Captions & Accountability

Ben Curtis/Associated Press

Errol Morris has a new post on NYT.com concerning the nature of photographic captions in his interview with war photographer Ben Curtis titled It Was All Started by a Mouse. It is typical war photo commentary fare, from the editorial process to photoshopping, etc.

Then Ben Curtis says

I’m looking at the Mickey Mouse picture again. A reader might infer from that, that a child had been killed in the attack and that this toy belonged to some child who is dead somewhere. Okay, you’re a reader, you can infer that if you want. But we’re not saying that. I’m not saying that. I’m saying it’s a child’s toy lying in the middle of a street after an air strike. That’s all I’m saying. If you want to infer from that what you want, that’s your prerogative, but you can’t then criticize us for that, you know?

It is disappointing, both that a war photographer thinks this way and is comfortable enough to say it in an interview with Errol Morris in the New York Times, and that Morris let’s him get away with it.

I find it surprising that any contemporary photographer can pretend photography, especially war photography, is objective. I don’t want to criticize Curtis for making the photograph (and not because he tells us that we cannot) but I want to chide him for taking the easy way out, while masking it as the high road.

Editorializing in war photography is just as unavoidable as it is in photography in any other form. It is admirable to attempt to be as objective as possible, but to suggest that photographers infer nothing with their images is disingenuous.

Though I am sure that I have no idea what it is like “in the shit,” it really doesn’t seem like ignoring the nature of photography to shirk accountability does much for your credibility.

The question of where to stand

Port Dover, Ontario 2009

“The question of where to stand is interesting. What we’re really talking about is a vantage point. If you look at amateurs or people taking pictures, they do funny things. Most people obviously don’t know where to stand. They’re standing too close, they’re contorted. They’re humorous to watch, people who photograph, especially people who aren’t in tune with their equipment, because they don’t know when they pick it up what it will do. If you work with the same equipment for a long time, you get more in tune to what is possible. But within that there are still surprises. But using a camera day after day after day, within a framework I’ll do the same thing. I’ll back up and I’ll go forward with my body.

You don’t have to be a fancy photographer to learn where to stand. Basically you’re stuck with the frame and just like the person taking a picture of his family, who needs to go half a foot back—well, he doesn’t step half a foot back—but on the other hand, he knows where to be if he hits it right. Now when you watch tennis you not only have the commentators, you have the best of the old pros. You know how they repeatedly say “Look at the way his back was formed when he took that shot.” it is really important to them. They see that as a possibility of where the thing went. Probably the same thing is true of all of us.”

—Lee Friedlander

Is graphic design art?