It's not exploitative in itself, no... no genre is, or can be. That is determined by the person wielding the camera. All photography does it capture in image... how that image represents the subjects in it however is variable. Why I think some kinds of street photography are exploitative, is because they've long since become a cliché that has ceased to be effectual in any way. Every time I walk through Manchester I see several homeless people panhaldling, so why does seeing them on Flickr show me anything I've not already seen a million times with my own eyes? It's not showing me anything I don't already know. So if I was the kind of person who assumed that all homeless people are there through their own inability to manage their own lives, and it's all their own fault.... "no one makes them use heroin" for example... how is a gritty B&W image of the same thing in Flickr going to make me change my mind? It isn't. Simple as that.
Why I feel outraged by this type of photography is simple: If this was cheesy HDR landscapes, or images of water drops... or spot colour B&W portraits of blue eyed children, then big fat so what? Sure, they're clichés too, and just as tired, but no one ultimately cares about such things because they're not important. However, as photographers (as history has shown time and time again) we have the power to effect real change should we only choose to use the medium creatively. Margaret Morton's work with the Homeless did just that. In fact, the squat that was the basis of Glass House still remains, as a publicly funded sheltered housing project on Ave D and 10th St in the lower east side... now called The Glass Factory. At the time, all the authorities wanted to do was kick them out and bulldoze it. If that had happened then they'd have just dispersed into the community and worsened the problem. The publicity given to Morton's work raised awareness and was instrumental in gaining funding because it had PURPOSE. It showed people that if you leave homeless people alone... all they will do is make homes, so if you give them homes, they stay put... and once they do that, you can help them in other ways. If they remain transitory, then you can't.
It's for this reason I find Lee Jeffries' work questionable. What does it DO for the homeless? Nothing as far as I can see. (I'd be happy to be proved wrong here) It does a great deal for him... but no one else. Therefore it's exploitative. Has he donated any money made from book sales to homeless causes? I've no idea... I hope he has, because without those people he'd have no work. Looks like poverty porn to me.
I question such work if the only thought that enters the photographer's mind is how good the photograph is. If that describes you (the reader - not byker) in any way, you need to do some soul searching I think. What... who.. are you doing this for? If it's a landscape... sure, fill your boots... it's just a landscape, but when you are representing someone else's suffering... and you do it because it makes a great photograph, what exactly does that say about YOU the PERSON?
Some people need to stop griping about how "rude" some others are in a meaningless internet forum and look more reflexively at their own lives.. REAL lives in the REAL world, where it actually matters. How someone writes in here ultimately gives you no idea about how they really are in real life, but what you photograph, and how you photograph it very often does.
You are your work... really... you often are.
David, I don't quite get why every photographer who shoots street scenes (that may include homeless people) is duty bound to be on a mission for social justice. And no, you haven't said that,
specifically, but your words leave the photographer in that scenario no other option, given that you have, vehemently and in great detail explained why not having such morally sound motives is simply abhorrent. Why
should he or she show
you something
you don't already know? If they are on your course and coming to you with an assignment maybe, I get it. A random bloke on the internet? I'm not so sure. What if, a person with a camera, sees something and wants to record that for no other reason that they just want to record the scene and look at it later?
You appear to impose a blanket set of motives on the individual (retrospectively, as if somehow, by looking at the image you have managed to decipher exactly what they were thinking) then use that as a target for your scorn. At the same time, you have managed to encapsulate the experience of all homeless people and use that as the reason that they shouldn't be photographed unless the person with the camera is trying to help them in some way. One thing I have learned from the various homeless people I have given money too, sat and chatted with and bought drinks for, is that they and their situation are all different. Being on the street is the only true common factor.
You ask 'what does it say about YOU the PERSON?' Maybe it says, 'I just want to take pictures of things I think look interesting' maybe it says more, maybe it says less. Maybe it says, 'I find this interesting'. Who knows? You obviously care enough to spew a load of holier than thou bile at those either cynical or ill informed enough to want to take pictures of tramps without working out how they can use their camera to affect social change....on a 'meaningless internet forum'. Maybe, just maybe, someone can be allowed to have their own motives and create their own outcomes? Even with the 'got him' comment referred to earlier in the thread. So the guy in question may not be a social documentary artist but the scene he saw 'on the way down' was evidently the scene he wanted to capture, so he did. His manner of describing it may not be particularly sensitive as written but the top and bottom of it is, he saw something and decided to record it. Why doe
he have to tell
you anything??!
It's alright whining all the time about what's wrong but your definition of what's 'right' seems to be painfully narrow. The general gist of what you have said in this thread seems to be that, if you take such pictures simply because you want to take 'good' pictures' then you are, at best, objectionable. If, however, you take pictures (of certain aspects of society that we see on our streets) to make statements that somehow benefit the socially challenged, then you're OK.
Perhaps, if you could just let everyone know what the ground rules are, you wouldn't need to keep posting your corrective essays on this meaningless forum? Or even better, show everyone how it's supposed to be done. That would be awesome.... a great opportunity for you to back up your morally superior rantings with some photographic substance. (Seriously, I would love to see this because I think it would make things so much clearer, for me at least). Then you could tell us what you were thinking and we would all understand how it's supposed to be done (because you are
really good at telling everyone how it's
not supposed to be done!). It might even help me to understand how to put the 'honesty' into the image (or maybe that's privileged information that I can only access by enroling on your course?)
Come on David, why not save yourself some keyboard time and post a few of your images;
show everyone how it should be done.
it's bad enough to have to tolerate the stares, the looks of pity, the digusted looks but if anyone dared to take his photo in the name of 'street photography' I would be furious - yes I realise we are in a public place but I suppose I would expect at least some sort of common decency towards him!
