Responding to Ritchin [chapter 8]

To preface, Ritchin has felt incredibly repetitive these last few chapters. I understand his emphasis on a hypertext, a hyper-reality that incorporates the realm of digital photography. But I am not finding the chapters different enough from one to another. In every chapter he throws in a [or multiple] statements about a curious viewer who may mouse over an image and more would be revealed. He almost as often mentions how many websites, projects, and shows, that he was personally part of........................................................End preface, I just had to get that out.

I think what I enjoyed most about this chapter was thinking about how photojournalists and the media record events and how we view those events through the photography that is presented to us. When I looked at the two images [viewpoints] of American troops invading Haiti in 1994 part of me is angry at the audacity of journalists to 'stage' such shots [as the top image is shown to be staged via the bottom image]. But it really only takes a minute for my rage to be replaced by sheer embarrassment that I have yet again believed that I understood an event through ONE single image. What a fool I am, we all are when we believe in the 'truth' of imagery from the media, especially that concerning politics and war. Ritchin pulls the perfect quote from Benjamin Bradlee saying:

"...What is actually happening that is being described by the media? Is Somalia being assulted in the predawn dark by crack U.S. troops? Or are bewildered GIs being photographed by freelance photographers who have been waiting for them for hours? The difference is often critical."

Bradlee is speaking of 'double images' of which nearly all non-computer generated photographs are. Every photo shot 'forward' through a viewfinder also had a view behind and to either side of the camera. But we hardly ever get more than that one view presented to us. As viewers we have to be careful of making too grand of assumptions about an event just because of one image [even when accompanied by captions because they too can be incorrect].

I like the idea of allowing subjects to have a say in how they are portrayed in the images of documentation [or to allow local subjects to document themselves]. To do so may allow for less errors in interpretation about a specific person or groups of peoples. Indeed a nice thought, but as we see how others are portrayed (through Facebook, blogs, fashion magazines, etc) we often try to create our own like image. In imitating those imitations are we really portraying our true selves then?

And finally I come back again to thinking about the purpose of the media and photojournalists working in war, poverty, famine, and diseased areas. I will admit that I am a skeptic. I do not know the intentions of the photographers, nor how they came about their imagery (faked, staged, ill-gotten gained, etc.), nor if the captions are true, nor if the image has been digitally enhanced, nor if I really have any right to view the [gruesome, heartbreaking, outrageous, etc.] image they returned with. There are so many variables to contemplate when considering an image from the media. And so many ways that images can inspire help, and so many that breed destruction and hatred within our culture and others.