War Politics and Photography

Kim Coxon said:
Discussing the policies of governments, political parties or groups is not pertinent to a photographic forum. Hijacking anothers threads with polictical statements is certainly not correct. Let's look at recent history:

Mango started a thread to organise a meeting of RFF members in London. What has politics got to do with that and yet the thread was trashed despite intervention from the mods. Ruben, against forum rules, uploaded copyright material and asked for political comment. What does that have to do with organising an RFF meeting? If he really wished to discuss the photograhic implications of those pictures, he was at liberty to start a new thread with links. Instead he chose to start this thread in the manner he did. That would seem to indicate that his purpose was to troll rather than start a discussion.
Click to expand...

Hi Kim,
I respect your view, I respect you as a good and sensible moderator, but this is not fair. Ruben did not hijack the thread, and if you really wanted to stop the political discussion, I think you should have deleted this statement by Bill58 in the first place:
"I hate to pollute the RFF w/ a political comment, but just imagine for a minute a world w/ Osama Bin Laden in control of the majority of the world's oil reserves. You think you'd have any spare change for film and/ or cameras...or much else if that ever happened? Doubtful."
If you consider this is related to photography, then all Ruben said is about photography. If you consider this is totally inappropriate, then you should have censored it. Bill's statement made us react, but I don't blame him as I don't think there was matter to censure. Bill's a "big boy", so is Ruben, so am I. Bill told us what he believes (and he was right to do so), some of us disagreed, nobody insulted or disrespected anybody.
Now, I hear you and I hear your fear that people can't behave when it comes to politics. But honestly, we're all well educated and if there are insult, then censor and lecture us ;)
Again, don't take it bad Kim, I can imagine how difficult it is to moderate such a big forum, but sometimes have confidence :angel:
Cheers,
Marc-A.
 
Pablito said:
Perhaps we should turn to the original problem. I cannot endorse the posting of copyrighted images unless the poster owns the copyright. I make my living from photography. To me this is a really serious violation, akin to theft. Please respect the photography of Nick Ut - yes the photgrapher who took the picture of the burning girl has a name. The burning girl now lives in Cananda. Her name is Kim Phuc. This image is a piece of intellectual property and the person depicted is a flesh and blood person, even if the photo is an icon. See this:
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0008/ng6.htm
Click to expand...


Thank you indeed for bringing the name of both photographer and vyctim again to us. In the past I read the story, but slipped from my mind. Icon or no icon - that's totally irrelevant linguistics. In my opinion this has been "the most influential image of the last century" as I said, and no doubt one of the most dramatic. It is an image I can look at and look and look. And I always had the opinion that there is no framming, composition, aesthetics (well, war conditions) but deepest human pain. Pure human pain. Endless pain.

I do reckognize I didn't showed respect for copy rights, and being such an image the fault grows even more.

Perhaps the fact that we are a photographic forum dealing with images and their significance can mitigate a small bit my fault and make it less crude.

Thanks for your comment and attached info, very much timely.
Thank you Pablito, I have learned something from you.

Cheers,
Ruben
 
Last edited by a moderator:
"Amparo Ochoa/AndyWilliams/Mejia Godoy/George Moustaki/Joan Baez/Shirley Bassey/Cesaria Evora/Leonard Cohen/Carlos Gardel/Gipsy Kings/Mercedes Sosa/Atahualpa Yupanqui/Yves Montand/Natacha Atlas/Edith Piaf/Clara Nunes/Paulinho da Viola/Joan Manuel Serrat/Dulce Pontes/Mariza/Marcel Khalife/Fairouz/Arik Lavi /Maria Farandouri/Nana Mouskouri/Los Olimarenos/Inti-Illimani/ Victor Jara/Los Parra de Chile/Daniel Viglietti/Alfredo Zitarrosa/Teresa Parodi/..."

Ruben, that's not a signature, but an anti-war demonstration :)
 
Marc-A,
Please read my first post in this thread again and Pablito's at post 24. Ruben post was removed because he uploaded copyright material in contravention of forum rules. His earlier post was not edited removed or anything else.

Read my post 18 again. I did not say Ruben trashed the thread. I said it was trashed by political comment. Ruben may be trying to make out differently but the post was not removed for political content.

I went on to offer a challenge. Look at the penultimate paragraph:
By all means prove me wrong. Start a meaningful discussion about the politics of photography. Providing it stays on course and they is no mention of government policy in a non photographic sense, no trolling and no flames, I will let it run.

Please do not misquote me.

Kim
 
ruben said:
Perhaps the fact that we are a photographic forum dealing with images and their significance can mitigate a small bit my fault and make it less crude.
Cheers,
Ruben
Click to expand...

I can certainly accept this! I'm glad to provide the info and I admire A GREAT DEAL your musical taste!
 
If I can find them, I'll post photos of the tomb of Carlos Gardel.....a sacred place in Buenos Aires....
 
copyright issues aside, I have been here for a while and have seen many political discussions go awry...they just never end well. Lets leave this type of discussion to the political forums and enjoy our photography here.

peace out,
Todd
 
I agree that the central theme of why we are here is to discuss, appreciate, learn and just schmooze about rangefinders. At the same time photography is a picture to the world, all parts of it. It is sometimes a fine line that can at times be crossed where we begin to pontificate. I for one, don't mind be reminded when I cross that line.
 
Using that as an excuse for trolling and flame wars is not.

Here's where, it seems to me, an erroneous assumption was made. With Ruben on this one. That said, however, being a moderator on these things is one of those thankless jobs, isn't it? : )
 
Politics is and should be a big part of the forum. It should just be limited to photographs that one takes themselves with rangefinder cameras for the most part. I dont see any problem with talking about well known Rangefinder photographers and their political images either but the contriversy here was just going political to go political which is off topic and unwanted.

Hotlinking photographs is the normal standard on the net today. It could even be argued that since the image is not uploaded and is hosted on a seperate page that it is the equivelent of telling someone to look at the picture in a newspaper at a coffee shop where neither purchased the paper.


As for Ruben he can be a little over the top at moments but is still worth reading. Since he lives in Jerusalem I guess all his photos could be considered political and I was just speking to a friend about all the news coming from there last week including propaganda like photos from both sides in the struggle for the Temple Mount/ Dome on the Rock. What is weird here is seeing the politics issue being played out by historical photographs when Ruben could in all likelyhood post his own contriversial photographs on a daily basis and I would be more htan happy to see them.


No matter whats been said so far its time to respect the moderation. Since one of the photographs in question was taken with a Leica it could have easily been discussed as that, A political war photograph taken with a Leica. We should beware of what I call "Cabin Fever Conversation" which basicly tranlates into bringing your household converstions into the public domain when they are off topic.
 
I know that this is RangeFinder Forum and we are susposed to talk about RFcameras but the catigory clearly says OFF TOPIC> If you feel like VENTING or sharing a joke...DO IT HERE. We are not allowed to discuss photography here are we? Just like were not to discuss Canon rfs in the Nikon rf forum, right. Please explain? I don't clearly understand! And please believe that I'm not trying to flame or start trouble. I just thought that this is what Off Topic was for. To talk about other things. As long as we keep it clean like it states.
 
OT, photography related, but not RF related. We stretch it to include some non-photography related topics, and if you would like to add a joke.... but not to be stretched too far.

There are plenty places on the net where you can discuss and debate political topics, this isn't one of them.
 
For god's sake ... if your worried about the inflammatory tendencies of political discussions ... have a browse thorough some of the previous M8 threads ... and don't tell me they survived because they related to photography. Some of the vitriol that appeared in those had doodly squat to do with photography or rangefinders.

Im outa here for the day ... I might go and find a nice brick wall to smash my head on for a while!
 
Keith novak said:
For god's sake ... if your worried about the inflammatory tendencies of political discussions ... have a browse thorough some of the previous M8 threads ... and don't tell me they survived because they related to photography. Some of the vitriol that appeared in those had doodly squat to do with photography or rangefinders.

Im outa here for the day ... I might go and find a nice brick wall to smash my head on for a while!
Click to expand...

I think we (the mods) all agree with you Keith. The M8 forum is a land of it's own right now. It has to change, we have attempted to do so through visability and do have to do a better job there.
 
So, are photographs that have an obvious political viewpoint allowed? But there is to be no comment on the substance or meaning of the photograph if there is a political viewpont? I am assuming that the politically charged photograph is the original work of the poster.
 
Kim Coxon said:
Please do not misquote me.Kim
Click to expand...

Kim, then accept my apologies. But don't doubt I read you carefully.

Todd.Hanz said:
I have been here for a while and have seen many political discussions go awry...they just never end well.
Click to expand...

I understand that, Todd, and I guess that's why the mods are very careful when discussion comes on to politics. But B. Czar's questions suggest that photography is sometimes intrinsically political and requires political comment.

B. Czar said:
So, are photographs that have an obvious political viewpoint allowed? But there is to be no comment on the substance or meaning of the photograph if there is a political viewpont?
Click to expand...

Maybe we could agree, as Kim pointed out, that "discussing the political impact of photography in a dispassionate way can be pertinent. Discussing the policies of governments, political parties or groups is not pertinent to a photographic forum."
I support that idea even though it's often quite difficult to obsrerve that principle when photos are about the KKK (see X-Ray wonderful work), or the legal/illegal immigration, riots ... etc. But I guess we can avoid talks about Bush's policy, Chirac's show, or last Berlusconi's affair :)

Best,

Marc-A.
 
B. Czar said:
So, are photographs that have an obvious political viewpoint allowed? But there is to be no comment on the substance or meaning of the photograph if there is a political viewpont? I am assuming that the politically charged photograph is the original work of the poster.
Click to expand...

You are splitting hairs which was the intent of the original post in this thread. Photography and specifically RF photography is the topic of RFF. If and when a discussion of a topic turns to a political nature and the post turn from this topic into a political debate and an expression of personal politcal beliefs the moderators will step in. We are not saying not to have these conversations, just don't have them here.
 
One of the things I appreciate about this forum is its large international participation.

When I've seen converstations get out of hand is when someone posts something intolerant toward the diverse opinions of others.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom