Blog Post: Heather Shafer

Throughout the semester many different theories regarding photography have been brought to my attention. Most recently was in the book Image Ethics in the Digital Age. In the chapter regarding advertising photography the authors bring up a point about the encoding and decoding of photographers. While reading this I took a step back and began to look at photography in an almost negative light. I’ve lamented upon the decoding of photos. When I look at an image I know there is a large chance that I am seeing something entirely different than the person next to me. For example, I am enrolled in a Sports Business class and in class our professor displayed an image of Reggie Bush and his one handed catch in the end zone. My classmates clapped with excitement. My friend next to me explained exactly where she was when that catch was made. I, however, sunk in my seat somewhat. My best friend, whom played football for Tulsa, died two years ago. He was supposed to be coming to USC, but at last minute USC pulled out on his scholarship. He ended up contracting a staff infection at Tulsa and died within a week. At times, photographs of USC football send that chill down my spine. I sit and wonder, if he had gone to USC, would he still be alive? This is an example of the ways photos are decoded differently by individuals. We all have a specific history or past which may impact the way we interpret photographs.
The second part has to do with the encoding of photographs. When a photographer takes a picture, he is attempting to portray something specific. This can cause many problems to the credibility of a photograph. We spoke in class about one of the documentaries in which the Appalachian Indians were stating how these men would come in to film them, and that they were searching for a particular aspect of their life. They said that they would be upset if they didn’t see the people living in complete poverty, or in tears. Is this what happens with photographer? Do photographers adjust particular images so that they are able to capture a certain emotion or event in which they believe is occurring? With every photo is there something that is being “encoded?” For the most part, you would assume there is. However, when does this means of encoding crouch upon the ethics of photography. It seems now a days it should almost be necessary that every photograph come with a “disclaimer” or a short write up in which the photographer divulges his intentions for the photograph.
I apologize for the ambiguity of this post. I simply have so many thoughts running around my mind in regards to the encoding and decoding of photographs. I think of each student’s photo project. Every one of us were searching for something in particular, and so many more of us wanted to have “that moment” appear just as we were clicking our cameras. One woman in our class is doing a project on graffiti. For one of her pictures she asked a man (whom was tagging before hand) if he could continue as she snapped images of him. She was looking to encode the image of a human doing the actual work, instead of just the image of him standing by it. He had been doing it previously, however, now it was somewhat scripted. Does this take away from the legitimacy and the actuality of the image? For this instance, I do not think it is a problem. However, what about on a bigger scale? Are photographers creating lab like settings by reproducing once natural acts in order to get it on their camera, to encode what they saw onto their own photograph? And are we, the viewers, the receptors of the images being not only swayed by out act of decoding, but also by what has been encoded into the photograph?

Blog Post: Megan Baaske

At this exact moment, if you got to the New York Times homepage, you will see a picture of moon and star watermelons, accompanying a story on endangered plants. Earlier, it was an image of Obama, as he responded to questions about his ex-pastor’s speech a couple of days ago. By the time you’re reading this, the homepage has been updated countless of times; each article adorned with an accompanying photograph.

It may be self-evident to point out that we are bombarded with pictures everywhere we turn. From the moment we turn on the computer, the television, the ipod, even our cell phones, we take in images.

Because one of the goals of pluralist photography is to prompt social change (or, at the very least, raise awareness through the photographs), one must concern herself with the over-saturation of images. Do we suffer from picture fatigue?

Well, yes.

But it doesn’t necessarily follow that photographs no longer impact us. Instead, it just means that every picture will not.

Not to get too technical, but one Communication theory is called the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), which is particularly useful in discussions of photo-fatigue. The theory suggests that people have two routes of processing information: the central and the peripheral. People have to process a great deal of data in a single day, not just pictures, but entire narratives, arguments, and facts. We cannot keep up with all the stuff we’re bombarded with. Consequently, we divide all that information between the two pathways. The central pathway is for information we really care about-we think about it a great deal, analyze it critically, and tend to remember it longer. The peripheral pathway is for information less relevant to our lives (however we interpret that); we tend to assign less value to this data and forget it easier.

Photographs, like political arguments or advertisements, can go through either process. Many of the pictures, like the endangered watermelons, will end up in the periphery. I will forget it soon after I finish writing this blog. But some pictures stick with us. Perhaps because they are particularly moving. Perhaps because, as Susan Sontag suggests in Photography, we are “charmed by the insignificant detail” (99). Perhaps because they make us think more deeply about their subject.

For whatever reason, these are the pictures that stand out from the rest, the ones that we process through our central pathway. We think about the argument they make, the people on display in them, and how they make us feel. Iconic images have this weight. Who cannot conjure up an image of the World Trade Center on 9/11? Who hasn’t seen the picture of the sailor kissing his girlfriend after the end of WWII? Who can’t remember the horror on the Vietnamese girl’s face after the napalm attack on her village? There are countless of images that have entered our collective psyche.

But, more often, images do not become universal like those I’ve just mentioned. Only a select few can become icons. Nevertheless, some of the photographs that I encounter may be processed centrally. I was at a photography exhibit in Amsterdam’s Foam Photography Museum, and I saw the most heart-wrenching images from an Iraqi hospital. I still remember those pictures. They were so graphic I could not stand to look at them, but the War in Iraq has never felt more real to me. For the first time, I believed I had a small idea of what it must be like in that far off country. Though most of my compatriots have never seen those images, many have seen similarly eye-opening ones of the War in Iraq or other crises throughout the world. We are all impacted by photographs in different ways, but the point is that we are all impacted. Not by every picture we see, but by the one that we pause to think about in more detail. Those are the ones that can cause true social change.

Blog Post: Tony Lazaro Ruiz

He was insane by local standards. By and large, the Cuban-American community he so ardently holds dear regards him as a pathetic hermit. Delfín González, great-uncle of controversial 6-year-old Cuban refugee Elián González, turned the boy’s Little Havana home into a memorial in November of 2000. Many still deem it a shanty excuse of a museum. My friends and family reproached me for choosing to visit the old Elián home for my photography project. It would not portray our people well. Delfín was labeled overzealous. He was the village idiot clinging desperately to the remnants of a long-forgotten event. He was a broken man seeking solace in the preservation of the relic of his family’s brief fame. These assumptions were as much my own as they were my relatives’.I was hesitant to approach the home. After taking photographs of the exterior, I was lucky enough to spot Delfín himself exit to retrieve something from his car. He graciously invited me in. To my surprise, he never prodded me for a donation, never pressed me with political questions, nor took advantage of my attention by preaching his own political agenda. He introduced himself in the main room, welcomed me to look around and take photographs, and was about to excuse himself when I asked him to show me around and talk about the memorabilia.

I found myself far more interested in him than in the memorial. I focused on photographing Delfín as he answered my questions. I was asking him about Cuban life in his youth, about the infamous early-morning raid in 2000 to extract Elián from the home, and about his position on diplomatic relations with Cuba.

The portrait that emerged was sincere and moving. Delfín was an engaging subject with an enormous heart. He says he converted the home into a memorial because he felt compelled by a sense of civic duty. Despite my initial doubts, he did represent Cuban-America, and the amalgamation of Cuban national pride and American nationalism characteristic of the Miami I know and love, but that outsiders often misrepresent or don’t understand. In 2006, Republican Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo made headlines when he candidly stated:

“Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you’re in the United States of America. You would certainly say you’re in a Third World country” (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/30/politics/main2217944.shtml).

Delfín González challenged the assumption that Miami is a backwards city with citizens fervently resistant to assimilation. What was wrong with the United States administration in 2000, Delfín explained to me, was that they neglected the human element; they were so fixated on the “politics” that they failed to consider what was best for Elián. “In Cuba, Elián may be treated like royalty, but he will ever have true freedom and liberty,” he said. “Living here, he would have had liberty, which is the most essential human necessity of all.”

Cuban-American culture was the topic of my photography project for Jim Hubbard’s Visual Communication for Social Change course at USC. We examined participant-produced photography, and, as part of our course, critically considered whether or not it empowers participants, helps them to make better sense of their surroundings, and captures reality more objectively. While these are all points of contention among critics and proponents of the field, my experience has affirmed everything positive about this method. As a participant-producer, the camera empowered me to ask the questions I couldn’t otherwise, as if I held around my neck a black box that instantly gained the subject’s trust, implied my right to be “here” and ask “you” questions. The project allowed me to reexamine my assumptions about this man, whose reputation was so deeply rooted in the local narratives that I was almost discouraged from walking up to his home in the first place. And finally, I acknowledge that my photography project is biased in favor of my heritage. However, it fosters an objective understanding of the subject in the sense that it shall become a crucial piece of the greater body of work on the topic. When examined together with the multitude of subjective work on the subject matter, participant-produced work is vital for a truly objective understanding of the topic.

Blog Post: Justin Iwata

When I called for questions at the end of our presentation, I expected to be dismissed. I expected to get a polite applause, maybe a nod from my peers and professor for an analysis that was nothing special. What I got, however, was a question directly accusing me and my fellow group members of being bias, unethical, and slanderous. I was asked when I had last traveled to Beijing, who my sources were, and what gave me the right to choose images of China that did not reflect the progress China had made. Immediately the tension in the room became tangible, the atmosphere suffocating.After taking a hard gulp, I tried to explain to my classmate that we chose these images because frankly they were the first to queue when I Googled China and the Olympics, or they were the images that were included in the BBC, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal articles we used. I further tried to explain that our presentation merely tried to explore and analyze the image management behind China and the Olympics, and to discuss what images were being reproduced, synthesized, and manipulated to codify public opinion. We, I stated, placed no value ascriptions and took no stance on whether this process was benevolent or malign, true or false. But as I am sure you have guessed, this would not cut the mustard.

I was quickly rebuked for choosing images of China that she believed unfairly portrayed the People’s Republic as she exclaimed that our sources were bias because “BBC and CNN lie!” While I still disagree with her last statement, I do understand her concern. Susan Sontag author of Photography, accurately points out the widespread belief that the “genius of photography lies in its ability to render an objective portrait…so that the photographic result shall not be encumbered with subjective intention”, or more commonly put a picture cannot lie. Therefore, when we see a powerful image of a place, a person, or an action we take that image and we make it the truth. We allow that image to create a pseudo environment, a duplicate world which we believe to be more truthful than the world we experience through our five senses.

The Olympics are typically a time of fanfare, jubilance, and goodwill amongst all participating nations - but not this time. China has undergone immense scrutiny and received considerable criticism on issues both international and domestic. To support these negative campaigns the media has flooded the public with stories and anti-China images. After reflecting on this, I now understand the pain, the anger, and the mistrust that my peer was expressing. To her it did not matter what my intentions were. What mattered to her was that I took these images to be true, reproduced them for a larger audience, and in doing so codified an image of the People’s Republic that in her mind was not true. She understood the power of those images, the emotions they engendered, the truth they would inevitably create, and I helped this process along.

Blog Post: Ellen Giuliano

I was sitting on the bus with my best friend from New York, when this woman gets up from her seat and moves to the one in front of us. She looks at me and says, “You know, Jesus talks to me. And he don’t like what he’s seeing. Now you know what I’m talking about.” Well really I had no clue, but she went on anyway. “Now you keep up what you’re doing and you won’t be going to Heaven. We both know where that means you’re going. So you better stop doing what you been doing. I know and you know what it is, and God knows.” All I could think was, “O Crap! She saw us taking pictures on the bus!” But then she got up and moved seats and expressed a similar epiphany with another passenger.
Needless to say, I kept my camera away for the remainder of that bus trip. However, that ride was to be my first of many as part of a class assignment for Jim Hubbard’s Visual Communication and Social Change course. This semester we’ve been reading about and discussing the field of participatory photography. The idea of our projects is that students in the class are actually the ones participating in photographic empowerment. I chose to do a series of photos on L.A.’s public transportation, in the tradition of photographer Bruce Davidson. Of course the primary mode of public transport in L.A. is buses, not subways.
My bus rides have really gotten me to see and experience a side of L.A. that lives in close proximity to USC, but that is kept invisible. In a city that is associated with cars, people who ride the buses, in a sense, are marginalized. When I first started this project, I felt like I was an outsider, stepping out of mainstream L.A. for a few hours to take pictures of what probably can be considered the silent majority. However after three months or so, I get on the buses with much more comfort and ease, and feel almost at home with the people riding along side me. There is a certain camaraderie that exists among those who sit together day after day. Together, the people on the bus are their own community: the mother with her baby, the teenager with his puppy, the crazy evangelical, the bum with his bottle of booze poorly concealed, and even the USC undergraduate.

Next Page »