Conservative Photography

[Rodchenko]

But any photo you choose to take is already informed by your beliefs and assumptions. It's impossible to take a completely objective shot as soon as you've started making decisions about emulsion and lens, position, exposure, dof etc...

 

[Roger Hicks]

First, I'd suggest that in general, the left believes in change and progress, and the right believes in stasis or regression (going back to a mythical 'golden age'). It is easier to photograph things that 'need fixing' (left) than things that are 'fine as they are' (right). Things that are 'fine as they are' tend to be taken for granted: we don't want to change them, and besides, what would they be? Old buildings? Yosemite? Children playing in a safe environment? I think the left can rejoice in such things as readily as the right.

Second, as many others have pointed out, caption and context can completely change the message of a particular picture. Again, in general, the left tends to be rather more skilled at propaganda (captions, and defining context) than the right. Why? Hard to say; but I think it's because they (we) are better at sounding reasonable than the right. Whether we are more reasonable is a legitimate subject for debate, but those who complain about 'left wing intellectuals' might reflect on the third word, 'intellectuals'. Certes, among my intellectual (and media, and teaching) friends, more hold left-wing views than right-wing. To me this suggests that left-wing views and a certain kind of intelligence may be correlated to a modest degree. Another kind of intelligence, such as that required to succeed in business, may be more correlated with right-wing views, but for either side to pretend that theirs is the only kind of intelligence that matters is, well, unintelligent.

Third, in general is a very important qualification. Even though they are greatly outnumbered by intelligent left-wingers, I know plenty of intelligent right-wingers. And of course, as others have pointed out, both reality and political views can be quite complex. 'Right wing' doesn't necessarily mean 'religious fundamentalist' or 'climate change denier'. The late Maggie Thatcher was something of a hawk on trying to prevent or mitigate human-influenced climate change, and few would call her left-wing. My father, a long-time Telegraph reader (the Torygraph is the paper of the right in the UK, just as the Grauniad is the paper of the left) still, at 84, believes that trades union have done far more good than harm.

Fourth, some views that are 'left wing' in the USA, such as socialized medicine and gun control, are taken for granted in the vast majority of the developed world: they are seen as neither 'right wing' nor 'left' wing, but as common ground. It might be interesting, though, to shoot a series on French pistol-shooting clubs, in favour of relaxing the law. Whether or not this would be seen as 'left' or 'right' in France is debatable, but I think it would count as 'right'. Then again, in France, 'liberal' means the exact opposite of what it means in the United States. It is used as a general term of abuse by the left, because they take it to mean 'economic liberal' (selfish, in favour of atomized society), whereas it is used as an insult by the right in the USA because they take it to mean 'social liberal', or suggesting (counter, again, to Maggie Thatcher's famous statement) that actually, there is such a thing as society.

So, in sum, I'm not quite sure what 'concerned right wing photography' can consist of. Zauhar pointed out the shock pictures of aborted foetuses, and that's certainly concerned right-wing photography, but it's something of a niche. I suppose that photographs glorifying war might be taken as right-wing, were it not for the number of ex-military men I know who are less than enthusiastic about military solutions when there is any other option. Likewise, photos glorifying extremely polluting new cars -- 'progress' of a sort, but at a price that ever fewer people are willing to pay -- but again, we have the Leaderene on the other side. For that matter, it is possible to argue that all advertising photography for consumer goods is right wing, but then we get into the nature of necessary and unnecessary goods.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . Rather than simply looking for an issue, documenting it, and then drawing conclusions from what you've seen.. . ..

Hold on: this is impossible. How, after all, do you define 'an issue'? How do you choose which 'issue' to photograph? How do you document it with no slant whatsoever? Why would you want to, even if you could? Who would be interested, even if you could?

Can you give me a single example, throughout history, of any photographer who has ever done what you suggest?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Franz Elmar]

Since this thread may get closed, are there other photography forums where there is a lively civil discussion amongst photographers/people from around the world, where they may disagree without insults flying?

In my experience most political forums evolve into like minds talking to each other, with exceptions for trolls. If I go to the HuffPo I can expect to read most posters reinforcing their shared dogma, just as I will at a Fox News type site. At least with a photo forum we have a wider range of opinion, experience, and geographic locations....

It seems absurd that given the long history of rangefinder cameras being used by journalists and "concerned" documentary photographers to photograph 80 years-plus of political happenings that you can't have a discussion of it.

And it's even more absurd that in a forum dedicated to rangefinders it is mostly about the latest Sony and Fuji products that do not even use rangefinders except as cosmetic inspiration ;-p

 

[Austerby]

Reading through these responses for the first time now, it seems to me that this is a "lively civil discussion" with remarkably few personalised disagreements.

To the OP, one way of capturing a specific "conservative" photographic approach may be alongside whichever political party you regard as providing those values and to look at the people involved and their own circumstances - who they are, what they do, where they go etc.

It would be an interesting project to document the range of first-hand experiences of politically-active people (not necessarily politicians) to understand how they see the world and what conclusions they draw from what they see, or what their formative background is.

One photographer who I think does this, keeping his own politics out of the equation, is Martin Parr, who has been documenting different groups of people and portraying their world in this way, but leaving the viewer to make their own conclusions.

 

[hepcat]

Since this thread may get closed, are there other photography forums where there is a lively civil discussion amongst photographers/people from around the world, where they may disagree without insults flying?
...

It seems absurd that given the long history of rangefinder cameras being used by journalists and "concerned" documentary photographers to photograph 80 years-plus of political happenings that you can't have a discussion of it.

It would seem, Franz, that what we're having right here is exactly that: a lively, civil, and interesting discussion among photographers from around the world who have disagreed without insulting one another. Oh, there may have been an unnecessary pointed jab along the way but I have to commend all of those who have participated in this thread so far for exhibiting that civility across disparate perspectives. It is refreshing to see perspectives presented without bluster.

As a long-time former moderator/admin on other sites, I can tell you that threads get closed when someone decides that their point of view is the right point of view and then they try to bully everyone else into adopting that view. That hasn't happened here in this thread yet. As a matter of fact, despite the labelling that inevitably happens in political discussions, it appears that the majority of us have more views in common than we have at odds, which makes sense when you consider that most of us have a common interest, not only in photography, but in using a specific style of equipment to accomplish our goals.

I think you've found your photography forum for that lively, civil discussion.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Thinking more about 'conservative photography', it would probably have been entirely possible to promote the Thatcher agenda of the right of tenants to buy council (for Americans, social) housing. It should have been quite easy to show how many people's lives were improved by this. Such a project must have been undertaken -- but if it was, I don't recall it. This is an example of a specific, basically right-wing policy, though of course it could have been a policy acceptable to both sides if the local authorities had been able to use the money from the sales to build more social housing. Unfortunately, as far as I recall, they were specifically barred from doing so.

So: I have already produced ideas for two right-wing projects: the gun club story from an earlier post, and the sale of social housing. Who else can come up with specific examples? Or, better still, show us examples that they or others have undertaken.

Cheers,

R.

 

[02Pilot]

It seems to me that, as others have suggested, the problem here is essentially one of too broad a definition of political viewpoints. Which aspect of conservatism do you wish to document? Economic conservatism or social conservatism? Traditional/historical conservatism or radical/new conservatism? Or do you wish to approach it by portraying non- or anti-conservative subjects in a negative or unflattering way?

To my mind, the starting point for such an endeavor would have nothing to do with a camera. I would recommend reading some books on the subjects you are most interested in, perhaps combined with some broader works on political philosophy. This may help you to develop a more precise focus for your work.

(Semi-full disclosure: I teach political science and history in higher education, so I tend to approach anything from a research-first perspective. I have strong and well-defined personal political views, which I absolutely will not elaborate on here.)

 

[FrankS]

How about a picture of a tea party?

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . To my mind, the starting point for such an endeavor would have nothing to do with a camera. I would recommend reading some books on the subjects you are most interested in, perhaps combined with some broader works on political philosophy. This may help you to develop a more precise focus for your work.. . .

Surely, it must be taken for granted that you already have some views and knowledge. How else could you decide to photograph anything with a remotely political/economic content?

A point from Frances, my wife: passion not only means you get better pictures. It also means access. People open up to you and tell you more. Trying to take pictures without this kind of support and access will generally mean banging your head against a brick wall.

Cheers,

R.

 

[tunalegs]

Hold on: this is impossible. How, after all, do you define 'an issue'? How do you choose which 'issue' to photograph? How do you document it with no slant whatsoever? Why would you want to, even if you could? Who would be interested, even if you could?

Can you give me a single example, throughout history, of any photographer who has ever done what you suggest?

Cheers,

R.

Think of it like this, if you plan to document a river - then you discover it is polluted when you go to photograph, and present that part of it because your sympathies lay with the environment - that is a different thing than saying "I want to show pollution, now where do I go to find the most damning images of it that I can".

It is not possible to be free from bias, but that doesn't mean one has to make their work into a commercial for their point of view and give everybody the hard sell.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Think of it like this, if you plan to document a river - then you discover it is polluted when you go to photograph, and present that part of it because your sympathies lay with the environment - that is a different thing than saying "I want to show pollution, now where do I go to find the most damning images of it that I can".

It is not possible to be free from bias, but that doesn't mean one has to make their work into a commercial for their point of view and give everybody the hard sell.

Why are you going to 'document a river'? You MUST have preconceptions: that it's a source of water for riverside communities, a means of transport, a vacation spot, of historical interest (the river where I live was canalized a thousand years ago), 'unspoiled', 'spoiled', you name it. Otherwise you're just taking happy snaps of pretty riverside scenes: you aren't documenting anything at all. A decision to document the river can grow out of happy snaps and casual visits, but it ain't the same thing.

Cheers,

R.

 

[tunalegs]

Why are you going to 'document a river'? You MUST have preconceptions: that it's a source of water for riverside communities, a means of transport, a vacation spot, of historical interest (the river where I live was canalized a thousand years ago), 'unspoiled', 'spoiled', you name it. Otherwise you're just taking happy snaps of pretty riverside pictures: you aren't documenting anything at all. A decision to document the river can grow out of happy snaps and casual visits, but it ain't the same thing.

Cheers,

R.

One begins to photograph a subject because they think it is interesting. But it may take them a while to figure out what exactly draws them to the subject - why it is interesting. I don't think that is an uncommon situation. Some people never even get to the stage where they can explain it. That's not to say their bias doesn't come into it - obviously it does.

Just that is a different approach than coming up with a very specific idea first, then looking for what you can exploit to sell that idea to others.

Further if you're going to present a work as documentation - but you're going to omit anything you've come across that may conflict with your personal views, then it's not really much of an attempt at documentation. It's just a commercial.

 

[hepcat]

How about a picture of a tea party?

Frank's thought brings to mind a video that was posted early in 2012 about a "Tea Party" march on Washington D.C.

It is shot in documentary fashion. Is it a documentary, a hit piece, or propaganda?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcah4o_tea-party-march-footage-with-interv_news#.UWwFrz5IE5M

 

[Roger Hicks]

One begins to photograph a subject because they think it is interesting. But it may take them a while to figure out what exactly draws them to the subject - why it is interesting. I don't think that is an uncommon situation. Some people never even get to the stage where they can explain it. That's not to say their bias doesn't come into it - obviously it does.

Just that is a different approach than coming up with a very specific idea first, then looking for what you can exploit to sell that idea to others.

Further if you're going to present a work as documentation - but you're going to omit anything you've come across that may conflict with your personal views, then it's not really much of an attempt at documentation. It's just a commercial.

You're using very loaded language here: "exploit", "sell", "commercial".

Why is it "exploitation" to present a point of view? Or indeed to photograph anything? Well, apart from obvious examples such as pornography -- and even then, it isn't always necessarily exploitation.

It almost certainly isn't a "commercial", as you're rarely trying to "sell" anything. Persuasion, illustration and selling are different things.

Until you've figured out why a subject is interesting, you're not documenting it. You're taking pretty pictures. A document has some cohesion. A set of pretty pictures doesn't. Then again, I suspect that most people do have a pretty good idea of why they return to a particular subject again and again, even if they can't put it into words -- and I suspect that if pressed, most could put it into words.

As for your last paragraph, no. Do you deny that Capa, Chim and Taro 'documented' the Spanish Civil War? Are you seriously suggesting that they weren't even trying? Would you call Margaret Bourke-White's pictures of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen 'a commercial'? Should she have said, "On the other hand, lots of people supported the Nazis" and provided pictures of prosperous black marketeers?

"Document" doesn't mean "take pictures of everything". It can't mean that, or where would it stop? A document can only ever deal with one or more aspects of something -- and even then, it's selective. Why stop at ten pictures? A hundred? A thousand? A million? The fact that you don't run a million pictures (or even a thousand) means that inherently, photographic documentation of anything remotely complex is going to be selective -- or as a detractor might say, 'biased'.

I do not deny that it is possible to make a piece of propaganda. I do however deny that it is possible to make a good (or even competent) series of pictures 'documenting' a subject unless you are passionate about it. Ansel Adams was passionate about preserving Yosemite. If he'd gone for a milk-and-water approach, "But on the other hand the farmers need water, so here's a picture of a field", would his pictures be as well known? There are many subjects -- such as the Spanish Civil War -- where to pretend neutrality would be a short cut to getting no worthwhile pictures. In war zones it could even be a short cut to sudden death.

In an earlier post, I asked you for a single example of any photographer who had ever been completely 'objective'. Now I'll challenge you to say how Capa, Chim and Taro could have 'documented' the Spanish Civil War 'better'.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Rick Waldroup]

How about a picture of a tea party?

I was wondering when someone would mention this.😀

I think that Franz's quest is futile. He will never be able to photograph the images he wants because they don't exist.:bang:🙂

 

[Roger Hicks]

I was wondering when someone would mention this.😀

I think that Franz's quest is futile. He will never be able to photograph the images he wants because they don't exist.:bang:🙂

Why not? He may not be able to think of examples, but surely that is why he posted the question. I've already given a couple of ideas: the pistol club, the housing sell-off. Can no-one else, especially those on the right, think of any other right-wing causes that might be supported with photography?

Cheers,

R.

 

[02Pilot]

Surely, it must be taken for granted that you already have some views and knowledge. How else could you decide to photograph anything with a remotely political/economic content?

A point from Frances, my wife: passion not only means you get better pictures. It also means access. People open up to you and tell you more. Trying to take pictures without this kind of support and access will generally mean banging your head against a brick wall.

Finally, if you will forgive the inquisitiveness, "political science" is pretty much an alien concept to many English speakers (as distinct from Americans). Clearly it's no more a science than economics is: equally clearly, politics is one of the most important subjects in the world, especially as part of a PPE degree (Philosophy, Politics and Economics). When (and why) did the study of politics in the United States become 'political science'? Is it a legacy of Marx?

Cheers,

R.

"Some views and knowledge" is not the same as deep understanding and well-formed, intellectually consistent perspectives. This of course holds true for any discipline, but the waters are further muddied in politics because opinion, often uninformed, and personal experience, often atypical, are frequently mistaken for knowledge. This is not to say that opinion has no place in politics, but it is distinct from a broad-based intellectual understanding of the subject.

For an American conservative looking to better understand their own perspective, looking at books like Smith's On the Wealth of Nations, Mill's On Liberty, and de Tocqueville's Democracy in America may offer some historical perspective on the ideas that have contributed to the modern conservative movement. With a better understanding of these ideas, he would hopefully then find a more refined perspective upon which to base his own convictions. Of course, looking at only one side of the argument is flawed; reading Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States might offer an opportunity to see the issues from a different perspective.

Passion for and political fellow-traveling with one's subjects may very well prove a positive for access. This seems to me, however, to be a second or third stage of the process, whereas I am concentrating on the first.

My point in advocating this approach is in reaction to the tendency in modern politics for oversimplification. Politically-motivated photography would seem to be particularly susceptible to this; as the photographer has little direct control over how his work is interpreted after the fact, it would seem all the more important that they understand as fully as they can their own perspective in shooting the photos. Ideally, politics in an open society would involve an examination and refutation of competing ideas; in practice, it usually involves simply becoming louder.

*****

As to "political science" (a rather imperfect term), I'm not entirely certain when it became the catch-all term in the U.S. It is clearly not a science in the sense of the hard sciences, though a case can be made for certain disciplines being effectively examined with a relatively rigorous scientific approach (international relations or political economy, for example). I don't know if it is a legacy of Marx; there are probably more Marxists in U.S. academia as a proportion of the total population than anywhere else in the world, though in my experience they don't tend to be as prevalent in political science as they are in other humanities.

 

[tunalegs]

You're using very loaded language here: "exploit", "sell", "commercial".

Why is it "exploitation" to present a point of view? Or indeed to photograph anything? Well, apart from obvious examples such as pornography -- and even then, it isn't always necessarily exploitation.

It almost certainly isn't a "commercial", as you're rarely trying to "sell" anything. Persuasion, illustration and selling are different things.

If you'll please refer to the original post of the thread. 😉 I'm talking about exploiting photography to push a political point. An example of which was telling people why they should drop minimum wage.

As for commercial, think along the lines of if you are a car salesman what are you going to hand a prospective customer? A sales folder of glossy photos, or the repair manual?

 

[Roger Hicks]

"Some views and knowledge" is not the same as deep understanding and well-formed, intellectually consistent perspectives. This of course holds true for any discipline, but the waters are further muddied in politics because opinion, often uninformed, and personal experience, often atypical, are frequently mistaken for knowledge. This is not to say that opinion has no place in politics, but it is distinct from a broad-based intellectual understanding of the subject.

For an American conservative looking to better understand their own perspective, looking at books like Smith's On the Wealth of Nations, Mill's On Liberty, and de Tocqueville's Democracy in America may offer some historical perspective on the ideas that have contributed to the modern conservative movement. With a better understanding of these ideas, he would hopefully then find a more refined perspective upon which to base his own convictions. Of course, looking at only one side of the argument is flawed; reading Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States might offer an opportunity to see the issues from a different perspective.

Passion for and political fellow-traveling with one's subjects may very well prove a positive for access. This seems to me, however, to be a second or third stage of the process, whereas I am concentrating on the first.

My point in advocating this approach is in reaction to the tendency in modern politics for oversimplification. Politically-motivated photography would seem to be particularly susceptible to this; as the photographer has little direct control over how his work is interpreted after the fact, it would seem all the more important that they understand as fully as they can their own perspective in shooting the photos. Ideally, politics in an open society would involve an examination and refutation of competing ideas; in practice, it usually involves simply becoming louder.

*****

As to "political science" (a rather imperfect term), I'm not entirely certain when it became the catch-all term in the U.S. It is clearly not a science in the sense of the hard sciences, though a case can be made for certain disciplines being effectively examined with a relatively rigorous scientific approach (international relations or political economy, for example). I don't know if it is a legacy of Marx; there are probably more Marxists in U.S. academia as a proportion of the total population than anywhere else in the world, though in my experience they don't tend to be as prevalent in political science as they are in other humanities.

Ah, I see your point: thanks. Even so, I'm not sure how much 'deep understanding' a polemicist needs. Obviously in theory, as you point out, the more, the better; but are the best theorists necessarily the best polemicists? Is there not a visceral aspect to politics that is at least as important as political theory? All practical study of politics seems to indicate that this is so.

Thank you too for your reply to my query about political science, though again, I'd suggest that the important word in 'relatively rigorous' is 'relatively'.

Cheers,

R.