Re: [Leica] stealing souls

[Tim Carroll <tim@boomboom.com>]

Hi,

I cannot help but respond to this discussion as I have had some experiences in an Islamic country that countered some of my preconceptions of what the rules for making photos in public might be.

A few years ago I was asked by a magazine to go to the island of Djerba, a part of Tunisia, to photograph a "very traditional" wedding ceremony, an event that lasted some 3 days and nights. Having lived in Paris for some time, I was very aware that there is a particular sensitivity that one is required to bring to photographing in an Islamic country and so I was very cautious of my "big American guy with cameras" presence. I learned a lot as the ceremonies unfolded.

The event took place over the entire village, the town dividing itself in two, a men's half and a women's half. The groom and bride each occupied a sort of a headquarter on a respective side but the villagers often met over the days on the occasion of feasts, processions and music performances. My assignment was to document the preparations of the bride and so I spent most of my time on the women's side of town. Needless to say, I questioned the wisdom of the journalist in selecting me, a male, for this job. To my surprise, as a non-Moslem, though, I was accorded more access to the women than I would have if I was a Moslem.

Anyway, despite the trepidations borne of my preconceptions, at no time did anyone object to my photographing anything or anyone over the days I was there. Certainly I made some people uncomfortable from time to time as I fired away with a flash at one nighttime ceremony or another. Other, older people moved away from me and my camera if they felt uncomfortable. However, my access to anything associated with the wedding was not limited in any way and I was encouraged to make as many pictures as I wanted.

As I recovered from the ceremonies in the city of Tunis, I looked up some members of the Tunisian cinematographic community to do portraits to leave with a Paris photo agency. Director Moncef Dhouib very graciously accorded me an afternoon to show me around, drink tea and explain some of what I experienced in Djerba.  

My ignorance of his culture was admittedly almost total, but he was effortlessly very patient with my questions. He explained that much of the society is constructed of layers of intimacy and cleanliness, from the municipal to the household. To paraphrase very roughly there are popular places where strangers are received, hammering of metal is done, at the outside of a city or house, and there are intimate places where only a king or the husband and wife may go. Intervening layers, zones of town or rooms in a house are reserved for particular people or activities. The image I received was one of one of the beautiful mosaics famous of the orient, of repeating, multicolored symmetries forming a dazzling whole. I thus recognized my place in the order of a very structured and aesthetically compelling society, a facet of a complex crystal, and the entirety of the facets would never be entirely known to me.

Not having seen any of Moncef's films, I asked him what characterized his cinematography. He explained to me that some elements of Tunisian cinema had Europeanized sometime in the 1960's and so he, among others, eschewed the depiction of "poor men's dreams" i.e. fantastic stories, jewels, singing, beautiful people in beautiful costumes, spirits and visions etc. (I was reminded here of the "women's films" of  Douglas Sirk starring Lana Turner!) for a more realistic view of Tunisian life. He said he was known as the first one to do a realistic "hammam" film, where he depicted a critical instead of an idealized view of the bathhouse, a public yet intimate place. 

I think poor people would dream of bejeweled elephants as any one of us would be awed by the special effects and overblown soundtrack of the contemporary western movies we watch for entertainment. A difference might be that for some, folklore is not some cultural commodity one can choose to buy or not but an inescapable part of life as they live it. I think most people want to be understood and they want to tell their story, but I think they would prefer to take someone who cares by the hand and show them than have another poke around without bothering to understand the context of their lives beyond the preconceptions they might bring. From my experience, the depth of access to a subject expressed in a photo means more to me than most of the technical considerations associated with the practice of photography. 

Certainly it is up to any individual to seek another or to avail themselves to another. It is as much my responsibility to explain my motive for photographing someone to them (which I must recognize they might not implicitly understand) as it is their responsibility to avail themselves to me.

Tim Carroll


>>>
> In those 'primitive' cultures which resist being photographed because
> the image captures a piece of the subject's soul, there is an argument
> worth hearing, even though it is far too late to apply in most of the
> world.
>>>

>I nearly wrote something about this is my previous post, but decided not to.
>However, since you bring it up...

>I'd take the case of islamic culture in particular which is very camera shy.
>You may well say that it's their choice in the end, whether to go along with
>the frenzied snapping of the rest of the world. But I would disagree.

>I feel that anything that is inevitable is also good (a tempting proposition
>straight from the devil's laptop) and in the case of communication by visual
>images, the real problem isn't so much whether snapping gets your soul or
>whatever, but what you're missing out on, as an entire culture, by banning
>this.

>In the case of the islamic world, I think, what they're missing out on is
>communicating with the rest of us on equal terms. This particular culture is
>the target of  any number of misconceptions and false representations in the
>west, and it would be to their advantage, I believe, to _show us_ what their
>society is actually like. However they prefer to reserve photography for
>formal occasions and fomal modes, and in doing so, remain in the shadows.
>This is a shame.

>No doubt someone will say that it's up to any individual whether to  submit
>to being photographed or not. But that isn't the point here, where an entire
>culture is against visual representation.

>It's really pretty futile hiding your head in the sand; visual images are
>king and if you refuse to play the game you get left out in the cold.

>There's also a problem with literacy - visual literacy. Check out some
>egyptian soap operas or Bombay movies to see what I mean by this. It's like,
>nowadays, not being able to read or write.

>So I feel that no matter how slick the talk of souls and so on sounds,
>there's no advantage for anyone in banning photography - you are effectively
>setting up a wall around your culture, and that's something no-one can
>_afford_ to do nowadays.

>As for the camera being a kind of psychological condom, I personally
>_engage_ with the world through photography, and I feel many photographers
>do that.

rob.