American Photo Steps Up

Well, just when I thought the spirit of free speech had left the US publishing environment, American Photo magazine steps up to the plate. This month they have a cover story on controversial photography and matched the article by printing a selection of the work – including on the cover itself.

Now, these are not pornographic or even nudes, which turn up regularly in photographic magazines. These are controversial for all the right reasons, they expose a view that others may find uncomfortable or they portray the human condition in a less favorable light. In other words, they force us to look at ourselves or think about things we would rather pretend didn’t exist.

What I was also impressed with is they explained the background behind the photograph and sometimes the price the photographer paid for presenting the work.

One of the most moving pieces is a picture of a little starving African girl trying to make it to a feeding station. A short distance behind her is a vulture waiting for her to fail. It’s a disturbing picture of what is probably an all too common occurrence in some parts of the world. After the shot, the photographer chased off the vulture and carried the girl into the station. This was not a posed work, but rather what he saw there – and this was not the only staving person in the area.

For his efforts, he received a well deserved Pulitzer Prize, but also an unusual amount of abuse. For many people seemed to want to kill the messenger and blamed him for the situation, as if he was responsible for girl’s plight. Personally, I think people just hated being shown something they wanted to ignore, which is fact that a lot of people on this planet are starving to death. To deal with this reality, people sent him death threats, nasty letters, and many other forms of scorn. Unfortunately, it turned out to be too much for him and he committed suicide less than a year later.

Photojournalists have a difficult job. They need to travel horrible locations and face horrible situations with enough human compassion to capture a photograph that explains to the rest of us what’s happening there. Besides the physical risks involved, it also requires them to risk a lot of physiological damage. Conflict photographers are just as likely to get PSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) as combat veterans.

American Photo is to be commended for presenting this work in a fair and balanced manner. To present it all is probably a challenge, as I expect they will be receiving nasty letters from a variety of special interest groups. Hopefully, they will continue to step up and show this type of work.

The self-censorship of the modern press is disturbing and dangerous. The desire to avoid controversial subjects or views in the interests of maintaining audiences or market share or advertisers risk losing the freedom of the press that was fought for in the first place. It’s not safe speech, commonly held views, or government approved statements that need to be protected – even the most repressive regime allows this already. It’s the dangerous speech, the speech that offends some and makes others think that needs to be defended. This is the type of speech that needs a Charter of rights and freedoms or a bill of or rights or the protection of high courts. This is the speech that tells us what’s actually happening and makes us consider what should happen. This is the speech that gives us the knowledge to vote properly and forms the foundations of a free and just society. Without it, we are nothing.

As Voltaire said a long time ago “I may not agree with what you’re saying, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.”.

Here’s to American Photo for doing their bit to maintaining this freedom and this tradition.

Contact Festival - That's a Wrap

Contact.....We have Contact......

May is an interesting month in Toronto, Spring is (usually) in full gear and summer just around the corner. As well, the Contact Photography Festival happens - for the whole month. It makes May worth the wait.

The Contact Photography Festival happens every May in Toronto and is now in its 12th year (13th, if you consider this year done), with over a million visitors to its events. This is the largest photography event in the world, according to their website, so there is something for everyone.

The festival is a swarm of little events spread throughout the city and surrounding area. This year had 500 artists in more than 200 venues. The guidebook is nearly 100 pages with very little wasted space. By being widely spread and over the entire month, the festival has the benefit of being noticed and local to almost everyone. It's easy to see how they can claim a million visitors.

More information here:

CONTACT Photography Festival

80 Spadina Ave, Suite 310

Toronto, Ontario M5V 2J4

T 416-539-9595

F 416-539-0829

info@contactphoto.com

www.contactphoto.com

It's hard to see everything, but I make an effort every year to visit some of it and next year I intend to be more involved.

Besides some of the gallery events and displays, I also managed to attend the wrap party last week (Thursday) at the Drake Hotel in Toronto. I've never been to the wrap party for Contact before, so I expected this to be quite the do. Nancy-Marie was unable to attend, but I brought along one of my partners in crime, Steve Shien. Nancy-Marie had phoned to make sure we were on the guest list and warned us to show up on time to make sure we could get in.

I'm not sure what happened, but there was no real difficulty in getting in, nor was there any name checking or VIP section that I could tell. Of course, we may have simply been idiots an unable to notice something happening in another room or upstairs, but the curator for the event was visible in our area for most of the evening, so I think we were in the heart of it.

After some speeches and award presentations, the party pretty much blended into the usual Thursday night bar scene for the area. We decided to head down the block for a little boost from Starbucks, when we noticed a display outside the hotel.

On the long window facing the street, there were three screens of 4'x6' each, playing video photo essays from Magnum in Motion, with full sound. Fortified with caffeine, we returned and spent the next hour or so watching the videos on the sidewalk. Personally, I found the videos much more interesting than the party people antics inside.

Even more fascinating was watching people on the street deal with the photographic displays. Magnum is a world class photo agency (if not the definitive photo agency) and their photographers have covered a wide variety of areas and events, some of which are difficult to watch, but all are important and moving.

It was surreal to see people walk past large photographs of natural disasters or war zones without noticing. Some people looked and walked on, some stopped to watch, but many simply failed to notice what was less than 4' from them and larger than life. They didn't ignore it, I mean it simply failed to register with them. completely. Like it wasn't even there. They were focused on talking to their friends, watching who was watching them, or trying to get into the bar, but not on the photographs of dramatic human events next to them. I estimate at least 3/4 of the people going by did not allow this photographic drama to even enter their world.

I confess to be a little shocked, but not so surprised, at self absorbed behavior of my fellows. We have become, in many ways, a callous society. It was a unique experience to see people able to mentally edit photographs that had to occupy close to a quarter of their field of view. In fact, I was so moved by these events, I went out and bought a Canon G9 on the weekend, so I could capture this type of thing in the future.

Magnum in Motion: inmotion.magnumphotos.com
Magnum: www.magnumphotos.com