Banned from r/Leica for a Photo of John Abernathy being Arrested/Assaulted and tossing his M10 to a Fellow Photographer

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Dogman said:
Guy with a camera walks into a crowd of angry people and gets his ass kicked but saves his camera and pictures. Sums it up. From that you must develop a point of view. Can't go through life without thinking. If you have no opinion, you have no ability think. No brain. Can't be like that. Unless you wanna be president.

Carry on.





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On a forum for photography it may be wise to keep your political opinion for yourself. No ability to think is a completely different matter.
 
jja said:
On his website, Abernathy describes himself as a "documentary photographer based in Minneapolis." His portfolio (I only saw the website) includes commercial work (Target and other clients) and recent events in Minneapolis. He does not claim to be a "dispassionate photojournalist" as chuckroast would insist that he be, even as he acknowledges that journalistic bias exists and cannot separated from documenting events.

Interesting that Robert Capa is invoked as an exemplar of great photojournalism because he was willing to risk his life to get a photo. Arguably, Abernathy was doing the same thing. Capa, as everyone knows, was an ardent opponent of Spanish fascism, and his photography exemplified his stated beliefs. One of the interesting questions this discussion has brought up is: what is photojournalism in this day and age? For me, (photo)journalism should speak truth to power. Full stop. Throughout the world, we are living a moment when the power of the state is greater than ever, the power of the people at its lowest point. If the state purports to define truth, then a countervailing force is necessary. So yes, journalism still has a role to play, as flawed as it may be.

One more point: given that Abernathy is Minneapolis-based, why should he be "objective" about what is happening there?
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  1. To the best of my knowledge (I could be wrong), Capa never showed up with a camera, picked up a gun, and chose a side in the conflict. He just reported what was going on no matter what his personal views might. I am entirely open to someone demonstrating that Capa took up arms in the conflicts he covered. I have just never seen something like that.

  2. Everyone has bias. But a "journalist" who enters high conflict zone, chooses a side, and thereby participates in the conflict, is not longer doing journalism. They're promoting a cause.

  3. Abernathy is expected to be objective because he claims to be a documentarian/journalist. If he wants to flog some cause, he is more than free to do so, but it is unethical to do that and them claim victimhood when he gets caught up in the melee.

  4. The power to be confronted are the outside sources of elites funding keeping this conflict alive. I repeat - NONE of this happened starting in 2018 when something like 5 times as many people were kicked out and 50-ish people died in custody. No street riots, no spitting on cops, no using cars as weapons, no blocking traffic. This is not an organic expression by the people. It's not protest, it's not fair journalism.
 
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Dogman said:
Guy with a camera walks into a crowd of angry people and gets his ass kicked but saves his camera and pictures. Sums it up. From that you must develop a point of view. Can't go through life without thinking. If you have no opinion, you have no ability think. No brain. Can't be like that. Unless you wanna be president.

Carry on.





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Guy with a camera picks up some tear gas and thus chooses a side. THAT is the story.
 
What guy with a camera picked up some tear gas? Did I miss something? Wouldn't be the first time I missed something so somebody enlighten me.




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Dogman said:
What guy with a camera picked up some tear gas? Did I miss something? Wouldn't be the first time I missed something so somebody enlighten me.




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chuckroast said:
Notice that a few paragraphs down, they accidentally provide context being ignored by the unwashed masses of, er, ... commentators:

The agents formed a line and, in several quick bursts, pushed back the crowd with batons and crowd-control munition weapons. While the officers’ show of force agitated the crowd, Abernathy said, it was the arrival of “far-right agitators” that triggered the chaos that followed.

“There were three to five agitators, and they all had pepper spray in their hands,” he told the Tracker. “The agitators were able to stand with their backs near the agents, and the agents didn’t seem to mind it, and they didn’t mind that they had pepper spray either.”

Abernathy saw that one of the individuals had a loose hold on a canister, so he snatched it, tossing it under a nearby tree so that it wouldn’t be used against anyone.
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I guess this makes you a domestic terrorist.
 
Oh, I see. The dudes with pepper spray spraying people. A dispassionate journalist would stand by and let someone get injured. Sorry but disarming someone who is bent on injuring another person is human decency. Now if he took the pepper spray away from the guy and used it to spray the ICE guys...that would be taking sides.

I take my leave now. I have my own prejudices and opinions. But I feel I can still be fair.



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dourbalistar said:
I appreciate the mods' effort to reopen this thread, but with all due respect, very little positive is being advanced here anymore.
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I don't disagree.

I'm thinking that everyone has had a chance to present their perspective. We might be coming close to a new closing time.
 
My last two cents on this:

When the photojournalists (Nick Ut et. al.) photographed the "napalm girl" in Vietnam, they took the photo and then took the girl for treatment and looked after her.

When Kevin Carter took the Vulture and the Little Girl photo, he chased the vulture away.

Protecting the people you're photographing - such as throwing away a tear gas canister that's landed near you in a crowd of people - doesn't make you a failure of a photojournalist. It makes you human.
 
Hi Everyone,

A couple of members crossed the line with respect to political commentary. Tim closed the thread and I made the decision to remove the offending posts from it so the thread can remain. I had the option to delete the thread but I think there are some important points made throughout that don't jump way across the line.

Thank you everyone for sharing their perspectives. Like many of you, I agree with some, others not so much. Either way, I got to stretch my perspective a bit and see things from perspectives other than mine. Kind of like Rangefinder vs SLR, Digital vs Film, Nikon vs ......

Have a great weekend everyone. Please stay safe, healthy and have fun.

B2 (;->
 
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