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I just published What’s a War-Torn African Nation Got To Do with Editing DNA?, a piece on Vantage about Wired Magazine’s choice of a Richard Mosse photograph Myths Of The Near Future (2012) for the cover of its August issue.
The photograph was made as part of Mosse’s series Infra about the ongoing civil wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the story is about the science behind– and the copyright battles over–Crispr-Cas9 a genetic engineering technique. The gulf between the original subject matter and the nature of the story raised some questions for me.
I must mention that, in light of 5.4 million deaths in DRC, the line “And the end of life as we know it” emblazoned in 48-font on the front cover, seems a little clumsy, but I’m too clueless about the magazine world for that to be my line of main inquiry. Someone else can muse over those loose words if they think there’s anything more in them than a disconnect between packaging and content typical of the marketplace.
[…]
Perhaps I am so discomfited because Mosse’s work makes so much more visual sense being bent ever-so-slightly for this futuristic narrative, than it does for its original intended political purpose?
Mosse pitched in on Twitter with the following three comments, they’re part of a longer back-and-forth with a couple of threads between Ed Brydon and I. Chase those threads if you can.
@brookpete @WIRED @WIREDPhoto Myths of the Near Future shows an active volcano and has a pre-Anthropocene element, relevant to the story.
— Richard Mosse (@richard_mosse) August 4, 2015
@edbrydon @vantagephotos @WIRED @amymaxmen A photo can have numerous meanings / interpretations and sustain multiple contexts? Head explodes
— Richard Mosse (@richard_mosse) August 4, 2015
@vantagephotos @edbrydon @amymaxmen Crispr's manipulation of reality. Turning tragedy to utopia. Many reasons I felt it's a good fit
— Richard Mosse (@richard_mosse) August 4, 2015
Read the full piece and see what you think.
© Andrew Jackson. Black Child, Gulugetu, Cape Town, 2006
I have no answers. I have just asked for them. We will get answers but they may be outnumbered by more questions.
I have no answers. And yet, two things struck me this week. They both go to the heart of the necessary cynicism AND optimism toward the photojournalist’s craft. These two contributions are contrary in tone and yet I can agree with them both.
I have no answers.
ANDREW JACKSON
Firstly, from Andrew Jackson and his ‘WrittenByLight‘ blog.
A 4OD episode of the Art Show entitled If asked a number of contemporary poets to produce modern (re)workings of Kipling’s famous poem If. Jackson was compelled to create his own and “perhaps speak of [his] own misgivings of documentary photography”.
FINBARR O’REILLY
In answering such doubts, Finbarr O’Reilly on the Reuters blog gives an honest and balanced appraisal of the global coverage (and his part in it) of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Even as Democratic Republic of Congo’s war-related death toll rose above a staggering five million, making it the most lethal conflict since World War Two, the war in Central Africa remained largely unnoticed and under-reported.
and
The media could enjoy coffee and croissants for breakfast, drive up to the front-line fighting or the squalid camps home to hundreds of thousands of displaced Congolese, then return to file stories and pictures in time for dinner and a night at the bar.
and
There were so many photographers in Congo last year that there’s a running joke at photojournalism festivals and competitions this year about viewers and judges having to sit through “yet another picture story from Congo.”
and
But at least Congo, that beautiful, terrible place, became a highly visible story. It’s easy to be cynical about the idea of a devastating conflict suddenly becoming a trendy cause, but the important thing is that people are finally paying attention to one of the world’s worst catastrophes. U.S. President Barack Obama referred to Congo’s troubles in speeches, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited Goma in August and said she was moved by the plight of Congo’s women, many of whom are victims of extreme sexual violence and mass rape.
The temperance of O’Reilly’s opinion – in spite of his closeness to the events – is impressive.
Maybe the foil against the consumption of images of distant plight is to insist that the photographer’s voice and experience is always carried with them. Better still, the voice of those depicted is carried with the images. That way there can be no doubt of the actual conditions in which the images were created.
Finbarr O’Reilly has spent many years on stories in DRC, including eight specific photo series relating to aspects of Congolese experience.
© Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters. From the series 'Congo Hair'
Prison Photography 