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.

Blog Post: Rebecca Shapiro

As a student in Jim’s course Visual Communication and Social Change as well as a mentor for Venice Arts, I have the opportunity to engage in class discussion about participant photography programs and mentor two thirteen year old girls from Downtown Los Angeles while they shoot their documentary project they are completing as students of Venice Arts. I have come to realize that there is a great deal to discuss about photographic empowerment programs- How does a camera empower youth? Are there any consequences to bring in technology which to a certain extent, is unattainable for these girls, and then introduce them to the concept of “this is what you do have, this is what you don’t have”? And of course, what about issues of exploitation? I feel as though these are all questions that do arise from a third party perspective on these programs.What I have found over the past three months is that many of the issues that we discuss in class about photographic empowerment programs do not even come up when I am actually shooting with Joanna and Monica, the two thirteen year old girls. In fact, they look at the camera as a fun tool they get to engage with, not a piece of technology that is expensive and unattainable. We also don’t even discuss how the camera makes them feel “empowered.” Most of the time, our discussions do not even focus around photography at all. Because I have been Joanna and Monica’s mentor since October, we have developed a trusting relationship over the past few months. I realized how close we had become when they told me two weeks ago that “everyone gets pregnant around 13, 14, and 15 years old.” I was absolutely leveled when this came out of their mouths, not because I am unaware that teen pregnancy is a huge issue in poverty areas, but rather that this conversation came out of the fact that Joanna, Monica and I had developed a true mentor/mentee relationship through photography. That day became more of a sex-education class than a photo lesson. At that moment, we were all participants and we all felt empowered; and it was unclear as to who mentored who at that moment.

I feel that these types of conversations that come out of participant photography programs truly explain how photography can empower youth. The fact that they get to use nice equipment is great, they get to tell their stories and feel like more active agents of their lives is also fantastic. But, I believe that the greatest outcome that I have seen from working with Joanna and Monica has been witnessing the degree to which these girls become more and more self-aware. At least in my case, the camera works as a great ice-breaker, a tool that they use to begin questioning their world, which is then supported by the trusting relationship we developed over the past six-seven months.

Baghdad Film School—Making Movies in Iraq

The voices of ordinary Iraqis have been silenced by years of dictatorship, war, and occupation. In 2004, two London-based Iraqi filmmakers, Kasim Abid and Maysoon Pachachi, set up the Independent Film & Television College. in Baghdad to teach young Iraqis how to tell their stories through film. Read more