July 2007 – Page 3 – NO CAPTION NEEDED

What Does Peace Look Like?

(“New York City celebrating the surrender of Japan. They threw anything and kissed anybody in Times Square.” Lt. Victor Jorgensen, August 14, 1945. National Archives, 80-G-377094.)

War continues to be a major topic of photojournalism and will be one of the topics of continuing interest on this blog, at least until the arrival of perpetual peace. While there are a number of fine studies of war imagery, I happened to ask myself today whether there are, or can be, photographs of peace. Obviously, art history archives are full of images–say, of the lion lying down with the lamb–that signify peace figuratively. Although photographs can acquire figurative and even allegorical meaning, I think that the realism, fragmentation, and other elements of the medium make it more difficult to represent peace. War is force, action, violence, destruction, pain–all things that can be communicated photographically. Peace involves the absence of war and the freedom to experience and enjoy other things, which then become the object of visual interest. If you define peace as necessarily involving sustainability and therefore justice, the problem gets even more complicated.

If you go to the Pictures of World War II at the National Archives Web site, you’ll see that one of the categories is “Victory and Peace.” There are ten photographs available there, and were a space alien to access them, it would have a hard time figuring out what either “victory” or “peace” mean. But those of us on Earth don’t do much better, do we?

This representational problem might be why the Times Square Kiss is an iconic photograph. (The public domain version is shown above.) John and I have much to say about it in No Caption Needed, although it now occurs to me that more could be added about how the image mediates the idea of peace. What I find more interesting, however, is another photo from the same collection, one that you probably haven’t seen before:

“Jubilant American soldier hugs motherly English woman and victory smiles light the faces of happy service men and civilians at Piccadilly Circus, London, celebrating Germany’s unconditional surrender.” Pfc. Melvin Weiss, England, May 7, 1945. National Archives, 111-SC-205398.

I find this to be a poignant image, particularly when compared with the Kiss. (Let’s leave the jokes about American and English eroticism aside for the moment.) Each photo is of a victory celebration in the public square of a great city, with spectators smiling at the camera to cue viewer participation in the scene. But instead of two sexually hot adults clenched in a powerful kiss, in this image we see mom getting a hug from one of the kids. And that’s the point that tears at me: they really are kids. I’m reminded of (and paraphrasing from distant memory) a scene at the beginning of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five: angry about the self-satisfied reminiscing by the narrator and his war buddy, the narrator’s wife spits out that they were just kids, children, when they were sent to fight and die. That’s what this photograph reveals so clearly (no caption needed). And so this really is a war photo after all.

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Smile!

Awhile ago I posted an image that suggested how the burqa is not only strange but also distinctively disturbing when encountered in Western public spaces. The idea was that it challenges liberal norms of public transparency; understanding also is complicated by the way it can twist liberal ideas about personal autonomy and gender equality (there are feminist arguments for going under the veil). If these tensions are in play, then we also can expect to see attempts to mange them, say, through images created for comic effect. I think this is such an image:

I doubt much needs to be said. At first glance, it just doesn’t make sense or will seem silly to many outside the Islamic world. Why would the women want a picture when they are hidden from view? How can anyone who looks at it know who is there? Isn’t taking a photograph of individuals who can’t be seen self-defeating? Well, yes and no. Yes for some, but obviously not for those in the picture. They know who they are. And there are subtle inversions created just through the act of having the picture taken: The man taking the picture is squatting–and the rear view is not entirely flattering–while they stand. He is in the position of serving them, while they enjoy the privilege of enhanced visibility. He can be forgotten while they will be remembered.

If, that is, they asked for the picture. If this is his idea, all bets are off. Which is another reason I find such images so interesting, as they call into question many of the assumptions we bring to bear in our ordinary viewing. Were the women not veiled (as a women in the background is not), we could safely assume we know the story, particularly as we would be cued by any facial expressions. Of course, our assumptions would still be just that, but the odds would be pretty good. Here we quickly realize how much we depend on such assumptions and how they are culturally parochial.

Note also how the image may naturalize the burqa. The comic effect (which comes, I think from both the basic contradiction and the man’s pose) moderates the threat that visible invisibility can create in a public space. And after all, their invisibility is being undercut by the act of having the picture taken. Most important, the veiled women are being placed within a very familiar visual practice: snapshot photography, and there the habit of having our pictures taken (often by strangers, no less) while vacationing with family or friends. If the burqa can be incorporated into this common habit (so to speak), it can’t be too bad. And just as snapshots taken in public spaces suture private and public life, so does this photograph integrate liberal and non-liberal conceptions of public visibility.

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"The Emperor's Clothes …"

There is no king in the United States, or at least so we are taught in our high school civics classes (or at least we were taught that back “in the day” when we actually taught civics in high school). Nevertheless, there has always been something of a courtly attitude towards the presidency, a certain reverence to how we represent the commander-in-chief in the public culture, especially during times of war – or at least in the official public culture, satire and parody notwithstanding. And part of this courtly attitude is something of an unstated agreement between the media and the American people that we will make believe that representations of the president are “real” in a more or less direct, window-on-the-world sort of way. We all know that the White House press corps has its own version of the paparazzi that follow the president around, and that many if not most of the images we see of him are a part of photo opportunities that belie a certain unstated complicity between the administration and the media, but we have come to accept that as part of doing business. After all, the press corps need the pictures to drive their visual medium, the White House needs to have itself shown doing the business of government, and the American people crave the sight of those in power. And so we all try to ignore the staged, theatrical, performed quality of events with a wink and a nod.

Today’s New York Times seems to manage the constraints of this unstated agreement in a somewhat complex and interesting way. The front page headline reads, “A Firm Bush Tells Congress Not to Dictate War’s Policy” and the photograph that is featured on the front page seems to make the point:

Strong, decisivie, resolute, the imprimatur of the White House behind him, the presidential seal in front, he is the very picture of a commander-in-chief. And it is not at all unlike a very similar photograph that graces the corresponding story on the White House website for July 13th, reporting the same speech:

The media and White House are thus in perfect synchrony.

But when we turn to the on-line version of the NYT story we get a different “picture” of the event:

The headline, which appears directly above the photograph, is the same as in the paper version: “A Firm Bush Tells Congress …” But here the caption beneath the photo seems incongrous with the headline, almost a visual non sequitur: “Images of President Bush were fed through an audio-visual console for editing during his White House news conference Thursday on changes in Iraq.”

A couple of things seem notable here. First, there is NO mention of the photograph or what it might illustrate in the story by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jeff Zeleny. Hence, it seems added on, a gratuity serving no real or direct information value. But at the same time, of course, it calls direct attention to the mediated quality of the image and to the performative nature of the event. This is not the “real” president we are seeing (as if we ever “really” do see him in some unmediated, unedited, fashion), but a version that is processed through a complex technology of almost total control. And last, it is left somewhat ambiguous as to who owns the console and who will do the editing, but there is at least the hint that it is the White House and not the networks who are in control. And in any case, this clearly does not look like the picture of a “A Firm Bush” telling anybody anything, but rather someone telling the tale of how “the big got away.”

And so we have here an image that suggests not only that the original picture is something of a “fib” – because that’s what fish stories are about, not out and out lies, but self-aggrandizing exaggerations – but that it is also completely and totally manufactured, a performance calculated as to its effect and controlled by someone standing behind the curtain. And, of course, the photograph on the NYT website stands in stark contrast to the image of the regally clothed, firm, and resolute president we see on the front page of the paper version and at the White House website. By casting it all as a fib the NYT does not go completely out of bounds in attacking the president, and so it stays more or less true to the spirit of the unstated agreement to honor some sort of decorum. After all, the president is not a king, but the “first among equals,” and we all do tell fibs. And yet, at the same time, it seems pretty clear that someone is shouting at us that “the Emperor is naked”!

Photo Credits: Brendan Smialowski/New York Times, Chris Greenburg, White House

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Is Katrina a Holocaust?

The front page of today’s New York Times has this photo dominating the space above the fold:

The caption reads: Gwendolyn Marie Allen lives in a Renaissance Village, a FEMA trailer near Baton Rouge, where she cares for with her son and her brother, right.

The story below the photo is titled “Road to New Life after Katrina Is Closed to Many.”

This photo may seem somewhat indeterminate and also innocuous. Gwendolyn’s facial expression suggests that she is dissatisfied, but you have to peer into the image to see that. Otherwise, she seems poised and capable, flyswatter in hand; or at least so in respect to the scene behind her, which is blurred. The trailer also looks like it’s in good shape. What’s the problem?

I’m guessing that if this photo has any moral force, it comes from an allusion to a Holocaust image. Look at the brother in the background, and look at this image:

The template has been reversed on the horizontal axis, but again we see one more capable figure (the one able or willing to stand) and others staring out from the sleeping racks of the concentration camp. The allusion works in the other direction, of course: we are disposed to see the brother in today’s photo as if he were stacked along with others (perhaps Gwendolyn’s son, who is not seen) in one of the camps. Thus, the Times photo has smuggled in the Holocaust analogy for the Katrina disaster.

There has been been heated debate about whether that analogy should ever be made, much less in respect to Katrina, and in this case I’m on the side of those who would say the comparison has gone too far. To support that point, let me note how the Times image has a different caption at the online paper: Gwendolyn Marie Allen lives in a FEMA trailer near Baton Rouge with her son, who has schizophrenia, and her severely retarded brother, right.

The additional information should increase our sympathy for Gwendolyn, but now her brother’s confinement can have very different implications than those of inhumane enclosure, government wastage of human lives, and other elements of the Holocaust analogy.

Update: BAGnewsNotes posted on the same photo, same day, each of us not knowing of the other post. There’s a thread running there as well.

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Virtual Bush and the Real Public

Openleft.com has a terrific parody of Bush speaking to the blogosphere; you can see it here. It’s funny, and chilling. Sometimes we need the parody to see what is really being said in public speech. To see how the Bush line is actually going down, look at the photos displayed in a terrific post at the BAG.

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In Search of "the people …"

A few weeks back Hariman made the important point that “shrouds” can work in multiple rhetorical registers, masks that can both restrict and enable agency, sometimes at the same time. The focus there was on how individuals can be literally shrouded. But what about something that can be a little more difficult to put our finger on than a living and breathing, flesh and blood person … something like, say, the “American people”?

Yesterday, President Bush spoke before the Greater Cleveland Partnership, a private sector economic development group. Towards the end of the speech he turned his attention to questions of the war, and on the issue of whether or not to withdraw troops he noted that we should not make any decisions until General Petraeus can give his “assessment of the strategy.” And then this: “That’s what the American people expect. They expect for military people to come back and tell us how the military operations are going.” Now clearly the President is not paying attention to the public opinion polls (unlike so many Senators who supported his policy two months ago and now seem to be jumping ship with thoughts of the next election dancing in their heads), but what about the media? How do they frame the “American people” in all of this?

Over at the Bagnews Michael Shaw has made the very important point that many of the representations of the American public from this event seem to mimic Normal Rockwell’s America. And the point is very well taken. BUT, that’s not the only American public being represented, and there might be an important lesson in attending to the array of representations.

Today’s New York Times story features the following photograph (Jason Reed/Reuters):

Now this is clearly not a Norman Rockwell rendition. Notice, importantly, that the president is not speaking to the folks behind him, who have the look of a jury. Largely male and dressed in jackets and ties for the most part, this is not an easy cross section of the “American people.” They are attentive, intense, but clearly not admiring anything. Like a good jury, they seem to be weighing the evidence. But whoever they are, what do they see?

First, we should attend to the fact that the president is speaking with a microphone conspicuously displayed? Why a microphone? Modern technology doesn’t require it anymore, but no doubt it is a prop that creates more of a “feel” of interaction between speaker and audience. Fair enough. But here, note too how it hints at the need for something to amplify the president’s voice, almost as if the mere fact that the president speaks it is not quite enough to get the message across. But what dominates the image is not the president nor the jury behind him, but the much larger and somewhat ominous audience members he is addressing — the American people? — prominently shrouded in dark shadows. We can’t see them, although we can see what they see. The shadows, of course, function in multiple registers. Because indistinct they make it easy for anyone to identify with — white/black, rich/poor, republican/democrat — and certainly much more so than most Americans can identify with the business class individuals in the background. But not just that, the shroud also implies a certain danger (think “death” shroud) — it is dark, foreboding, and (visually, at least) dominating. The image could be from an Ingmar Bergman film. Shrouded here, the public being addressed is empowered and, apparently, powerful – or at least potentially and threateningly so.

Variations on this photograph have shown up in other places. So, for example, this version from the front page of the Sacremento Bee:

Here, the “jury” has been cropped out. And we see a much more concerned look on the president’s face. The look of concern is reinforced (or framed) by the Secret Service agents prominently displayed behind him. The shrouded public is still there, but now even more ominous. The headline “A New Tone on Iraq” could be referring to the president’s promise to engage in debate over the failures and successes of his Iraq policy, OR it could refer to the changing tone of public attitudes and responses which seem to becoming more and more pronounced with each passing day. But clearly, the public shrouded here is not one to be tarried with, at least not without some attention to the danger lurking in the shadow.

The front page of the Plain Dealer (Lynn Ischay/Plain Dealer) gives us a third option:

It’s not quite the Norman Rockwell shot seen at The Bag or in other places, but it is close. Unlike the picture at The Bag, however, notice that here the president is not blended in with the people behind him. There is a clear distance. And, perhaps more importantly, in contrast to the pictures at the NYT and the Bee, the public being addressed has been visually removed. Now the public is not so much a concern as a ghostly presence that can only be seen in the eyes of the president (and his promise as to “what the American people expect”) or perhaps what now appear to be the somewhat approving eyes of at least of few of his business class jury.

So, we get multiple possibilities. A public who simply gets spoken into existence by the president, and we can believe him or not, or the one he seems to have to address and be accountable to. And the later public is more or less ominous, skeptical and questioning in the NYT image, and downright dangerous in the Sacremento Bee.

How any of this will effect public behavior and response is unclear. But it surely implicates the ways in which we see and are seen as citizens, as “the American people” … and in some measure more powerfully and subtly so than the simple numbers that show up in public opinion polls. After all, seeing is believing …

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Iconic Tattoos

Or tattoos of icons, anyway. We already have an image of an Iwo Jima flag raising tattoo on our images page, but this complementary portrait of World War II victory culture just turned up:

Tattoos are emblems of personal identity and of identification with collective symbols. They must mean a lot to some people, but what they mean remains a matter of interpretation, as the discussion here makes clear. The body in this photo obviously was born well after V-J Day, yet another example of how icons can be carried across generations.

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Hillary's Feet Get Some Legs

As John posts both here and at BAGnewNotes, I’ll occasionally cite his work there so that folks here can follow it if they wish. A recent post on head, foot, and hand shots of Bill and Hillary can be read here. That story then got picked up by Reuters, which suggests that someone there thought that there might be more general interest. From the comments at BagnewsNotes, its clear that there’s more to feet than meets the eye. In my case, for example, they seem to generate bad metaphors and cliched writing. Comments also demonstrate that there can be a basic split between looking at shot selection and at the content of the photo. The first orientation takes one down the road of media criticism; the second, into the practice of everyday life (e.g., the negotiation between comfort and fashion in selecting shoes, especially for women). Each path can lead back to the other. Both kinds of knowledge are important for participation in democratic politics. And while one may despair that contemporary politics might turn on the nuances of fashion, keep in mind that such attentiveness has been one part of insiders’ knowledge since at least classical Athens, and was made into a virtue in the Roman Republic.

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Photography Conference

Locating Photography
Durham University, UK
20-22 September 2007

Following the success of its inaugural conference ‘Thinking Photography – Again’ (July 2005), the Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies (www.dur.ac.uk/dcaps) is hosting a second conference in September 2007 entitled ‘Locating Photography’. . . .
‘Locating Photography’ seeks to investigate the relationship between national paradigms and the apparently universal nature of the medium. What is at stake in insisting on or resisting the national paradigm? Why has it been so persistent, and can it continue to provide an adequate framework for understanding the history of the photographic medium in a global, digital age?

Full description, conference program, and registration information are available here.

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Kodak Moments from Iraq …

Here is a picture that was posted by the AP on July 2, 2007 (AP/Hadi Mirzban) and found its way onto Yahoo’s “The Week in Photos June 29-July 5,” but thus far it seems to have alluded all the other major news institutions including the New York Times and the Washington Post:

The caption tells the tale: “A 4-year-old Iraqi child cries as older boys stage a mock execution in Baghdad on Monday, July 2. Apparently influenced by ongoing violence in the country, children’s games mimic the war. One of the more popular games is acting out clashes between militias and police.”

I simply don’t know how to react to this. The guns look all too real, as does the pain on the middle child’s face. The smile, however, is perhaps the most troubling of all. It should tell us that this is all a game — not much different, perhaps, from the games of “cowboys and indians” that many in my generation played in the 1950s and early 1960s. But then I recall the smiling faces from Abu Ghraib and the smile of youthful innocence and pure joy seems all of a sudden perverse and obscene. I wonder how we might react if these were contemporary pictures of children from the inner cities of New York or Los Angeles playing “cops” and “gangs.” Perhaps that’s why it didn’t show up in major news outlets.

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