Re: [Leica] Re: salgado et al.

[Guy Bennett <2bennett@wanadoo.fr>]

>It is always the same: yes, I was impressed by McCullin's pictures, but
>later a bitter taste came in my mouth when I reflected that his view is also a
>colonialistic view. McCullin says he is not making a political statement, just
>feeling.
>IMAGINE: WHAT WOULD YOU THINK, IF DROVES OF AFRICAN PHOTOGRAPHERS WOULD
>INVADE THE STATES AND TAKE PICTURES OF POOR AMERICANS THEN PUBLISH THEM IN THE
>MAJOR IMPORTANT JOURNALS (AFRICAN JOURNALS THEN OF COURSE) ACCOPANIED BY TV
>COVERAGE AN 'HELP AMERICA' CAMPAIGN FOLLOWS ...


This is a very interesting question, and I must say that I agree with your
basic point: whatever the nationality of the photographer, his work will
inevitably be informed by his own socio-cultural/ideological/political
parti pris. Add to that the nature of the news media, at least as they
function in the west, and you have a readymade window through which we are
shown what the world, such as we have come to define and understand it, is
"really" like:

- - African countries are all poor
- - Middle Eastern countries are all rife with terrorists
- - South American countries are all ruled by dictators
- - etc.

Such stereotypical views are obviously one-sided simplifications, but then
again, the news media are not there to unravel the complexities of reality
for us. Their job is to reassure us that the world is how we know it to be
(because we've been told it's that way), that, ultimately, we're right,
they're wrong, we're good, they're bad, we live well, they don't, etc.

So, that the work of photojournalists such as Salgado, Natchwey et al, is
not representative of the "big picture" of life in a given country seems
obvious enough - Singh's pictures of India and Depardon's pictures of
Ethopia, to give just two examples, are very different indeed from the
endless stream of images featuring emaciated, impoverished children that
one has come to expect from western news media. But, of couse, no picture
of two smiling Ethopian girls amusing themselves on a streetcorner is ever
going to make the front page of a major western newspaper.


>Want pictures from africa? Ask african photographers. I sometimes think that
>the western photojournalism is - in priciple - a major lack of respect for
>other cultures. I've attended, some time ago an exhibition of african portrait
>photography. The approximately 300 works of 40 artists showed the dealing of
>African photographers with western modernism and the emergence of
>independent aesthetics and picture languages in the urban centres of West,
>East and
>South Africa.


Let's not forget that Salgado is Brazilian, and his pictures of workers in
that country are profoundly moving.

Let's not also forget the many "foreign" photographers like Robert Frank
who have come to the US and who, with their "fresh" eyes, have revealed
something about the country that an American photographer might not have
seen.


>Watch out for e.g. Samuel Fosso, Seydou Keita, just to name some very
>prominent photographers.


Keita I know and love, as for the others, where we can see their work?

Guy