If you're going to Wikipedia today (the English site), it's blacked out. The same is true for Boing Boing. Google placed a black bar over their logo. These - and other - efforts are targeted against pending US legislation called (brace yourselves) the "Stop Online Piracy Act" or SOPA. If you're curious why SOPA in its current form is a truly, truly bad idea, you can either watch this explainer by The Guardian or read read this article in Salon.com.
]]>
We Are the 99 Percent is a Tumblr blog, where photography, social protest, and the internet have come together in an amazing way. Here is an interview with the people being the blog, this article talks about why Tumblr was used.
]]>"Covering such a long-running conflict, the dynamics of which have not altered greatly in its nine years, necessarily produces a certain uniformity to the subjects conveyed. In Boston.com's Big Picture gallery for November 2010 we see 43 high quality images that detail allied forces, Afghan civilians, Taliban casualties and American military families. There is also an inevitable regularity to the look of these images. [...] I think we should ask hard questions about how to represent a war that has gone on for so long. I don't think, though, that those questions are best pursued by a concern over the technologies of representation or the anxiety about aesthetics."
If you haven't seen the cover of TIME magazine or if you haven't read the editors' thinking about it, head over here. Also, there is a moving short film in which Jodi Bieber, the photographer, talks about taking the photograph. I've spent all day now thinking about the various aspects. A post over at Jezebel does a brilliant job summing up the real complexities of the issue, way better than I could: "Aisha's abuse and mutilation took place last year, with U.S. troops' presence in the country and alongside Afghan women's significant progress on certain fronts. Women For Women in Afghanistan has some more details on her tragic background [...] Such stories are obscene, not at all uncommon, and need to be told. But there is an elision here between these women's oppression and what the U.S. military presence can and should do about it, which in turn simplifies the complexities of the debate and turns it into, 'Well, do you want to help Aisha or not?'"
I have no illusions about a possible moment of accountability here. We haven't had any, and let's not be naive and expect any. But I do hope that the video and the discussions around it will not only create more awareness about the situation of photographers working to get us the images we need to see, but also about what war really is all about.
Update (6 April 2010): Juan Cole points to this discussion - very worth the read. If you don't have the time for that long discussion, Juan sums it up in his post. Also more from The Economist (different writer) and another post by Glenn Greenwald. Also, a post by James Fallows.
]]>
"Professional and amateur photographers have gathered in London's Trafalgar Square to protest against terror stop and searches." (story; photo by Michael Perrin, from the BBC's website)
]]>
Like probably everybody else, I have been following what is going on in Iran, and this cartoon by Steve Bell, which I found here, might well be the most fitting visual commentary I've seen so far.]]>
(Updated below)
]]> The issue of diversity in photography - or, probably more accurately, the lack of diversity one often encounters - is something that needs to be addressed. I lost track of who brought this up first, but someone wrote that the issue at hand was passive racism.This immediately reminded me of what happened last year, during the Democratic primary and then the presidential campaign. During those campaigns, there were many accusations that various people had engaged in racism of some form while running against Barack Obama. Maybe not surprisingly, all of these accusations resulted in vehement denials. What is more, not everybody agreed with the charges of racism (remember this? now check this out).
A couple of months after the election I found some scientific research that seems to directly address this issue. People overestimate their reactions to racism: "people are very bad at predicting their responses to racism. They may claim to shun hypothetical racists or be upset by their actions but when confronted by such people and events in reality, their predictions turn out to be dramatic overestimates of their actual feelings. This discrepancy may help to explain why racism is such a widely condemned but remarkably prevalent part of modern society." (this link contains a shorter summary of the study in question) Make sure to read the whole piece, it's quite the eye opener. This is the realm of passive racism.
Of course, there will be many reasons for the composition of the PDN jury - and I don't know what they are. While asking PDN about the composition of their jury is something that should happen, I think what is even more important is to discuss the issue of diversity in photography. What can we do to fix this problem? What are possible solutions?
I'd be interested to hear from non-white photographers about their experiences. Have you encountered racism, overt or non-overt? If yes, in what forms? And what do you think has to be or can be done about this? Please email me (jmcolberg at gmail.com). I intend to use parts or all of what you write for a blog post about this; if you do not want to have your name revealed in that post, please let me know.
Update (9 June): There is a blog post on PDNPulse with a reaction to this issue.
]]>