All through photo history we've seen how photography can be used to move public opinion towards legislation. Photographs inspired the creation of the National Parks system; photographers like Lewis Hine helped pass Child Labor Laws; the FSA photographers helped promote Roosevelt's New Deal and so on.
Right now I can go into the city and photo the poor children running around improperly dressed. With a little homework I can follow the Sheriff serving eviction notices. I can find a street corner drug dealer in about 15 minutes, gangbangers not much different. Without much thought or effort I can photograph derelict storefronts and schools in shambles, marking me a concerned photographer pointing out our social ills and injustices.
Except I am a conservative, philosophically (and not following any knee-jerk Republican party line). Taking one micro issue as an example, I don't believe that minimum wage laws are a good idea. I think they actually work against their intention by causing employers to move towards automation and less hiring. I believe they eliminate entry level jobs and make it harder for people to gain employment, experience, and self-respect. And they are an intrusion on a person's right to hire whom they want and pay them for their true market value.
Yet I can not imagine a photograph that can express my feelings. I can show plenty of poor and suffering and caption those photos with sympathetic pleas for social justice. I can show a photo of a frustrated job seeker not being able to find anything, but that picture doesn't begin to describe the underlying causes for endemic poverty that's caused more by inept attempts at social engineering than by any evil Capitalist plot.
Same for showing starving African children... how can the photos be anything but tragic, yet the causes of this suffering are often compounded by the good intent of the NGOs and do-gooders who end up prolonging and expanding the suffering by propping up corrupt regimes and helping the population to survive and expand without any consideration for what the next generation might subsist on?
How do you show that though?
Are there any examples of concerned, right wing photography?
No Leni Riefenstahl jokes please ;-p
Right now I can go into the city and photo the poor children running around improperly dressed. With a little homework I can follow the Sheriff serving eviction notices. I can find a street corner drug dealer in about 15 minutes, gangbangers not much different. Without much thought or effort I can photograph derelict storefronts and schools in shambles, marking me a concerned photographer pointing out our social ills and injustices.
Except I am a conservative, philosophically (and not following any knee-jerk Republican party line). Taking one micro issue as an example, I don't believe that minimum wage laws are a good idea. I think they actually work against their intention by causing employers to move towards automation and less hiring. I believe they eliminate entry level jobs and make it harder for people to gain employment, experience, and self-respect. And they are an intrusion on a person's right to hire whom they want and pay them for their true market value.
Yet I can not imagine a photograph that can express my feelings. I can show plenty of poor and suffering and caption those photos with sympathetic pleas for social justice. I can show a photo of a frustrated job seeker not being able to find anything, but that picture doesn't begin to describe the underlying causes for endemic poverty that's caused more by inept attempts at social engineering than by any evil Capitalist plot.
Same for showing starving African children... how can the photos be anything but tragic, yet the causes of this suffering are often compounded by the good intent of the NGOs and do-gooders who end up prolonging and expanding the suffering by propping up corrupt regimes and helping the population to survive and expand without any consideration for what the next generation might subsist on?
How do you show that though?
Are there any examples of concerned, right wing photography?
No Leni Riefenstahl jokes please ;-p
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
Easy. Have the government remove minimum wage legislation and document our society's descent back into company towns, serfdom and slavery.
I think part of the issue may be conflating "conservative" with "right wing" - there have been lots of photographers showing conservative issues. Documenting traditional religions, endangered ways of life - highlighting the problems of change or changing too fast. As you pointed out, the National Parks - W.H. Jackson's photos proved to be invaluable.
Vics
Veteran
I think economics is a hard subject to photograph, just as digital technology is hard to photograph without resorting to product still-life.
zauhar
Veteran
You could follow around one of the many kids today who are gaining 'experience' by laboring in an unpaid internship. I have thought this might be a good project. Follow the kid around and document their day, while they jump through any hoop on demand, all in the hopes they might - just might - land a permanent job.
Modern capitalism has actually achieved the ultimate in extracting maximum use out of flesh and blood - even better than slavery! You could document and extol the virtues of that.
Randy
Modern capitalism has actually achieved the ultimate in extracting maximum use out of flesh and blood - even better than slavery! You could document and extol the virtues of that.
Randy
Roger Hicks
Veteran
It's an interesting dilemma. My politics have always been essentially reactive: "What's wrong? Let's fix it." Thus, when Thatcher was elected, I was pretty much a Thatcherite. As soon as she had re-established a more realistic balance between unions and government, I stopped supporting her. Unfortunately she stayed in power for a lot longer...
Perhaps what we photograph is a better indicator of our political leanings than the way we vote, and than what we think we believe because of the way we were brought up. What have YOU (anyone here) tried to photograph in the interests of political change? I'll put my hand up to Tibetan freedom, the increased use of bicycles and (in the 70s) Save the Whale aka Wave the Sail. If you HAVEN'T photographed anything with a political slant, why not? Indifference? Complacency? Laziness?
Cheers,
R.
Perhaps what we photograph is a better indicator of our political leanings than the way we vote, and than what we think we believe because of the way we were brought up. What have YOU (anyone here) tried to photograph in the interests of political change? I'll put my hand up to Tibetan freedom, the increased use of bicycles and (in the 70s) Save the Whale aka Wave the Sail. If you HAVEN'T photographed anything with a political slant, why not? Indifference? Complacency? Laziness?
Cheers,
R.
airfrogusmc
Veteran
Minor White said are photographs are self portraits and DeCarava said when you see me you see my photographs and when you see my photographs you see me. I think what we choose to point our cameras at in the world and the what we decide to include in the frame says a lot about who we are.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
It seems to me that you and I are saying exactly the same thing, in rather different ways.
Cheers,
R.
zauhar
Veteran
Roger I think your statement about photography is much in the mark. I also appreciate the question of the OP, as it has made me join him in wondering what 'conservative' photography could even look like.
Randy
Randy
airfrogusmc
Veteran
Yeah I was agreeing with your post.
FrankS
Registered User
Conservative photography: no nudes allowed.
airfrogusmc
Veteran
One thing I think of when I think of conservative photography I would think most of it would look very safe and cautious. I'm not trying to say this applies here (in no way am I doing that) but we all know what EXTREME conservative art won't look like. The Degenerate Art exhibit in the 30s showed us that. Maybe you can show the effects of a policy that you don't agree with if there are indeed adverse effects.
daveleo
what?
You simply cannot photograph the convolutions of complex ideas.
You can make a picture and backtrack (with words) from it to what's on your mind;
but . . . . if it were possible to present the depth and breadth of complex
issues with a few pictures, there would be no need for text or books.
That may happen with a million more years of (brain capacity) evolution, but we're not there yet.
People can understand a picture of a starving child with flies in its eyes,
or a rich couple being served drinks and snacks on their yacht, but you ask
too much for the picture to underscore your political insights as to "what's wrong with this picture?"
You can make a picture and backtrack (with words) from it to what's on your mind;
but . . . . if it were possible to present the depth and breadth of complex
issues with a few pictures, there would be no need for text or books.
That may happen with a million more years of (brain capacity) evolution, but we're not there yet.
People can understand a picture of a starving child with flies in its eyes,
or a rich couple being served drinks and snacks on their yacht, but you ask
too much for the picture to underscore your political insights as to "what's wrong with this picture?"
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Not sure. There's a very high degree of idealization of The Worker, The Aryan, etc., in "EXTREME conservative art". This is not really very safe and cautious. Just a thought.
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Or politics, unless it agrees with THEIR politics. Of course, exactly the same is true of far-left art. Though the left often has more latitude, as irony tends to escape the extreme right. Come to think of it, it escapes the extreme left too, but the medium-left often appears to have more of a sense of irony than the medium-right.
Cheers,
R.
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
robklurfield
eclipse
It would seem to me that the same photograph could be suspectible to all kinds of interpretation, from extremely progressive to radically conservative. The interpretation need not even be connected with photographer's, publisher's or other purveyor's intentions.
Someone seeing a Dorthea Lange image of poor folk in the Dust Bowl could use the photo to argue for OR against the New Deal (ie, "these folks need help ..." or "these folks need to lift themselves up on their own....").
Perhaps, Franz Elmar, is it possible that you are reacting more to the intentions and uses by editors (the message they are/were attempting to convey) than you are to the photos themselves?
Someone seeing a Dorthea Lange image of poor folk in the Dust Bowl could use the photo to argue for OR against the New Deal (ie, "these folks need help ..." or "these folks need to lift themselves up on their own....").
Perhaps, Franz Elmar, is it possible that you are reacting more to the intentions and uses by editors (the message they are/were attempting to convey) than you are to the photos themselves?
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Can be, no doubt. Seldom is. Context and a caption can make an immense difference.
Cheers,
R.
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
Rather than portraying a political view, portray the people that suffer or benefit from that view.
Currently I'm working on a series on poverty in The Netherlands, and as there's a crisis going on here, creating this series now is a statement in itself with regards to my views on the origin of that crisis. I want to tell those views in captions and editorial text, and let the photographs show the results of the choices made.
I wouldn't know how to get a more complex message across, can't be done with photographs only IMHO.
Currently I'm working on a series on poverty in The Netherlands, and as there's a crisis going on here, creating this series now is a statement in itself with regards to my views on the origin of that crisis. I want to tell those views in captions and editorial text, and let the photographs show the results of the choices made.
I wouldn't know how to get a more complex message across, can't be done with photographs only IMHO.
hepcat
Former PH, USN
Absolutely. A photograph is just an image. Unless it is given perspective, either by context with other images or by captioning, the viewer is left to create his/her own context which is developed based on his/her beliefs and experiences.
In the most base form, politics is about money: who has it and who wants it; and subsequently who can gain the power to move that money around in the way they want it moved. Religion is about beliefs, and not surprisingly so is politics. As far back as history records, religion has been used as a political weapon to gain the power to move the money. Politics and religion remain so linked today. Conservatives generally believe in concentrating that money and power in their own hands. The left generally believes in decentralized monetization and power structures. They both have marketing campaigns that sell their agendas as "it's good for everyone."
I don't think that any of that can be portrayed in a single image without context, Dorthea Lange's "Migrant Mother" as the perfect example as described above. It is a photo of a desperate mother. It is strong and striking, but doesn't convey a political message on it's own. It could be used, however, by either camp with the right context and/or captioning to push their own agenda.
JoeV
Thin Air, Bright Sun
Photography is one of the most powerful tools of the propagandist because it retains a strong superficial appearance of visual objectivity while simultaneously being entirely subjective. Where you point the lens, what you include or exclude in the frame and when the shutter is released are all editorial decisions.
That said, not every individual photograph by necessity functions as propaganda on its own; what is required is context. But even absent any additional written commentary, a body of photographs can begin to build up over time an editorial slant toward some preconception, if for no other reason than a series of images serves as a form of cinema, helping to establish the telling of a story. I think we can all name a few famous photographers whose body of work over time begins to tell a consistent message, as much by the images absent from the collection as those present.
Given a large enough set of images to choose from, most of us could easily assemble a selection that purports to reinforce some preconceived (political or otherwise) viewpoint.
~Joe
That said, not every individual photograph by necessity functions as propaganda on its own; what is required is context. But even absent any additional written commentary, a body of photographs can begin to build up over time an editorial slant toward some preconception, if for no other reason than a series of images serves as a form of cinema, helping to establish the telling of a story. I think we can all name a few famous photographers whose body of work over time begins to tell a consistent message, as much by the images absent from the collection as those present.
Given a large enough set of images to choose from, most of us could easily assemble a selection that purports to reinforce some preconceived (political or otherwise) viewpoint.
~Joe