1) The ghost of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce visits you in the night and leads you to a buried treasure of 100,000 Suiss francs (why Suiss francs? I have no idea) that can only be spent on photography (no paying off student loans). How do you spend the approximately $23,638?
Wow, I wish this was real! Because it’s so tempting (I want a Leica M8 so badly), I first came up with a huge list of equipment I want. Then I decided to diversify my spending. So with $9,000, I could upgrade my DSLR outfit, plus get another camera I’m dying to have for personal work. I think that’s pretty generous, equipment-wise. I would probably never get to do that again, so I can’t resist. And I’ve been shooting with the same DSLR for over 2 years, since before I went to school. It’s definitely time to replace it.
I would use the next $9,000 to support my documentary projects, until it runs out. Mainly to cover getting to and from NH all the time to shoot at Twist of Fate Farm (I don’t have a car – I take a bus!), and to get myself back to both the West Bank and Guatemala in the next year, to continue projects I’ve started in each of those places.
With the last $2,638, I would get myself to as many portfolio reviews as possible, and get a killer dreamy website.
OK, that’s just off the top of my head. Ask me again next week and I’ll have a completely different plan, like wanting to spend most of it on marketing, or taking a workshop.
2) What location or event would you most love to document right now and why?
My plan for the last 6 months was to be back in the West Bank documenting the Palestinian olive harvest this October and November. I spent a couple months there as a solidarity/human rights worker between 2005 and 2006, and planned to return once I was finished with school, to both continue that work and also to shoot. I recently had to cancel my trip because of funding, and so during the harvest I’m really going to miss being there.
I learned during the harvest in 2006, that even though protections are supposedly (legally) in place for Palestinian farmers to access and harvest their land, free of violence and harassment, that doesn’t necessarily translate in actions. I witnessed situations beyond the imaginations of many who could not be there, alongside families suffering and surviving on a daily basis. I want to do what I can to make sure their stories don’t go unnoticed. I can’t make it this year, but I’ll definitely return when I can.
3) Can photography change the world? Can it change anything?
I ask myself that constantly, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. It was actually the subject of my grad school Capstone Project, and I don’t even think I answered the question after all that writing. I think of things said by James Nachtwey* and Larry Towell** and others, and I think about the situations I’ve been in that I desperately hope my photos would transform, and the things I wouldn’t know about the world if it wasn’t for photographs, and I still don’t know.
I do believe that images are a hugely significant part of our understanding of society and the world. I imagine news and stories being vastly different without photographs, and myself and others not paying as much attention, or unable to relate, because of it.
I don’t think a photograph or photography alone can make much change, but I do see photography as an important part of that work, as a more visceral form of documentation, and as a part of changing our culture. All change is slow. A single protest, book, or even election won’t solve all the world’s problems either. But every aspect of making change needs to play a part, whether it’s organizing, policy-making, education/consciousness, service, or creating the culture of change. I see photography as being a part of education and culture-making.
We often relate more to the visual than the written. For example, seeing another person’s face forces us to relate, or try to relate, to their life. In a video, the short moment of a powerful facial expression may disappear and be replaced with something else, in less than a second, as it occurred. A photograph taken at the right time to provoke the most emotion, holds that moment of time in place as long as the image lasts.
There are examples of photographers who’s work contributed to change. Lewis Hine and the photographers of the Farm Security Administration, are well-known examples. People were talking about child laborers and poor farmers when they made their work. There were statistics and articles then. But it was images that drove the messages home to many. Today there is less that hasn’t been photographed yet, unlike those days, but images are so much a part of where we get information – I think we sometimes unconsciously rely on them.
So my answer is no… not alone. But yes, it can.
* “For me, the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke a sense of humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war and if it is used well it can be a powerful ingredient in the antidote to war.”
–James Nachtwey
** “…we must address the social and political contradictions of our time. I believe photography can be part of the process. . . . it cannot change anything, but it can be part of the process for change, even if that change is personal.”
–Larry Towell
