Photographing poverty

R

Roger Hicks

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Have you ever done it? Why?

The question is prompted by something ebino said: Could you possibly photograph slum duelers [sic] in India effectively and know how they feel, when you just had lunch in a fancy restaurant and the gear in your camera bag would provide them food and shelter for a year?

I'm not quite sure what he meant, but when I was working for the Tibetan Government in Exile, yes, I certainly photographed some very poor people. How about a one-roomed house, no toilet, nearest running water a standpipe outside, roof repaired with tar-paper, walls papered with magazines to keep out the Himalayan cold? It was for a propaganda book, Hidden Tibet. A decade or so after I last photographed her, Pema Yangzom died there. Her daughter told me that she maintained to the end that it was only temporary: she had a house in Tibet.

How much good would it have done if I'd given up eating? (Not that 'fancy restaurant' meant much in Dharamsala in the 1980s.) And if I'd given away my cameras, I could hardly have taken pictures.

Also, what's a 'slum'? To me, it's a filthy hovel. There have been a few Tibetans and Indians I've known (well enough to eat and drink with, not just casual acquaintances or photo-subjects) who have lived in real poverty (unable to afford to send their kids to school, unable to replace the glass in the windows), but their single-room dwellings were cleaner and tidier than some middle-class houses I've seen in the USA, UK and France.

What do others think?

Cheers,

R.
 
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I recently had this discussion with some of my Photo 1 students, specifically regarding one of James Nachtwey's photos of famine, I believe in Ethiopia. If you are going to be a documentary photographer there is a difficult balance regarding your own humanity versus your chosen mandate to record the suffering of others. The natural human reaction (I would hope) when confronted with dying/dead infants/children/women/men is to reach out and help, to alleviate their suffering, to put down the camera and pick up the child. The photojournalists' natural reaction is to record the scene in a sensitive manner, to disseminate the image, to sound the alarm so that others will follow, to bring the necessary supplies and materials, housing and medicines, to make the body whole again, the society, the country - whatever there is in that setting that needs global response and local action to resolve and heal.

Sometimes you can do both. Many times, you can do neither. But you have to keep trying.

My opinion only.

M
 
If anything, coming from a non-impoverished environment probably helps with photographing poverty, because the differences between the rich and poor will stand out more obviously.
 
Dear Mark,

Fortunately, no-one was dying. They weren't even starving, though there were times when they went hungry. I was surrounded with poverty, but not with beggars. Some of what I did in the 80s (and even 90s) may have helped the Tibetan cause, and I've bought food and drink for friends and contacts and given money to people I didn't know so well.

It's only tangential to making a career out of crusading photojournalism (which I don't think I could handle), but at least I've 'walked the walk' for a few paces to help a cause I believe in. I'm interested in hearing both from those who do it 'for real' (as crusading journalists) and those who have photographed poverty for other reasons -- if there are other reasons.

Cheers,

R.
 
I'm reminded of the last season of HBO's The Wire. The Baltimore Sun decides to do a report on homelessness in the city, so a journalist for the paper hangs out around a few homeless people for a few hours and produces semi-fabricated melodramatic schmaltz about how he walked among the downtrodden. The paper executives, eager for a Pulitzer, are delighted with it while the other reporters see straight through it. Later on another reporter revisits the subject, focuses on one specific man (a predominant character in the show) and treats the subject with empathy and sensitivity. The report is unapologetic, has the facts, and gets to the heart of the matter. Unfortunately, it goes largely unappreciated.

I think the same can be applied to photography of the less fortunate in how we approach a subject.
 
Not yet - but I may.

The essential question is "Why?" There needs to be a good reason, otherwise it's exploitation. The reason does not necessarily have to be humanistic, highlighting the plight of those photographed: it can be entirely personal, like the studies Richard Billingham made of his drunk father and obese mother: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Billingham.

"Because s/he caught my eye" is not good enough: look around the web and you'll find galleries by street photographers that include the occasional gratuitous homeless person or someone suffering with an alcohol or drug problem. That's bang out of order in my book...
 
I honestly think if you're going to photograph poverty you should at least "live" with the poverty. Become part of the impoverished. Make friends with those in the situation. Shake hands with poverty itself.

What I mean is, I can easily walk around town, eating well, living well and shooting (as Ebino suggested) the impoverished from a distance (or even up close) but this does not help my truly understand their situation. If I want to really get the photos that can help me help them (and vice versa) then I honestly believe I would have to live with them in order to understand and truly empathize.

This is merely my opinion mind you.

Cheers,
Dave
 
I make photos of poor folks in and around Detroit. I meet them, we talk, maybe get something to eat or drink, share a bit of money. I'm not sure why I do it. Part affinity, part voyeurism, part interest in their histories, part photographic aesthetic.

If *ebino* is suggesting that the guilt or embarrassment my more fortunate self may feel in the presence of poor folks can or should prevent me from making photos, that's a sound ethic from a humane, empathetic point of view. I'm able to photograph up to a certain point. Serious deprivation, apparent illness, suffering - I refrain.
 
One can debate forever the nuances of the moral situation of hte photographer taking pictures -- of Native Americans in 1877 or in the South Bronx in 1977 or in Dharfur today. There are two important things to remember: the morality of the artist is irrelevant to the value of the 'thing made'. In other words an evil carpenter can make a beautiful and fully functional chair. So each of us -- particularly if we are from the Western developed economies -- has to come to terms with the destruction and the deprivation on which virtually ALL of our prosperity lies. Each of us is implicated whether we take pictures or not. But this has no affect on the value of the photography or, in my case, writing that we might do. Here, the standards are as they have forever been: the infinite possibilities for beauty, authority, and power when we manage to serve the requirements of form and the requirements of truth. This is the lesson of The Wire anecdote: not that reporter B was a better man: he wrote a truer story. Sentimentality pleases us all at one time or another but it invariably distorts both form and truth and so is the biggest enemy.

I would add, having been poor on many occasions (but more though my own choices than through opportunities demied) and, more relevantly, having lived in poor urban neighborhoods for many years at a time that one of the forms of suffering that falls upon the poor in modern times is invisibility. So quite often they don't mind how much the camera cost because many of them know that they want to be in the picture.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Have you ever done it? Why? .....

What do others think?

Cheers,

R.
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I see people on grates, wheel chairs, crutchs, cardboard boxes every day asking for money. I have never taken a photograph of people in poverty. What do I think? I never saw this 15 years ago. I think photography will not cure this situation, because it's been documented by photographers before and nothing improved these peoples lives. I wish it could.
 
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Two thoughts:
1 -The idea that you have to live it to portray it professionally is pure BS.
Ask any working journalist.

2 - Depends on who you're shooting for. Almost any situation can be
depicted to present a predetermined point of view. We all have
prejudices and employers have interests.
 
I'm with Jan on this one. Photography can't change the world. And a lot of photographers have tried. All these constant images accomplish is to induce compassion fatigue.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Have you ever done it? Why?

The question is prompted by something ebino said: Could you possibly photograph slum duelers [sic] in India effectively and know how they feel, when you just had lunch in a fancy restaurant and the gear in your camera bag would provide them food and shelter for a year?

I'm not quite sure what he meant, but when I was working for the Tibetan Government in Exile, yes, I certainly photographed some very poor people. How about a one-roomed house, no toilet, nearest running water a standpipe outside, roof repaired with tar-paper, walls papered with magazines to keep out the Himalayan cold? It was for a propaganda book, Hidden Tibet. A decade or so after I last photographed her, Pema Yangzom died there. Her daughter told me that she maintained to the end that it was only temporary: she had a house in Tibet.

How much good would it have done if I'd given up eating? (Not that 'fancy restaurant' meant much in Dharamsala in the 1980s.) And if I'd given away my cameras, I could hardly have taken pictures.

Also, what's a 'slum'? To me, it's a filthy hovel. There have been a few Tibetans and Indians I've known (well enough to eat and drink with, not just casual acquaintances or photo-subjects) who have lived in real poverty (unable to afford to send their kids to school, unable to replace the glass in the windows), but their single-room dwellings were cleaner and tidier than some middle-class houses I've seen in the USA, UK and France.

What do others think?

Cheers,

R.
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I think ebino was talking about slum duelers, not slum dwellers. Being poor, these duelers have to carry out their duels with fists or home-made weapons, not the traditional pistols or swords. I would have a hard time photographing such a violent conflict after eating lunch in any of the fancy restaurants I routinely frequent before photographing slum dwellers.
 
I think he was right in a bit of a twisted way. I think that shooting photos of people less fortunate than yourself should have some sort of connection or purpose behind it. On the other hand, I certainly don't think photography is a political action exclusively for the left wing. That's BS. As for the value of gear and local standards of living: there's a difference between using a well-made tool and rolling into the slums in a white chauffeured Rolls. Again, BS.

Personal enrichment, raising awareness, connecting with fellow citizens, learning stories etc might be considered motives. Is it a fun passtime? I don't think so. I tend to use a camera like a pen and paper but I don't doodle idly much these days. If I'm going to shoot a photo-doc, it's go to have something in it for me as well as the subject. Otherwise what's the point?
 
Pickett Wilson said:
I'm with Jan on this one. Photography can't change the world. And a lot of photographers have tried. All these constant images accomplish is to induce compassion fatigue.
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Then what does change the world? Apathy? Celebrity worship?

"Compassion fatigue" is (I suspect) a pernicious myth propagated by those in (undeserved) power who fear the loss of that power, and gratefully received by those who are looking for an excuse to do nothing.

Sure, we aren't all affected equally by all we see. We can look at as much as 90 per cent of it and think, "Yeah, well, nothing new there, the place was always a disaster area."

But then, there will be something we see, something we hear, something we understand, something that strikes a chord. Then we'll add our voices to the others crying in the wilderness. And the world does change. Otherwise there'd be no rule of law, no old age pensions, no concern for the weak, the sick, the infirm. And, come to think of it, the American colonies would still be colonies. Does ANYONE believe that if photography had existed in the 1770s, there'd not have been propaganda photographers on both sides?

And a pox on those who suggest that, perhaps, Americans have never been fit for self-government.

Cheers,

R.
 
I couldn't agree more. Most of the time I can see right through efforts passed off otherwise.



dcsang said:
I honestly think if you're going to photograph poverty you should at least "live" with the poverty. Become part of the impoverished. Make friends with those in the situation. Shake hands with poverty itself.

What I mean is, I can easily walk around town, eating well, living well and shooting (as Ebino suggested) the impoverished from a distance (or even up close) but this does not help my truly understand their situation. If I want to really get the photos that can help me help them (and vice versa) then I honestly believe I would have to live with them in order to understand and truly empathize.

This is merely my opinion mind you.

Cheers,
Dave
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