EXPOSING THE DARK

Nivedan explores how the market affects social usefulness of photography and how photography can effectively be used to bring about a social change. He also lists outs the ethics and practice standards of this genre of photography.

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History has shown many a time that photography is not only an art, but also a medium to convey strong messages. The wartime photographers have documented the cruelties of war better than any author or film maker, perilously exposing themselves to hostile environment. Raghu Rai’s book “Exposure”, which was a photo documentation of shocking realities of the Bhopal gas tragedy, shook everyone with moving pictures, thus bringing the horror to the limelight. The issue received such an attention from the audience. Such photographs have always induced sympathy, empathy and sensitiveness of the viewer. In broader sense, they have always reminded us of where humans and humanity are going towards. To be precise, they have carried a great magnitude of socio-political usefulness.

Photography, as a visual medium, has a lot of advantages over paintings and video clips in conveying such a message. Any form of painting can be ruled out as imagination by the audience; i.e. it is the artist’s perception and impression of how he/she saw things, it does not give the first hand vision of the scenario as a photograph or a video. On the other hand, Video does not freeze an emotion, an expression and an implied meaning in one frame, ultimately being an extensive medium rather than an intensive medium that keeps the viewer interpreting to the point of infinity and think on the meanings conveyed. But photography is realistic and gives the first hand vision to the viewer, at the same time it freezes every element essential to convey a message intensively. Hence one wise man told, “One good photograph is equivalent to 1,000 words”; Truth!

But in this neo-liberal era, market is the mother of every creation. Art is also no exception. Camera is perceived more as a tool for taking photographs that the market demands. So the craze for digital cameras and the market for commercial photography have grown simultaneously. New genres of photography emerged as per market requirements. While the digital camera production and selling is soaring high along with the demand for aesthetically good and creative photographs, the social usefulness of photography is in an all-time low. Photography has become affordable and easy, but the social usefulness of photography have gone out of trace. A photojournalist takes photos that carry news value, basically following the principles of “Common man in uncommon situation or uncommon man in common situation or something sensational”. For him/her, “common man in common situation” has no news value and he/she can neglect that. If a journalist does not do that, one cannot expect that from a photographer of any other stream. Even if such a picture is taken, ultimately it is for the sake of the artistic value and not much for human interest. Even the non-profits use photography for the dullest purpose of mere documentation of their work! In all these cases, where lies the social or political usefulness of photography? Directly or indirectly, it serves the market, but not for the society. Such photographs, regardless of how aesthetic they are, cannot be compared to that of Raghu Rai or the wartime photographers.

There are a great majority of people and communities that suffer social exclusion and miles away from the mainstream life that we see every day. For example, while we get the news about a fashion show, we rarely get to know about the farmers’ suicides and miseries due to indebtedness. So, as a photographer, one has to think of how to bring such unnoticed serious issues to notice, deviating himself/herself from the market demands, for the value of social usefulness. I am not insisting on going into a hostile environment crossing police barricades. Keeping all the prejudices away, a photographer can go into a slum and carefully capture the sights and sounds, living conditions, emotions and demands of slum dwellers. A photo exhibition on that would bring their poor living standards to the public; an article on the one day experiment in a mainstream weekly magazine would draw attention of the policy-makers; a photo documentary can be a source for the non-profits working on slum issues to lobby with the government to positively affect their lives and livelihoods. One need not leave the mainstream genres of photography to do it. It can be done as a hobby at least, which does justify the values of photography. There are unheard miseries all around oneself, from evicted hawkers and slum-dwellers; construction workers, small farmers, street children, child labour, victims of disasters, etc. Their feeble voices can be amplified through photography.

But before giving it a try, one has to look from the perspective of the marginalized. Capturing portrait of a slum dweller is not as easy as casually taking a portrait of an IT engineer, as people are too sensitive and emotional to show their faces in photos. Certain ethics have to be followed. One has to explain the genuine cause of doing so and clearly explain what he/she is up to. One has to earn the trust of the community and observe and respect the culture and traditional practices prevailing in the community and households. Clarity on the issue is the essence of this genre of photography. For example, the prejudice of hawkers being a hindrance to traffic won’t bring clarity; one has to have the questions of why they have come to this profession? Where have they come from? How much do they earn? Are they in debts; are they able to meet the ends? What are the losses in the case of eviction? What is their contribution to the society? What will they be able to do if they are not allowed to do this profession? If they are encroachers, what is a parking area then? Etc. Going through the policies affecting them would deepen the knowledge. One has to ask for the verbal consent of the people to be photographed. Rarely, if the situation requires, candid photos can be taken, but showing the photo (in case of a digital camera) to the person or people would earn the photographer trust from the people. There may be some cases, where confidentiality is mandatory, examples, rape victims and HIV patients. The photographer should get the consent from the person and should not reveal the identity of the person.

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Ultimately, the idea of change is subjective. One has to take a concrete stand. But if I can express my idea of change through photographs, young people like me can also do that, albeit with their own understanding of change. But the point is one has to strive social usefulness. One has to decide upon whether photography is just for advertising or also for sensitising.

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About the Author: Nivedan is an intern at National Centre for Advocacy Studies (NCAS), Pune. With self-nurtured knowledge of photography, he experiments with photography and other forms like posters so as to use them as toosl for sensitization, advocacy and social transformation.

Contact Nivedan at nivedanmangalesh@yahoo.com