being harassed by an individual demanding that I pay money to the people I photographed...he was following me around, and getting to be such a nuisance that I reported him to the marketplace police who physically removed him from the market.

Let's be honest here. Whipping out pre-typed releases and asking adivasis to sign on the dotted line would certainly be misinterpreted. The formality of it all might lead them to believe I intended to harm them in some way. So the end result would be that the releases would not get signed (despite any translator's persuasive efforts), and no one in the vicinity would agree to pose for my photographs.

Let me put it this way...would I sign a formal looking document in a foreign language that I didn't understand? Not a chance. Another thing... could you have asked the glaring sadhu in the above photograph to sign a model release and get it? The answer is no...it would've been an exercise in futility.

My POV on how to respect local cultures and still get the photographs will be posted in a day or two.

Olivia Gay: Les Africaines

Photograph © Olivia Gay-All Rights Reserved
Olivia Gay is a French photographer, whose documentary work is centered on female issues. She's well known for her series "The Prostitutes" (1998-2002), "The Models" (2004-2005), "The Waitresses"(2000), "The Cashiers" (2006), and "The Workers" (2007-2008).

I chose her new work Les Africaines to show off her exceptional talents in environmental portraiture. The one of the woman and her baby against the blue wall is -in my view- the best in the series; expressive and the juxtaposition of the colors are just right...however do explore the rest of her work here.

On a tangential note, portraits such as Olivia's raise some issues for photographers. Are model releases required for such portraits, and how does one go about photographing people in similar situations? I will be posting on these questions soon...so don't miss it!

Sigma DP1: Pogue's Analysis

David Pogue of the New York Times reviews the Sigma DP1 in simple and easy terms, and avoids the incomprehensible jargon that we photographers get turned on by.

Here are some of David's key statements:

"The camera is slow, too. Slow to turn on, slow to focus. Action shots? Forget it. It’s even slow between shots; it takes two seconds to record each JPEG-format photo, and a ghastly seven seconds for each photo in the RAW format."

"The screen has other issues, too. In low light, it actually switches into black-and-white. The pictures you take are still in color, but the screen is monochrome. What the heck?"

"Finally, there’s the lens cap. Not to be a nitpicker here, but come on; not only is it not built in, it doesn’t even have a little loop for tying it to the camera. And it snaps back onto the lens in only one orientation: logo upright. You’ll lose this thing in a week, guaranteed."

And that's not all there is to it.

So despite Sigma's technological breakthrough of building a large "DSLR-sized" sensor and fitting it in a small pocket-sized camera, I'll wait it out.

World Nomads & NGA-Film Scholarship

World Nomads, in conjunction with National Geographic Adventure, is announcing a scholarship for budding video documentary makers.

World Nomads will fly the recipient of the scholarship to India between October 11th and October 25th 2008, and under the mentorship of documentary film-maker Trent O'Donnell, to shoot a "video documentary on the theme of community project travel and the impact it has on both the local community as well as the travellers that participate".

As with all contests, make sure you carefully read all the conditions and fine print that govern this opportunity.

World Nomads' Scholarship

RGS: Portraits of Adventure

Photograph © Brent Stirton -All Rights Reserved
Portraits of Adventure is sponsored by Land Rover, and is at the Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore, London SW7 from July 22 2008 to August 3 2008, 10am – 8pm daily. The exhibition consists of 60 images that "captures the true spirit of adventure."

David Levene: Haiti's Saut D'Eau

Photograph © David Levene/The Guardian -All Rights Reserved
Every year, thousands of Haitian pilgrims converge into the basin of Saut D'Eau's sacred waterfall to pray. They throw their clothes into the cascading waterfall where the faithful believe the Virgin Mary (known as Erzulie in Haitian Voodoo), appeared in the 1800s.

Haitian Voodoo was created by African slaves merged their ancestral religious traditions with Roman Catholic practices, allowing them to continue observing their ancient beliefs under the scrutiny of the French colonialists. Today, many move freely between the two beliefs.

Being in London, I gleefully peruse all the British newspapers (which stand head and shoulders above ours in terms of candid and more substantial coverage...I know, I just can't help myself), and I was glad to have seen the Spiritual cleansing in Haiti feature, a SoundSlides with photographs by David Levene on The Guardian newspaper's website.

I'm surprised that it has no intro frames with titles and no credits, but the image sequencing and the accompanying ambient audio manage to pull it together. It certainly needs some "tarting up" as they say here, but otherwise it's an interesting feature.

Jeffrey A. Davis: Lumen Production

Photograph © Jeffrey A. Davis -All Rights Reserved
Jeff Davis works through the Lumen Production Company as documentary photographer, filmmaker, producer and advocate. His imagery has appeared in newspapers, magazines, websites, calendars, museums, festivals and galleries. He also works as executive producer for "Art Wolfe's Travels To The Edge", a 26-part TV series for Public Television. He works with Phil Borges' Bridges To Understanding project, and The Tibetan Nun Project, among other worthwhile endeavors and ventures.

Out of his many projects and galleries which are all terrific, I liked Path of Promise best, as it involves photographs of Tibetan nuns as they live and worship at various nunneries in Dharmasala, India. While participating myself in Phil Borges' Bridges To Understanding program in Dharmasala in 2005, I visited one of these nunneries, and was struck by the nuns' dedication and hospitality.

Here's Jeff Davis' Lumen Production

Lightroom, MediaStorm and SoundSlides?

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
I'll be blogging from London, England for about two weeks.

Here's a post by travel & outdoor photographer Michael Clark for the O'Reilly Digital Media blog which I can't agree with more.

The gist of the article is that with photojournalism rapidly evolving, and the growing necessity of integrating still photography into multimedia, and since Lightroom is currently the leading tool for photographers to work with their images, Michael's opinion (and Bob Sacha's as well) is that it would be an enormous advantage to have SoundSlides integrated into Lightroom as a plug in or in some other manner.

Yes, and yes.

I've already written on the imperative of photographers and photojournalists being multimedia narrators here, and this article simply reinforces my multimedia evangelism.

Zalmaï: Afghanistan

Photograph © Zalmaï Ahad -All Rights Reserved
As a consequence of the the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Zalmaï Ahad was forced into exile in 1980, and eventually became a Swiss citizen.

In 1989, he started as a freelance photographer, traveling the world to cover photojournalism projects as well as social documentaries. His photographs were published in several magazines and newspapers including the New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, Le Temps, Newsweek, La Repubblica, ICRC Magazine, Human Rights Watch and Refugees Magazine, a quarterly publication of UNHCR.

Zalmaï's work has earned him several national and international prizes including the World Press Joop Swart Master Class, Days Japan 2006 an d Photo District News (PDN) annual award for documentary photography. He is a member of the Association Focale, a cooperative of photographers based in Nyon, Switzerland.

While Zalmaï's galleries are eclectic, his most arresting work is from Afghanistan, out of which I chose his panoramic photographs for this post.