Comments

vraiment?

I was for several years a london photojournalist. I covered hundreds of pickets and demonstrations, several factory occupations and enormous amounts of avant-garde music and theatre as a member of a group of people called Report, many of whom were most definitely politicized in ways beyond my comprehension. All that work, three years of it vanished, stolen by people who imagine quite sincerely that their thefts, not just of my works but those of some 40 others-some household names, is in some way justified as serving a greater purpose- a bit like hackers claim they are doing us a favour now. They wanted it all as a resource, but forgot we owned the copyright and the film, and that our agreement was to its use and not its ownership.

Now, why are such mindsets irrelevant nonsenses? Many very good photographers have committed themselves to recording certain subjects because they too have a political and/or ideological "agenda".

They actually believe, like the character whose quote is used here, that they are making a difference- that they are making us aware, and that this awareness itself and the presence of such images serves to make the planet potentially a better place.

I say no, on a personal level, as my stuff was indistinguishable in quality and subject matter from that of my colleagues, yet I take pictures just for the fun of it, to see what can be got of visual and human interest out of any situation.

I say no on another level because quite simply all recording violence does is raise your personal threshold of violence, and confronting others with such images brutalizes them and raises theirs.

Its why there's a 9pm "adult" threshold on TV.

The concept that there exists "a political and economic system" is itself bull.

You are searching for a needle in haystack to so imagine. Chaos is not a system.

Yes, obviously you can tabulate and reason about all such forces acting in the world.

Yes, obviously you can parade your images of violence and violation for a Pulitzer or for the WPP or whatever IF you subscribe yourself to this system.

But in doing so, it is you who are a party to this system: you are celebrating its existing in recording it at all, and perpetuating it forever through the medium you use.

It is you who have become the system, sentenced as L.Cohen said, "to 20 years of boredom, for trying to change the system from within".

Si tu n'aimes pas le film, tu peux toujours aller a un autre cinema"

If you do not like the film, you can always go to another cinema.