A Miserable Old Git has launched CREEP with the following words
It’s been said before but, but Colin Jacobson‘s words carry a bit more weight because the WPP were, “foolhardy enough to invite [Colin] to be chair of the jury on two occasions back in the primordial mists of the 1980’s.”
And, because Jacobson is now the curmudgeon-in-residence over at Foto8.
Found via Peter Marshall.
Prison Photography 
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 5, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Campaign for the Eradication of Repetitive Photojournalism (CREEP) « Prison Photography | The Click
[…] A Miserable Old Git has launched CREEP with the following words […]
March 5, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Jennifer Grigg
I would like to hear your opinion of the repetitiveness of typical homeless photography. I haven’t seen an original image since the 70’s. If the photo conveys a politically and morally necessary message, is it ok to shoot it over and over and over again? Can we think of a new angle, from a purely photographic standpoint?
March 5, 2010 at 3:58 pm
petebrook
Jennifer
I think a photographic standpoint might be an exercise in futility as far as telling the stories of homeless people is concerned. After all we can see homeless men, women and children in any city we visit.
I think local journalism is the best at delivering their stories but in that context, photography usually becomes illustration for the article.
I remember speaking to a photojournalist from Sacramento about photo essays on tent cities and he was very ambivalent saying that they didn’t describe at all the reasons people had ended up there.
It’s a very tough one and a good point you raise. Why hasn’t there been respected coverage of homelessness in photography?
Maybe there has?
A piece on Don McCullin’s work from the 1980s recently aired on BBC. It is definitely worth sitting down to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8471292.stm
I guess I admire programs such as that by Sixth Street Workshops in San Francisco which enable the homeless to represent themselves: http://www.sixthstreetphoto.net/
I also admire photographers such as Tony Fouhse (http://tonyfoto.com/#/PERSONAL/USER%20Men/1) and Zoe Strauss (http://zoestrauss.blogspot.com/) who form long-lasting bonds with their subjects.
Of course, not all of Fouhse and Strauss’ subjects are homeless, but they are chronically poor and may have at some time domiciled in pitifully poor conditions.
March 5, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Pala
In response to the contents of the first link (to the MOG blog post):
To me the article boils down to: what is the correct mode for photojournalism? Assuming that photojournalism is to tell a story that informs the audience, can it do so using visual motifs that have become archetypal? If the images we see are all so recognizable then can they serve any purpose beyond necessary decoration for their article?
To clarify ‘my’ point: I’ve no background in media. My interest in this is as a citizen. My response to a lot of the images I see in pop-media is a peculiar shade of incredulity. Not because I don’t believe that there is something going on. Nor is it to do with being suspect of journalists’ ethics. Rather it is because I find myself wondering about everything that’s left outside the frame.
My issue is not plainly with being lied to. My issue is that even without lying, the photographs and the news-people are arbitrating the dimensions of the frame and consequentially of the story. To a certain extent I’d rather that some photojournalism be removed from the responsibility of telling the story. This purpose for photojournalism, I imagine, could become merely the collection of substrate with which stories can be sought.
To clarify again: I am not worried that some cabal of photojournalists are conspiring to hide the truth. Rather I feel that there is room for both photojournalists as storytellers and photojournalists as blind recorders. Without the latter, the former’s photographs are appearing from within a void.
March 5, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Pala
I should say: the connection between the last three paragraphs of my comment and the blog post:
I feel that part of the problems MOG suspects in the photojournalism he sees is related to a more general issue with photojournalism, namely that the audience has no opportunity to view its context, to see what sits outside its frame. A recognizable motif is only a problem if it is anchorless, in which case it becomes, to an audience, blurred together with similar images.