Exercise: ‘Walk the Line’ and ‘Imaging War’.

Exercise: ‘Walk the Line’ and ‘Imaging War’.

Both these articles deal with the delicate subject of censorship and who holds the blue pen.  Many have the power to say what others may or should see.  Kaplan sees the gore of war but is willing only to produce black and white images for a planned book.  The editing group pull the plug on the whole venture on  the grounds that the public may find them too strong and not buy the book.  

There is a lead into this exercise from the last exercise on “The Gaze” and who wields power. 

In the case of the victim of war the subject has little or no choice as he is not usually in a position to walk away or exercise any choice as to how he is portrayed.

The photographer has the choice not only of whether or not to take the shot but also how he wishes to rely the story in the picture.  To show the subject as aggressor, victim, villain, or bystander.  Whether to show him in a positive or negative light.  The artistic choice of colour or black and white.

The editor/publisher has a major say in what and how to publish.  Not strong enough and no-one will be interested; to strong and people will be put off buying.  

The public (the reader’s gaze) possesses the power to apply it’s own censorship by buy, ignore or object to the images.  

The non-Westerner’s gaze is there in how he sees how he is not only judged but in how he is portrayed.

The Westerner’s gaze exists in how he sees that portrayal.  This is a different judgement to the public’s or reader’s gaze in that it can only exist after acceptance of the images and reasoned thought about them.

The academics gaze comes later and and will judge the effect of all the earlier actions.

Should the true horror of war be filtered so that the public should not be offended?  To make war look less gory is to make it more acceptable and possibly more likely.  I am no pacifist but if my country is being taken to war I would like to know why and what the likely consequences will be, rather than the sort lies that were told by Blair surrounding Iraq and it’s WMD and the subsequent ‘World of War’ video game coverage of the war itself.  

Suppress too much of the horror and trust is compromised, allow too much and no-one will believe it.  

There is indeed a fine line to walk and sensitive questions to answer but I as a photographer can only take the shot.  A missed shot is gone forever; a shot taken doesn’t have to be used.   

Wayne Gretzky, the Canadian Ice Hockey, once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”.  This quote about sport can easily be applied to photography.