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10/23/2007 10:34:04 PM · #1 |
very very difficult. I find it very difficult holding a camera and being around suffering people. I just don't know how photo-journalists do it.
I went over to a road blockade where people were kept from going up to Lake Arrowhead and where evacuees were pouring down from the mountain areas where fires were devouring the homes there. Many people were pulling into parking lots of businesses around the 40th street/hwy 18 jct.
I'm sorry but I could not photograph the situation. People with tears in their eyes, old people walking around carrying their pets. Families sitting on the ground next to their only possessions. New homeless people. I felt like i was exploiting their situation by taking pictures.
One man especially gave me such a disturbing look. He and his family just pulled into a starbucks parking lot pulling a trailer with what they could gather from home. He and his wife got out and met around by the driver's side of the truck. It looked like it just sunk in for her what was happening as she came to her husband, her bottom lip began to shake and she reached and hugged her husband not saying anything. Her back was to me and while he held his wife he looked at me and it stopped me cold. I put my camera away and went home.
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10/23/2007 10:58:42 PM · #2 |
I understand, and I can't say that I disagree with you. It would be very difficult for me to do a job that required that I invade people's privacy in such a way.
The fire in Ramona is now just a few miles from my brother's house, and at the moment they are still in the house. We are praying for all of those that are dealing with the fires. |
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10/23/2007 11:03:59 PM · #3 |
Originally posted by briantammy: I put my camera away and went home. |
It's not a good job for the overly compassionate. The compassionate people in the field , do what they do in hopes of making the world a better place. And a lot are there for the fame.
I definitely understand putting the camera down.
Message edited by author 2007-10-23 23:04:38.
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10/23/2007 11:09:22 PM · #4 |
I think it would be hard to do without a good justifiable reason
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10/23/2007 11:09:45 PM · #5 |
I know where you are coming from. But when its your job you just do it. This past summer I had to help cover the funeral of a local soldier who was killed in Iraq. At first I wasnt sure how I would handle it, if at all. Then I realized I had a job to do, and by documenting the event in a way that I was out of the way, but still doing my job was what had to be done. Its not an easy job, but it has to be done.
MattO
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10/23/2007 11:14:12 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by MattO: I know where you are coming from. But when its your job you just do it. |
That plays into it a lot, also.
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10/23/2007 11:14:14 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by briantammy: I felt like i was exploiting their situation by taking pictures.
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There is a lot more to photojournalism than photographing situations like the one you described. You can also look at this situation, and the photographing of it, as being compassionate rather than invasive. If you are truly doing it as a photojournalist, you are creating an avenue for others to have the opportunity to be compassionate. Without the visuals that photographers provide to the media outlets, the rest of the world can't understand what is happening.
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10/23/2007 11:18:24 PM · #8 |
I used to work as a photographer for my school newspaper and I even sometimes found it difficult to take pictures of strangers on my rosy college campus... but it did help knowing that it was your 'job' to take photos...
But yeah, I can't imagine its easy to take pictures of (for example) starving children in Somalia, knowing that the cost of your UV filter could feed them for a month.
But thats the job of the photojournalist... images can be immensely powerful and moving and informative in ways that written news stories can't always be, and they have often been the impetus behind societal change in the past (I'm thinking of images covering the civil rights movement and Vietnam war photography...). My heart is with all those who are suffering in SD
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10/23/2007 11:55:11 PM · #9 |
I have been in that same situation with a couple accidents. One was a car had hit a guy on a bicycle. He was laid out on the concrete right in front of me and a nurse, just getting off shift, was holding his bleeding head in her hand. My husband looked at me and my camera was in my lap. He asked 'why didn't you take that shot?' I just shook my head. How can I invade someones traumatic moments like that?
I felt it was wrong at the time. I couldn't be a photojournalist.
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10/24/2007 12:09:46 AM · #10 |
I hear ya man... I got an fire evac center 4 blocks from my house... I wanted to take the cam down do some Photojournalism stuff then I thought to myself for what? A Challenge on a website? That just didn't feel like the the right reason to me...
...I took sheets and blankets down there instead to help cover the dog kennels to make them comfortable. |
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10/24/2007 12:12:13 AM · #11 |
We're all human beings before journalists or photographers, and you just have to do what you feel is right. It might not be worth contributing to people's trama by taking the pictures.
When you do have a job to do, it gets easier. I haven't shot anything like what you describe (yet), but if I had to document it I'd find a way to do it without feeling I was treating the subjects inhumanely. I just cover events for the sports pages and A4 on the weekends, pretty much light-hearted community stuff. I've been to one crime scene where a dead man was found, and they were investigating it, but no one was suffering there. Except maybe his soul, and souls don't give dirty looks.
This article by Skip Rowland ( Skip) addresses this issue very well.
//www.skippix.biz/articles/reality.html
Message edited by author 2007-10-24 00:14:24. |
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