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Ethics and morality

Is photography honest?

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When considering the concept of honesty as a photographer, it is difficult to decide whether or not photography can ever be truly impartial. 

Some may believe that simply taking a candid image with no post production editing can provide a gateway into a world. This gateway allows us to see the truth behind all things. It could also be seen that the honesty lies in the person behind the camera, not the machine itself and therefore the question of morality is dependant on the intentions of the photographer. 

However, I disagree. I believe that it is impossible to ever create an image that is truthful. In my opinion, the moment you place a camera to your eye, you become dishonest. As soon as you raise the camera, you crop out the full scene. By limiting the event to a single rectangular frame, you cut the context and present only the part of the scene that you capture. In this way, you can alter the way in which the situation is presented and therefore force viewers to see in the way that you do and restrict the formation of individual opinions. Thus photography can be both liberating and constricting, liberating for the photographer composing their image, yet constricting for the viewer who is unable to ever fully understand the image due to the absence of the exhaustive context.

Photojournalism

Nick Ut - Napalm girl

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Photojournalism is the use of photography to document events. It is primarily used to capture scenes of war in order to show the public what truly happens in areas of conflict.

A prime example of this is Nick Ut's 'Napalm girl' (left) which depicts a young girl: naked; running; screaming. This  image is incredibly striking. To see such agonising pain on the faces of such young children is truly chilling, their running and the cloud of smoke in the background giving the image a sense of urgency. The soldiers in the back of the image give connotations of wartime and conflict, allowing us as viewers to formulate ideas of the context. 

This image was taken during the Vietnam war in 1972. As Kim Phuc (Napalm girl) and her cousins along with a larger group decided to attempt to flee the NVA (North Vietnam Army) occupied town of Trang Bang, a strike pilot mistook them for armed NVA soldiers and dropped ordinance on their position. Some ARVN soldiers and Kim's cousins were doused in napalm and were consequently killed. Despite being ahead of the drop zone, Kim was still hit by some of the burning napalm, setting fire to her clothes and burning her skin. In terror and

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Left: Kim stands naked in a puddle of water after having her burns washed.


Right: The impact of the ordinance hitting the town. 

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agony she stripped off her clothes as she ran towards the aid station, where Ut was stationed along with a few other photographers and journalists. 

This photo amongst others led to the eventual decision of the American forces to decline the South's appeal for assistance. That April, Saigon (the former capital of South Vietnam) was defeated by the North, and the country was consolidated under their communist government. 

"Napalm girl" ,Trang Bang, Vietnam, by Nick Ut - 1972

Vogue vs Abu Ghraib

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This photo originates from the prison complex in Abu Ghraib, Iraq. Opened in the 1950s, this complex went behind the Geneva convention (which states that prisoners of war may not be tortured in all countries that have signed the treaty), torturing the prisoners and performing weekly executions. This photo was one of the images leaked to the public, revealing the shocking living conditions inside the prison. Taken by a prison guard, this image had no artistic purpose and was merely for the sadistic fantasies of the wardens.

 

Consequently this image is an example of photojournalism, a technique used solely for documenting events that is used most often for things such as war photography - a subject far too raw and gruesome to alter with artistic intention. It is also against the law in this country to edit war photographs in order to prevent further conflict. However, how can it be possible to not edit a photograph at all when you crop a scene as soon as you place a camera up to your eye? It could be by chance that an image is captured that is less favourable to one side and hence sparks anger, when in fact it is a truly innocent image taken in the wrong context and at the wrong angle. 

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However for these images in particular, there is no excuse, no explanation for the situation documented. Therefore sometimes photography can be a key factor in uncovering the unknown.

Images of the torture exacted on the prisoners of Abu Ghraib, taken by a prison guard - n.d.

Here, the Vogue magazine has published photos by the photographer Steven Miesel that replicate the leaked images from Abu Ghraib. In the foreground there is the oppressive force of some form of security, with an enraged dog standing over a woman on her knees. In the background is a man with an orange coat, echoing the orange jumpsuits worn by the prisoners in Abu Ghraib. The photo is taken from an angle below the faces of the guards, yet above the eye-line of the woman ensuring that the guards seem more superior than the woman. Additionally, the image broaches onto the wider platform of sexual oppression with the security guards appearing to be male, inflicting violence upon the model. Furthermore along these lines, the inclusion of the implicit phallic connotations suggested by the truncheon add another layer of sexual superiority, making the image rather controversial.  

In these images, there is some particularly interesting composition. On the left there is a huge amount of sexual domination by the male police officer with him pressing the model against the side of the car, his leg between hers and his arm lifting her skirts to expose her legs. On the right there is a colour counterchange with a small area of white in the blue on the right side of the image and the reverse on the left. Additionally, the perspective of the image being seen through a windshield makes the scene more voyeuristic, as if we are peering into a different world that does not affect us. 


Also in this photo there is artistic intent, with the aim of selling the clothes worn by the model. This could however be seen as the normalisation of torture and terrorism in modern society. 

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'State of emergency' by Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia - 2006

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The name of the series that this image appears in is 'State of emergency'. This could refer to a status, implicitly suggesting that the way in which we live and advertise our works in this day and age is hideous. Or, the word 'state' could be a reference to America and the recent emergency that occurred. As this issue was released on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, the suggestion of possible terrorism in the images makes the series extraordinarily morally corrupt in some people's eyes. However, in a world where such terrible things happen daily, it is possible that Vogue commissioned such images as a ploy for attention as seemly the only way to gain media coverage is through corruption. After all, even negative media attention is still attention and would therefore still widely circulate their products. But due to the events that the images are linked to, being seen to be wearing clothes from this issue could become taboo and thus Vogue make a enormous gamble as is always the case when publishing hugely controversial material. 

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"Water and oil" by Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia - 2010

Another of Miesel's controversial photoshoots for Vogue was a series named 'Water and Oil'. Coming after the incident in which BP accidentally drilled into a coral reef containing a vast store of crude oil - resulting in the deaths of thousands of marine creatures - the allusion of such a tragedy in a series of images promoting fashion surely shows a severe moral deficit in modern society. 

Jonathan Hobin - The Playroom

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"The twins" by Jonathan Hobin - 2010

Hobin is a Canadian based artist whose works have inspired debates in many different audiences, including: art critics, political movements, and the general public. His work is infamous in many countries, and has been described as being 'undoubtedly controversial and deliberately shocking'. In his series 'In The Playroom' Hobin explores the impossibility of a completely protected space, safe from the reach of modern media. 

In this image, Hobin uses child's toys and games to replicate the 9/11 tragedy. In the centre of the image sits the twin towers constructed of small wooden bricks, one of which has a crater in its side, the gaping hole exposing tiny cardboard cutouts of fire and stick figures falling from the building (possibly added in photoshop after the image was taken). 

Either side of the towers sit two children, one pale haired and innocent in appearance, dressed as a firefighter and attempting to aid the falling figures. The other child is dark haired and more menacing looking, holding a plane on a collision course with the second tower. The child has a hood covering his head and khaki shorts, imitating the stereotypical outfit of a terrorist.

Also, the body language of the children further portrays their characters. The blond boy has a lifted chin and his eyes are clearly visible, making him seem more virtuous. Furthermore the 

boy is crouched,  his arms and legs held close to his body in a more guarded position, suggesting that he feels threatened. Contrastingly the dark haired boy has his chin lowered, his eyes more hidden, giving him a more ominous appearance. Moreover, the child is sat with his knees spread, his arms wide away from his chest and thus unable to defend himself from attack. This implies that he is more comfortable with the situation. Additionally, The array of toys at the bottom create a violent juxtaposition with the scene shown in the image. This juxtaposition is a shock to the viewer as we often forget that our children also get caught up in the whirlwind of these events whilst we are too busy to notice. Morally, this image is extremely controversial. It serves to show that despite all of our censorship in society, preventing younger eyes from seeing more adult content, the news is still available to people of all ages. This photo raises questions surrounding the accessibility of news content such as this to younger people. The children pictured here are unlikely to fully understand the scene that they are recreating and therefore the image could be seen as being ethically misguided. I feel that we should protect our children from the terrifying truth to some extent, but after a certain level of maturity (not age as maturity is in no way linked to age, it is an attitude) they should be introduced properly into the true world that they live in. I feel that all children should be aware of worldwide news and as such the global disasters that are all too frequent.

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Here Hobin represents the Abu Ghraib scandal in a painfully childish way, showing that our children are also exposed to these horrors despite not entirely understanding them. It goes to show that there is no such thing as protection from the reaches of the media. In modern times, it is impossible to shield our children from the horrors of the world. 

Similarly to Meisel, Hobin represents the scandal in a way that seems incredibly inappropriate, thus inducing a shock factor that makes the viewer realise the true gravity of the situation. 

"A boo grave" by Jonathan Hobin - 2010

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