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This web site most often reflects upon the technical, equipment side of photography. It is an extension of what I find interesting for me and my own photographic pursuits and I am at times concerned that I spend far too much time worrying about this accessory or that bag or case than I am about photography itself and why it is that I am an aspiring photographer. The time that I spend dealing with the whole Nikon versus Canon debate seems particularly hollow and out of touch with what photography should be about. I reflect back on images that are seared into my mind’s eye, ones that moved me emotionally and mentally and made me realize that there is a whole world out there well beyond the comfortably numb confinement of the western world. One such image was from 2002, a photo of a little Afghan boy trudging down a dusty road under the labour of a heavy pack, perhaps all of the boy’s worldly possession. The boy is dressed in traditional clothes that are barely more than rags, he is dusty and dirty and at this point, I cannot recall if he wore any shoes, but I think not. Seeing
that image of the boy from a war torn country (this was when the
Where was he from? Where was he going? Did he have a family, or is he an orphan? Was the heavy sack truly all that he had in the world? Would he eat that night, or would he go hungry? I can imagine the boy cleaned and dressed up and being like any other western kid, laughing it up and playing in the parks with other kids, but he was not. He was a boy perhaps six or seven years of age with an uncertain future in a country that is still struggling to recreate itself into a new nation. Why did this photo strike me so hard? Hard to say, because now I have to analyze myself and dig through all the subjectivity and make an objective observation about what matters to me. However, I would say that the photo stirred me like few others did because I am a father of a little boy who is not far off in age to the one in the photo. It made me thankful that I am a citizen of a prosperous country and that I have the resources to ensure that my children have new clothes to wear and will always go to bed with a full belly. Even if something were to happen to me I know that my children will be cared for and that there will be enough financial resources available to secure their immediate and long-term future. I could not imagine what would happen if my family and I were in a region in strife and they became orphans. These are uncomfortable thoughts, but this is the power of photography, to make us think about matters that we would not normally consider in our everyday lives. This thought process also has to do with my inability to comprehend the brutality of humanity and what we are capable of doing to each other, how meaningless life can be at times and what wretched misery millions of people around the world live in. I must be careful here not to become arrogant or smug, because of my western upbringing and seeing the world through that one lens instead of how the other regions of world see things and it should be noted that we in the prosperous west have much work to do to improve the lives of our own citizens before casting a rueful finger at other nations and societies. National
Geographic Magazine has recently published some very insightful
articles about human misery and these were powerful in the written
description, but more importantly, in the visual description of
the photos taken and published that detailed the misery. From
the caste system of
But can one magazine and a few writers and photographers change the world? Directly no, not even one as big as National Geographic with its various international versions and 10 million plus members. Indirectly though, why not? It can spread the message around the world and although not as high and mighty, as it was during its golden era in the 1950s and 1960s, National Geographic is still a force to be reckoned with. It recalls an a related debate from the time of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, when these two photographers were out photographing rocks and trees while the world was at war in the 1940s. Up and coming photographers saw the medium as a means to convey a message to educate the public about what was going on around the world and promote societal change sympathetic to the photographers' own personal vision of how the world should be. Whereas Adams and Weston believed that by photographing what was naturally beautiful would be a way to contribute and bring some ease to a troubled period of time. (Adams did actually do much documentary work about the internment of Japanese Americans and brought attention to the shameful action by the US Government against its own born-in-America citizens). I guess the Pollyanna in me sees photography as that potentially powerful medium to convey social values. Beautiful landscapes move me. They can make me stop and appreciate what the photographer has captured and it exercises my mind, but what moves my heart are the documentary and photojournalist’s images capturing the essence of raw humanity, especially humanity in agony. For example, when I see a brilliant landscape the typical thought process could be as follows:
As can be seen, the review is initially about the aesthetic of the image, but quickly becomes one about the technical details; however, a powerful documentary photo is one in which I have no interest in the technical details. All that matters is what I see with my eyes and how it moves me and in those cases, a photograph can move mountains for me. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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Edwin's
Vignettes -
The Meaning of a Photograph