RE: [Leica] Journalism, altered photo's, and other ethical debates

["B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

Well, Rob, I wouldn't want to disappoint. As I said very early on in
this thread, you and I come at this 'debate' from very different points
of view - so different that there really is no middle ground. You view
me as, at best, naïve on this issue - and have told me so off-list in so
many words. I view you, particularly when it comes to your work on the
West Bank, as a photo performance artists/propagandist - and I have told
you that off-list in so many words. So why wouldn't I think, and say,
that I think that - under some circumstances - your cards are "up your
sleeves."

What I find so interesting about this is that, in my view, you are
trying to have things both ways - you want to be viewed as a
"photojournalist" and "documentarian," and yet you use your considerable
photographic skills to espouse a political cause. The question isn't
whether you are on the side of 'right' in terms of backing that cause;
the question is what happens to people's view of all your work when they
know that you when you feel it's justified to ignore general standards
of photojournalism, you will.

Certainly my responses to what you've been saying in this on-list
exchange are colored by what you said to me in the exchanges off-list a
year or so ago. And it is of course possible that you have changed your
views of all this since our long off-list exchange; if that is the case,
then I may be overreacting to some of what you're saying on list.

But I doubt that that's the case. And, further, I'd suggest that you go
back and read what I've posted over the past couple days - as you've
suggested some people do in regard to your posts, read what you've
posted, and you just may find that you have been as hostile toward me
and my positions from the get-go as you suggest I've been toward you.

To be absolutely clear; I have enormous respect for your abilities as a
photographer, and for your commitment to the work in going where you go
to expose the conditions you so skillfully show. I do not, however,
respect your insistance on calling some of that work journalism or
documentary work. Because your doing so then tells the public that your
work is no different from that of the countless photographers and
writers to daily risk their lives to bring the written and photographic
reports of what they see before their eyes - reports that they bend over
backwards to prevent without filters. And if the public does not
understand the differences between your philosophy and those of those
many other people, they will, ultimately, trust those other people less.

I hope that is clear - and I do not believe it is insulting; it
certainly isn't meant to be.

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