Author: mb4634@nyu.edu

Observations Post

Something I’ve thought about a lot during this course is what impact photography can have. For example, how does photography change the public opinion on a war or a famine? And more importantly, how can photography cause people to actually take action. I think as photojournalism has evolved over the years, photographers have become less hopeful that photography can change the world in a very impactful way. I think Ron Haviv is one of the perfect examples of this. While photographing the war in Bosnia, he hoped that his images would incite powerful nations to get involved and stop the ethnic cleansing. When that didn’t happen Haviv’s world view changed a lot.

However, I think this is even more interesting when it comes to the famine photography we talked about, because often the  photographs are used to get people to donate. I guess unlike war photography, it relies more on individual action. Therefore, I think its really interesting whether more shocking photos cause less people to donate money or if the more uplifting photos that show hope. I wonder if that is also true of war photography. Maybe more heroic images of the kind we see from World War II or the immediate post war years would cause nations to act more than the images of atrocity we see more often today.

9/11 Memorial

man with bookbag taking selfie woman reading plaque

building behind fountain

family taking photo in front of memorial

two people sitting in park

two people sitting in park with trees in front of them

man holding child in front of memorial

inside of memorial fountain

woman in front of memorial fountain

The inspiration for this project largely comes out of another project I did last year while studying abroad in Berlin, Germany. While there, I became fascinated by how history manifests itself in the public space of the city. What really caught my attention in particular, was the Holocaust Memorial. As a Jewish American, I was initially annoyed by the way many people interacted with the space. The memorial itself is meant to be interactive. Designed by Peter Eisenman, the memorial is made of 2,7000 concrete slabs that only differ in height. They are arranged in a grid, and people are able to walk through the grid any way they want experiencing “the wave like form differently from each different position.” I kept on wondering if is supposed to be interactive, what happens if people interact with the place in the “wrong” way? Can there be rules for a public space, even if it is a place meant for mourning or remembrance?

As this semester progressed, I began thinking more about how these themes relate to the 9/11 Memorial in New York. More so than the Holocaust Memorial, the 9/11 Memorial has much more personal significance to me. I was seven years old on September 1, 2001, living about 30 miles north of New York City. The day itself is one of my earliest memories. The teachers in my elementary school were not allowed to tell us what was going on, and as the morning went on, more and more parents arrived at the school to get there kids. I remember when my babysitter finally arrived, my brother, sister and I were confused because we weren’t allowed to get ice cream from the truck we usually got it from after school. When we arrived at home, footage of the attacks were playing on the TV in our living room. My brother and his friend who came over said something along the lines of “woah cool,” thinking the footage was from a movie, at which point, my mom informed us that the attacks were real. My only other memory of that day is trying to go into my parents room where my dad was after getting home from his office a block away from the World Trade Center. The door was locked and my mom told me I couldn’t go in for a little while. I think I remember that day less because I was afraid, but because all of the adults in my life were acting in a way that I was too young to understand.

Like much of my generation, I grew up in a world that was completely changed by 9/11, and the War on Terror that fallowed. Maybe if I was 10 years older, it would be easier for me to grasp how the world has changed because of the attacks. In This Muslim American Life,  Moustafa Bayoumi describes a “War on Terror culture”. He writes, “War on Terror culture means that the 9/11 Memorial, supposedly dedicated to ending intolerance and ignorance, offers pamphlets in nine languages but bizarrely not Arabic, and the 9/11 tour concludes with a film considered by many to be inflammatory toward Islam” (13) The film Bayoumi describes is called The Rise of Al Qaeda, and before the museum opened, the film was shown to a group of interfaith clergy. The only imam in the group, said of the film, “Unsophisticated visitors who do not understand the difference between Al Qaeda and Muslims may come away with a prejudiced view of Islam, leading to antagonism and even confrontation toward Muslim believers near the site.”, while the museum defends the film, saying it was created with the advisement of experts on Islam and terrorism (NY Times). Like most memorials, the 9/11 memorial is not a place without politics, and I was interested in how the politics of the memorial affect the way people interact with space, if it did have any effect at all.

Another interesting perspective on the 9/11 memorial comes from Marita Sturken, in her book Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero. According to Sturken, the 9/11 memorial has become a place of sentiment and kitsch. The kitsch she describes is not something shown in the design of the memorial itself, but rather, in the souvenirs you can buy at the memorial or the nearby museum shop. She writes, “A kitsch image or object not only embodies a particular kind of prepackaged sentiment, but conveys the message that this sentiment is universally shared, that it is appropriate, and importantly, that it is enough. When this takes place in the context of politically charged sites of violence, the effect is inevitably one that reduces political complexity to simplified notions of tragedy.” (26) She believes that the 9/11 memorial (and its entire complex, including the Freedom Tower)  is less about a place of redemption, and more one of mourning and patriotism. This is a problem, because it portrays the acts in a watered down way.

Before taking photos at the memorial, I decided to see how Magnum and VII members photographed the site. One photo by Susan Meiseles, shows a group of businessmen and women observing a moment of silence at the memorial on September 11, 2015. They are all wearing varying shades of gray suits with the hands folded in front of them. Another photo by Ron Haviv shows a Pennsylvania State Constable saluting an American flag on the 10th anniversary of the attacks with a cigar hanging from his mouth. A third by Eli Reed shows people watching the memorial ceremony on the one year anniversary of the attacks. Many people are holding American flags and have camera straps hanging from their necks. The last photo reminded me of one of the installations at the recent Laura Poitras exhibit at The Whitney Museum, which shows people watching ground zero the day after the attacks in slow motion. These three photos, in varying ways show patriotism and sorrow. They also reverse the gaze of the normal way we see ground zero, and the memorial built in its place in images. Instead of looking at the memorial itself, we are looking at people looking at the memorial.  However, I was interested in how people would act at the memorial on every other day. My photos show people at the 9/11 memorial on April 28, 2016.

 

Works Cited

 

  1. Bayoumi, Moustafa. This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. New York: New York UP, 2015. Print.
  2. Haviv, Ron. Manny Rodrigeuz, a Pennsylvania State Constable, Salutes an American Flag during Events Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Sept. 11 Attacks in New York, N.Y., Sept. 11, 2011.
  3. Meiselas, Susan. USA. NYC. September 11, 2015. Observing a Moment of Silence outside the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in Observance of the Beginning of the September 11th Attacks. 2015.
  4. Otterman, Sharon. “Film at 9/11 Museum Sets Off Clash Over Reference to Islam.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 23 Apr. 2014. Web. 05 May 2016.
  5. Reed, Eli. USA. NYC. September 11, 2002. Spectators across from Ground Zero Attend the World Trade Center Memorial Ceremony.
  6. “Stiftung Denkmal Für Die Ermordeten Juden Europas: Field of Stelae.” Stiftung Denkmal Für Die Ermordeten Juden Europas: Field of Stelae. Web. 05 May 2016. <http://www.stiftung-denkmal.de/en/memorials/the-memorial-to-the-murdered-jews-of-europe/field-of-stelae.html>.
  7. Sturken, Marita. Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero. Durham: Duke UP, 2007.  Print.

Steve McCurry Response

 

I was really impressed with Steve McCurry’s work. To me, McCurry is a really good example of how color can be really effective in photo journalism. His photographs are so colorful and so well composed that it seems impossible that they could be real. It’s almost funny to me that photojournalists resisted using color for so long because it was not “serious” when here, McCurry uses color so well. It is even more interesting because I found out, when watching a video McCurry did for the museum, that before going to India he primarily worked in black and white, but he felt that he could not tell the story of India without showing in color. I cannot help but agree with him. Although these photos would probably still be great in black and white, because he is such a great photographer, they are greatly enhanced by their use of color. I think a lot of photographers find color difficult, because when trying to make a photograph cohesive, color can make it even harder. However, I feel that McCurry is telling a story that is as much about color as it is about the people or the places he photographed.  He says that so much of Indian culture is about color, and that he is glad he ultimately made the transition from black and white to color because ultimately the world we live in is in color. Thats intresting to me, because the first word I came up with to describe his photographs was otherworldly or maybe even cinematic. They almost seem to perfectly colorful, and too perfectly composed to not be set up. For example, one of my favorite photos shows a man at the Holi festival. He is he covered in green powder, and everyone surrounding him is covered in red powder. Those are pretty much the only two colors in the entire photo. At least for my understanding (which is pretty limited), the festival uses a lot more colors than that, so it seems really amazing to me that he was able to capture this photo. To me, it really seems like scene out of a movie. It seems like McCurry’s work, at least in this serious, is about setting the scene, more than it is about getting as much information in the phot as possible. 

Man covered in green powder held by others covered in red powder

Another thing I think is interesting to think about is McCurry’s position as an outsider in a new culture. I think I’m always a little sceptical of when an American or European man goes to an “Eastern” land to attempt to depict their culture. I wonder how much of their work is just reproducing stereotypes about the culture they already have in their work. So I think going into the exhibit, I was really skeptical. However, I didn’t get that feeling at all from McCurry’s work. It’s difficult for me to actually put a finger on why, other than the fact that the people he photographs seem extremely comfortable with him, and often seem proud, happy, or defiant, which is contrast to the photographs we usually see of India, which seem to only focus on the squalor of slums and malnourished children. That isn’t to say that photographs depicting those things are unimportant or invaliding in anyway, but I really appreciate how you can really see that McCurry loves India in these photos, and is really fascinated by their culture.

Haviv Photo Response

In his essay the beginning of Blood and Honey, David Reiff writes, “But it is almost unimaginable that there could be more than one appropriate interpretation of a Ron Haviv picture”. To Reiff, the photo “is the face of ethnic cleansing. The photograph is also almost a parable for what took place in Bosnia, which was not war in any traditional sense but slaughter; not the clash of armies but the destruction by soldiers of civilians.” It seems, at least from my findings, that most people had similar reaction to Reiff. It is almost impossible to find (at least in the English speaking world) a response to the photo that doesn’t in some sense refer to the fact that Haviv’s photo of a Serbian soldier kicking a muslim woman made them realize not only the horror and destruction of the Bosnian War, but in war in general. For example, British newspaper The Guardian writes, “These are two images in a remarkable body of work. Remarkable because, regardless of the horror, Haviv captures those odd flickers of humanity even as the killers are going about their killing; even as the victims go about their dying.” And the Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail writes how Haviv, “powerfully captured the depravity of the Balkan civil wars.”

Only 20 years have past since these photos were published, and I wonder how much interpretations of these photos will change over time. In Regarding the Pain of Others Susan Sontag talks about this very photo, as an example of how important context is in analyzing this photo. She writes how this photo can tell you war is bad in a general sense, as an armed soldier is kicking an unarmed woman who is on the ground. However, the photo being representational of ethnic cleansing is only true because people know the context of the photo. I wonder how Serbians would respond to the photo. Most would probably see the photo as deplorable, but would they also see it as ethnic cleansing? I also wonder how people will respond to this photo decades from now, when people writing about it weren’t alive during the war and may or may not know its context.

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/jan/21/books/bk-14875/2

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/capturing-a-war-crime/article25016202/

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jun/17/artsandhumanities.highereducation

Haviv Response

Screen Shot 2016-03-03 at 5.04.40 PM

One photograph that I found really interesting from Ron Haviv’s Blood and Honey shows a Serbian soldier riding by Haviv on a bike. He looks directly into the lens and gives Haviv what looks like a peace sign, as a building is burning behind him. A rifle almost as tall as he is is attached to his waist. The caption for this photo reads, “A Serbian soldier cycles past a burning house on the destroyed streets of the Croatian city of Vukovar. Nov 14 1991. The city was completely destroyed after three months of bombing by Serbian forces.” This photograph is so memorable and so haunting to me because of its irony. What does this soldier, who presumably just participated in destroying an entire city, know about peace? I thought that maybe this believed his army’s actions would bring on peace, or that maybe it was a mindless gesture, an acknowledgement that he was being photographed. This irony (for lack of a better term)  is something that I noticed in some of the other photos in Blood and Honey. For example, there is the photograph of the couple kissing in front of a ruined church, another of a circus poster laying on a destroyed Bosnian street. The irony in many of these photos becomes extremely sinister given the context of the world they are taken in.

However, as I was thinking about this photo, I decided to look up if the peace sign has the same connotation in Serbian culture as in American culture. Looking closer at the photo, I saw that the soldiers thumb was up and I realized that the soldier in the photo is not giving a peace sign at all, but actually the Serbian three-finger salute. The salute has a controversial history. Originally used to represent the Trinity in Orthodox ceremonies, since then has become a symbol of Serbian nationalism. It was even used by the pro-Nazi government during the Second World War. During the Yugoslav wars, and was used a symbol of victory by the Serbian troops. Knowing this information changed the context of the photograph for me. The “peace sign” no longer seemed ironic. The soldier does not want to evoke peace, but the exact opposite – military power.

I think it’s interesting to think about the way I approached this photo within the context of Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others. The book essentially argues that photographs can make us feel, but they can not explain things. About another one of Ron Haviv’s photos in Blood and Honey where a Serbian soldier casually kicks the head of a dead Bosnian, Sontag argues against the idea that the photograph can tell a person all they need to know. My misreading of this photograph was completely because of the country I grew up in. Im sure anyone living in former Yugoslav countries, especially those who were alive during the wars would immediately recognize what the soldier’s hand gesture means and what it is meant to convey. However, if I wasn’t curious enough to research this photo further, I would never have actually understood this photograph. I would have dismissed it as something ironic. Perhaps this is something Haviv thought about when publishing this photograph. I’m sure Haviv would have known that to an American audience, the three finger salute would have, on first glance would be read as a peace sign. His caption mentions nothing about the salute, so I wonder if he wanted to play on this lack of cultural context.

VII Website Response

It’s difficult to think about the VII website without thinking about it in contrast to Magnum’s. Something about VII just seems way more 21st century. This is obviously partly because their entire existence has been in the 21st century, unlike Magnum which has been around since the late 40’s. I think what is interesting when thinking about the two agencies is how both of them were founded in moments where new photographic technology was changing the way people took and thought about photography and in the wake of paradigm shift political events . Magnum was founded soon after smaller cameras and faster film became available and in the post World War II years.  Similarly, VII was founded in the beginning of the digital age, coinciding with the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror . It makes me wonder how the technological advances and political events have affected the overall aesthetic and philosophies  of VII and how that compares to Magnum. I wonder how a photographer would choose to be part of Magnum or VII if they were given that choice. I don’t really have an answer to these questions yet but I do have a few observations. It seems that there is a lot less black and white than on Magnum’s site among the more modern photos. Perhaps this is because VII was born within the digital age, there isn’t as much weight attached to pre-color photography. There also seems to be a lot less traditional war photography on the VII site. Perhaps strategically, it seems like they are mostly promoting political stores from current U.S. presidential race.

Speaking of the presidential race, one of the first stories that stood out to me was a series by Ron Haviv called “Weekend at the Republicans”. Ron Haviv is an Emmy nominated New York based photographer and one of the founders of VII. “Weekend at the Republicans” documents the recent Republican Leadership Summit in New Hampshire. I think what is so interesting about these photos is that Haviv photographs this politicians in very unconventional ways. Often his photos, rather than being standard political portraits that give the viewer the sense of the politicians power, Haviv often focuses on smaller details of the politicians. For example, in one, captioned, Clockwise Senator Ted Cruz , Governor Mike Huckabee, US Senator Rand Paul, Governor Jeb Bush,Governor Rick Perry, Carly Fiorina speak at Republican Summit,

Clockwise Senator Ted Cruz , Governor Mike Huckabee, US Senator Rand Paul, Governor Jeb Bush,Governor Rick Perry, Carly Fiorina speak at Republican Summit.

Clockwise Senator Ted Cruz , Governor Mike Huckabee, US Senator Rand Paul, Governor Jeb Bush,Governor Rick Perry, Carly Fiorina speak at Republican Summit.

Haviv creates a portrait of these politicians from behind, through the American flags they are speaking in front of. Instead of the politicians faces, you see their feet, visible through the bottom of the flags or their shadows. Even the choice of whose feet Haviv chose to show is really interesting. For example, the first set of feet turn out to be the feet of Ted Cruz, who is wearing black dress pants and ornate cowboy boots. Below his are the feet of Carly Fiorina, who is wearing black and white high heels and a blue knee length skirt. Rand Paul is wearing blue jeans and brown worn in boots. Here, I think Haviv is trying to point out how tactical the clothing of these candidates are by obscuring the candidates faces and upper bodies. Each politician has clearly thought about their footwear, and trying to win over a certain segment of the American public through their appearance. Another interesting photo from this story shows Governor Mike Huckabee being photographed on a mobile phone.

Former governor Mike Huckabee at the Republican Leadership Summit in Nashua, N.H.

Former governor Mike Huckabee at the Republican Leadership Summit in Nashua, N.H.

I think it is really interesting to create a portrait of a person through the camera of someone else,  and perhaps shows the spectacle and massive media event that America’s presidential race has become.

Another story I found interesting was Franco Pagetti story “The Cuban Paradox”. Pagetti is an Italian photographer who has been working as a news photographer since 1994. I spent a week in Havana in January so I was curious to see how a VII photographer would portray the city. I think many photographers fall into the trap of portraying the city as a kind of “time capsule” of the fifties without digging much deeper into the culture of the country and the city. However, I think, in the wake of Cuba’s rekindled relationship with the United States, Pagetti does a good job of not falling into the “time capsule” trope and instead, tries to capture the excitement many Cubans are feeling about the future. For example, even in his photographs of vintage American cars, he includes in the caption that the engine is actually from a hyundai and that the car has Japanese and Korean parts, despite the fact that the body of the car is American.

An old American car being used as a taxi. The bodywork is vintage but inside it hides a 2008 Hyundai diesel engine and other Korean and Japanese parts. Havana, Cuba. April 2015.

An old American car being used as a taxi. The bodywork is vintage but inside it hides a 2008 Hyundai diesel engine and other Korean and Japanese parts. Havana, Cuba. April 2015.

In another photograph, he shows people on their cell phones and tablets using wireless access to talk to their friends and family outside of Cuba. I think these things are important, because it combats the dominant idea that Cuba is stuck in the past which is largely perpetuated by photographers.

Along the Prado and 23 Street, people use a wireless internet connection to speak with friends and relatives who live outside the country. Havana, Cuba. August 8, 2015.

Along the Prado and 23 Street, people use a wireless internet connection to speak with friends and relatives who live outside the country. Havana, Cuba. August 8, 2015.

Although wifi may be restricted and car parts too expensive for the average Cuban to buy, I think it’s important to remember that Cuba isn’t as isolated and antiquated as people often think it is. I think this is what Pagetti means by titling the story “The Cuban Paradox”.

Magnum Website Response

Overall, I think the Magnum website is well designed and easy to navigate. I think one of the most interesting aspects of the site is that they promote not only the work their photographers produce for Magnum but their commercial work as well.  For example, as I was browsing through the “latest stories” section of the website, I noticed a series by Alec Soth called Unselfies. The description reads “Soth Alec Soth recently explored the notion of the “selfie” by creating a series of “unselfies” for The New York Times Magazine”. The photos are, I assume, of Soth himself, but with his face distorted in some way. These photos stood out for me because they seemed so “un-magnum” as they are probably better defined as art photography rather than photojournalism. To me,this is a representation of how Magnum aims to promote the works of their photographers rather than the agency itself. Is it also show how the agency has adapted to the modern day. In the past, many of the Magnum photographers were repelled by the idea of doing commercial work. Toda

Man with face covered by smoke

USA. 2015. Unselfie.y however, doing commercial work is essential to the survival to magnum photographers.

I also really like the themes tab of the website. This part of the website organizes photos from many different photographers in categories as different as “Cuba”, “water” and “the laugh”.

Man with face distorted by mask

USA. 2015. Unselfie.

I like this because it allows the viewer to see a wide range of photographers work in a manageable way as well as see how different photographers approach similar subject matter. Overall, it seems that the most universal aspect of this varied group of photographers is a serious towards their subject matter and a desire to do so in an aesthetically pleasing way.

View of crowd reaching for car from window

GREECE. Lesbos. 2015. Refugees and migrants arriving on Lesbos island are transferred to Moria refugee camp to registration from authorities before they can move on.

News article on phone screen reading "Bastardi Islamici"

FRANCE. Paris. November 14, 2015. The day after the terror attacks.

Group of people from a distance standing in a circle

YPJ members during their daily training in their base in Serikani.

Woman in army gear in front of mountain overlook

SYRIA. Semalka Border. Rojava. Torin Khairegi, 18, in Zinar base.
“I joined YPJ about seven months ago, because I was looking for something meaningful in my life and my leader [Ocalan] showed me the way and my role in the society. We live in a world where women are dominated by men. We are here to take control of our own future. We are not merely fighting with arms; we fight with our thoughts. Ocalan’s ideology is always in our hearts and minds and it is with his thought that we become so empowered that we can even become better soldiers than men. When I am at the frontline, the thought of all the cruelty and injustice against women enrages me so much that I become extra-powerful in combat. I injured an ISIS jihadi in Kobane. When he was wounded, all his friends left him behind and ran away. Later I went there and buried his body. I now feel that I am very powerful and can defend my home, my friends, my country, and myself. Many of us have been matryred and I see no path other than the continuation of their path.”

One photographer whose work was really interesting to me was the work of Alex Majoli. Majoli is an italian photographer born in 1971 who began his career documenting the wars in Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Albania. He published his first book 1991 which was a collection of photographs taken during the closing of an insane asylum on the island of Leros in Greece. Majoli because a full member of Magnum in 2001. What caught my attention was a project he did recently on the Refugee Crisis in Lesbos, Greece. All of the photographs in the series are taken in low contrast black and white giving the photographs a very cinematic effect. One photo I really like shows migrants arriving on the island from a viewpoint of a car window. The migrants are reaching for something in the distance but you cannot tell what it is. The photo is beautifully composed and because the inside of the car is exposed in such a way that you can’t make out many of the details the viewer’s eye immediately goes to refugees. I also really like a series of photographs he took the day after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. One of my favorite photographs is of a news article with a headline in a italian that translates to “Islamic Bastards” on a blackberry screen. I think this photograph is interesting because it reflects the way most people, even those in Paris probably learned about the attacks – on their mobile phone, and the headline is in some ways more effective in showing the tension in Europe in the aftermath of the attacks than other photos in the series of people consoling each other and going about their daily lives as usual.

I was also really drawn to the work of Newsha Tavakolian who is an Iranian photographer born in 1981. She is a self taught photographer who was working professionally for the Iranian press at the age of 16. She became a Magnum nominee last year. She recently did a series called The Women Taking the Battle to ISIS. One photo I really liked shows member of the YPJ (Kurdish Women’s protection unit) on base during training. The photo is taken far away and shows the women standing in the circle. What I like about the photo is that because of the way it is composed, there is something very mysterious about it. It makes you wonder what the women are up to and what they are discussing.

Also as part of the series,  Tavakolian took several more formal portraits with the women in the unit. These photos have extremely long captions like this one which reads SYRIA. Semalka Border. Rojava. Torin Khairegi, 18, in Zinar base.

“I joined YPJ about seven months ago, because I was looking for something meaningful in my life and my leader [Ocalan] showed me the way and my role in the society. We live in a world where women are dominated by men. We are here to take control of our own future. We are not merely fighting with arms; we fight with our thoughts. Ocalan’s ideology is always in our hearts and minds and it is with his thought that we become so empowered that we can even become better soldiers than men. When I am at the frontline, the thought of all the cruelty and injustice against women enrages me so much that I become extra-powerful in combat. I injured an ISIS jihadi in Kobane. When he was wounded, all his friends left him behind and ran away. Later I went there and buried his body. I now feel that I am very powerful and can defend my home, my friends, my country, and myself. Many of us have been matryred and I see no path other than the continuation of their path.” I really like this because it gives more context to the photos, as well as displays magnum’s desire to have more control than many news photographers about how their work is used and misused.