[Leica] I really disagree with this policy

[neilsimages at pipeline.com (Neil Schneider)]

On Sep 8, 2005, at 1:37 AM, Ted Grant wrote:

> feli said:
>>> And you're right,
> there is a general hostility to
> photographers, like we are all a bunch of mouth breathers looking to
> exploit a situation. And this
> hostility exists because the reputation of photographers has been
> dragged through the mud, by a
> minority of people who act like a bunch of animals.<<<<
>
> Hi feli,
> Ok lets pretend we're witnesses for a moment, not photographer's 
> inside the NO stadium.
>
> Now imagine the doors open for the press to go in and do their thing.  
> What kind of scene are we going see? A calm, compassionate half dozen 
> photogs moving carefully through the scared, thirsty, hungry, 
> exhausted angry people? Not bloody likely
>
> However I doubt that, as it would be a mass of camera carrying people, 
> notice I didn't say "photojournalists" rush through the doors flashes 
> flashing, TV camera crews lights on running around like crazy. Both 
> types of cameras flashing at everything moving and not moving? 
> Conservatively maybe 100 shooters of varying ability and equipment 
> because the money in this case is "first in and first out with 
> exposures!"  And they wouldn't give a fig whether they annoyed, hurt 
> or any other word expressing feeling other than their own at being 
> first in and first out! First money!
>
> Sure not all of them, as there are still some regular shooters who do 
> have feelings for those whom they photograph and do so as carefully as 
> they can.
>
> But these days on average when there's a serious situation as Katrina 
> there's a huge gaggle of shooters who turn-up like a battery of 
> paparazzi and charge about like flying bugs of the worst kind, 
> flashing everything before them without much thought other than 
> getting exposures of the worst things they can find. And first out!
>
> And it's this gang that make it bad for all the rest of us and why 
> quite often doors are not open for serious photojournalists. 
> Authorities knowing this kind of rat-pack exist and how they run about 
> is the reason they make the decision, "DOORS CLOSED!" Sure I don't 
> doubt they didn't want the world to see how bad conditions were 
> inside, but we as witnesses would be appalled at this gang of camera 
> flashing idiots running amok making exposures of the worst things they 
> could find.
>
> I don't have a problem with the policy under the conditions I 
> described. But it should have been covered if for no other reason as 
> the disaster it was in the historical sense. But covered by 
> experienced photojournalists who could do it without freaking people 
> out by flashing in their faces.
>
> However, when you have a half dozen "authority bureaucrats" running an 
> operation of this size I'm sure it was much easier to say... "No media 
> inside!"  And live with the consequences later!
>
> ted
>

Gosh Ted, so beautifully laid out with such calm reasoning. Perhaps 
FEMA should have just let you in there with your super
quiet Leicas, sans flash, for it looks like you might be the only one 
to shoot such a sensitive story.
Sounds like you don't give any credit to anyone else for knowing how to 
handle a situation like this except experienced photojournalists like 
yourself.. Shame on you for such an elitist attitude, and shame on 
government agencies who try to control what the rest of the world is 
entitled to see. Yes I said entitled. A tragedy of this magnitude, 
which was most likely caused by government cutbacks, and is now trying 
to be hidden from public scrutiny by that same government, should be 
exploited to its fullest. Why do you suppose there are so many 
photojournalists from
around the world there, as you say "like a battery of paparazzi". Think 
they're just there for the body pictures........or could it be that
there is so many world wide media organizations now that its inevitable 
when anything major happens.
Do you like controlled, government embedding, with censors approving 
every image to its sensitivity values.
Do you really believe the US President is forbidding the caskets of 
dead soldiers to be photographed to spare the families, or to spare
his own image. Everyone remembers Viet Nam and how the press "lost" 
that war for the US.

And those poor souls trapped in the Superdome simply because they 
didn't have the means to leave the city. Do you really believe that
they don't want to vent their anger over this, to the first camera or 
reporter they see. Sure, there were pictures of unidentified bodies in 
the arena.
It showed the deplorable condition these people were kept under, the 
lack of food, water, medical care. I wonder what would of happened if
these images were never shown. How many more bodies would have been 
piled up. Babies, dead from dehydration in their mothers arms.

You have to give the media credit for getting the story and the heart 
wrenching images out. We may not always do it perfectly (and you are in 
that "we") But we do work at our jobs with compassion also.

Neil


"Predicting the future is mostly a matter of managing not to blink as
you witness the present" -- William Gibson