more thoughts on exploitation
Thanks to TVO, I’ve now seen Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project and What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann.
In my explorations of motherhood and photography, I’ve mentioned Tierney Gearon here and there, but not in much detail. I was troubled by her work, but also felt that I hadn’t seen enough of it to comment on it. Today I discovered that you can actually see her pictures on her website. I don’t find it intuitive, but if you go to Exhibitions, you can select which exhibition you want to look at, then scroll through the pictures through arrow buttons on the images.
I watched The Mother Project halfway through, then stopped because I wanted to discuss it with my husband. So I got him to watch it all the way through with me. (Although, funnily enough we haven’t actually discussed it yet. Whatever. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.) Going into it, my vague feeling was that it’s kind of wrong to use your kids for your own expression, especially if you’re using them as a metaphor or archetype (as I touched on here). I’ve also always bristled at language around one’s children being one’s great work of art or one’s great project. Children are individuals too, not just products of their parents. Not only that, but I suspect that publishing pictures of your children naked makes them vulnerable, although to what I don’t really know.
Before watching the two documentaries, I probably would have put both Tierney Gearon’s and Sally Mann’s work into the category of using their kids as metaphors. Indeed, just before I stopped The Mother Project halfway through, Gearon was speaking to the camera about how her photography is her way or processing things and that sometimes she feels bad about it but that she doesn’t think it’s really hurting her children. The first time around, I thought “Yeah, right.” But once I finished watching the whole documentary, I’ve changed my mind.
I mean, mothers are people too.
I guess what I realized is that Gearon wasn’t really using her kids as metaphors. She was using photography as a way to express and process her own experiences, and given that her own mother is mentally ill, chances are her experiences and expressions are going to be strange. And there’s no doubt that her pictures are weird and disturbing. But they’re also fascinating and original, and I don’t really think she is damaging her kids by making them. (And from a practical standpoint, clothing can really interfere with universality, since it situates them in a specific time and place. And I suspect that great photographs need an element of universality to be great.)
Well, maybe she is, but that’s kind of what parents do, isn’t it? Parents wound and embarrass their kids, and often in ways they have no awareness of. And kids are pretty resilient.
I think the reason that Gearon’s and Mann’s work has been controversial is not because the children are naked or semi-naked. I think it’s because the work challenges our idealizations of childhood and family.
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Around the same time, I checked out some videos on youtube of Jeff Mermelstein, a New York City street photographer that Donald Weber mentioned. (The video is in three parts.) In the first part, he says:
“I’m a voyeur. I’m not asking people if I can take their picture. Even if they’re on a public stage, I’m in a sense stealing something from them without asking them. [...] You couldn’t do the kind of photography I do if you spoke to the people before taking their picture. I myself feel no guilt about that. [...] I’m totally comfortable and cosy because I know I’m not trying to hurt anyone with the camera. It’s what I do, it’s how I respond to… people.”
Which got me to thinking.
All this time I’ve felt guilty for making pictures of other people, pictures that people might not like of themselves. Pictures that they might not want published. It’s kind of been my standard: would the subject be ok with this picture being published? My response to that guilt has been to be totally transparent with my subjects and turn it into a collaboration. But maybe that guilt is just a product of our culture’s obsession with image. Why should people have control over their image? What harm can really come out of having a less than flattering image of you published? I’ve already said that I’m not interested in making pretty pictures of people. And many, many photographers have talked about the tension between the photographer’s agenda and the subject’s, the challenge of getting behind the subject’s facade to capture something real.
So what do you think of all this?
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PS TVO is showing The True Meaning of Pictures, which I blogged about last October I think, tonight at 10 p.m. Be sure to check it out if you can.
Also, So You Think You Can Dance (US) starts tonight. And finally, Fox renewed Dollhouse AND Castle, two of my new favourite shows. Yay!
May 21st, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Can you make a photograph that’s fiction?
A writer can take a “real” event and twist it into fiction, so that while it contains Truths it isn’t actually true. That’s one way writers can justify or maybe blur the use of other people as subjects. I mean, when the writer is done the subject may not even recognize herself. Can a photographer do the same thing? I don’t think so.
I would not like someone to take a picture of me and use it for their own purposes without my permission. I get upset when my sisters publish images of me on Facebook, even. I’m not sure why. It’s something about a specific moment in time passing but then being revived — having to be relived.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:42 pm
On further thought: It has something to do with a private v. a public moment. If I pose for you, I’m showing you my public persona — I’m withholding something from you. If I’m not posing, then you have taken from me something that I don’t necessarily want the world to see.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Yay a comment! I was hoping folks would weigh in on this.
Of course you wouldn’t like it, but would it actually harm you? In some ways, I think memoirs can be a lot more harmful than photographs, but I don’t hear as much discussion about exploitation of people mentioned in memoirs. Of course, I don’t tend to seek out that discussion either.
I do think a photographer can most definitely make a photograph that’s fiction, and certainly with photoshop you can render someone unrecognizable. Although most photographers probably wouldn’t want to do that, since there was something unique about the person that made them want to photograph them in the first place.
It’s funny that we’re so concerned with controlling the use of our images when there is way, way more surveillance than ever before. There are cameras everywhere with images and videos of us doing all manner of things, but we don’t tend to think about that, or worry about it the same way we do if someone is moving around with a camera.
I suspect that every portrait photographer is always trying to get past the public face of their sitters. I remember in Leigh Wiener’s book (from the 50s or 70s I think), he likened the confrontation to a pitcher and a batter in a baseball game, both trying to get control of the ball.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I have a hard time photographing people as well, which is probably why I stick mostly to nature.
I feel I am intruding when I photograph people.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:20 am
Well, see, that comment about portraits is interesting. Because that’s a person showing a public persona but hoping that the photographer will see something private.
I’m still going to go with my original thought, that in taking a photo that I didn’t “authorize” there’s this feeling that maybe you caught me picking my nose, or whatever. I know that at any given moment a million eyes are on me (virtually speaking) but I don’t ever really believe that anyone is watching. I mean, there’s a difference between being visible and being watched.
On the other hand, having your picture taken is a form of flattery. Because, you know, someone is watching. Someone has spotted you & found you interesting enough to photograph.
This has been a really interesting discussion. I haven’t always commented but I’ve been reading all these posts of yours. It’s made me think a lot about how I write about my kids on my blog.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:22 am
ps I don’t know if it’s relevant but I am a crappy photographer. I also never remember what color the carpet is, whether a person was wearing florals or stripes, etc.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I haven’t had a chance to see the documentaries so I feel a bit naive weighing in here. As for the “child as subject” topic, I still find it all very problematic. If I were to take my camera downtown and snap photos, I’d be in a public place recording public events. If I wanted to take a picture of an adult in his/her home, I would need to ask permission. For children who have photographer parents, the line is grey. The kids do not have the opportunity to assert public/private boundaries and they must trust the discretion of the adult with the camera. Do adults sometimes abuse that trust? Hell yes. Is it ok if it is done for the sake of a greater art? Maybe. I guess it depends on the kid and the context and the stance of the adult involved.
I find it interesting all the analogies to homelessness that come up in your thinking on these matters. Like children, the homeless are also helpless when it comes to setting up boundaries between public and private.