The Role Of Photographer As An Agent For The Environment

In Jennifer Baichwal’s The True Meaning of Picture, she focused on the subject of American photographer Shelby Lee Adams’ works. Adams’ pieces emphasize the culture people in poverty from the Appalachian Mountains. Baichwal also spends some time focusing on the controversy of the photographer’s images. The documentary shows direct quotes from Adams himself, the subjects of his pictures, the subjects’ family, and even art critiques. The film collides the views of all these people so that we may learn more about the Appalachian people. Throughout the course of the documentary, the

For this essay the works of Robert Draper, author of “Why Photos Matter,” and Fred Ritchen, author of “Photography Changes the Way News is Reported,” will be analyzed. Though both deal with the topic of photography, their take on the matter is very different. While Ritchen is a photographer who writes on “what professional photographers will be doing in the future,” Draper is a writer for the National Geographic writing on how the photographers of the magazine share “a hunger for the unknown.” Both writers, however, write on the topic of photographers having a deeper understanding of their subjects, Ritchen due to research and practice, and Draper because the photographers “sit [with] their subjects, just listening to them.” In both essays the need for a deeper understanding of the

The first thing I will write about is a person, Jacob Riis. A esteemed author of the book “How the other half Lives”, published in the 1890s. Riis was a pioneer in the time when photography was first starting to catch on. In Riis’s photos he took pictures of people who lived in the slums of the major cities and how they lived. He was termed a Muckraker by our late president Theodore Roosevelt, because journalists like him would, as he would say, rake through all the good things and bad on the ground and only report the bad of the world. But Riis was one of the men of his era

While Postman points out the literal meaning of photography is “writing with light”; the two are from completely different universes when it comes to public discourse (p. 71). Unlike typography, photography cannot offer assertions, make propositions and offers no commentary. As long as it is not an altered photograph, it has no choice but to be true (p. 73). Thus, the photograph is only able to capture a moment in time and does not have the ability to comment on that moment. Our author contends, where language presents the world as an idea, the photographs only option is to show the world as an object (p. 72). Whereas in language, the correct context requires consideration of what is said before and after, in photography there is no before and after, only the snapshot of time. Therefore, by its very nature photography is context-free (p. 73). As photography immersed itself in the American culture author, Daniel Boorstin called this “the graphic revolution.” Postman is unequivocal on the point that the traditional forms of information, news, and even reality itself received an impairment by this new focus on images. For examples, he cites billboards, posters and advertisements. He points to magazines Life, Look and several newspapers. The picture was the focal point, and the writing was forced to take a less dominate roll and sometimes done away with altogether (p.

Environmental documentarian, Bridget Besaw, combines both photography and film to advocate wilderness preservation and food sustainability. She creates “visual stories that serve as a rousting, yet romantic reminder of our collective instinct to care for the planet” (Besaw, 2015). Besaw’s photography captures a range of environmental issues from “threats to Maine’s wilderness, loss of working farmland in New England, restoration of crucial salmon habitat in the North Pacific, wilderness preservation in South America, and sustainable fisheries initiatives throughout the world” (Besaw, 2015). Besaw uses photography so others get “a closer understanding of and relationship to their own bodies and the planet that provides them with life. So for

Photography plays an important role in reflecting a society. In the article "Looking at discipline, looking at labor", Eric Margolis talks about the representations of the photos of the Indian boarding schools in the US. Photographs are used to demonstrate the civilization of Native America Native American Children. Not only can we see the change of the students after civilization, but also the oppressive system in the Indian School. The photographs are used as the monitoring tool of the government too. The photographs provide us evident to all of these. We can know these by comparing the photos before the Native Indian Kids go to boarding school and after they attend the boarding school. By contrasting the photos from the two periods, we can see that the civilization of the Native American Indian children is actually an oppressive system.

A single photo can tell thousands of stories about people that have been silenced in the past or those who are still silenced today. This is the case for the photograph titled “Oppression” by Luke Moore. In such a simple picture, the author is giving voice to the women who have been mistreated, killed, raped and oppressed. This treatment against women is not new and has been implemented all over the world. Moore uses line, character, and color to appropriately demonstrate the fight women have against oppression and the responsibility society has on this oppressive system.

As New York photographer James Maher quoted from A World History of Photography, “photographs used in campaigns for social reform not only provided truthful evidence but embodied a commitment to humanistic ideals” (361). Moreover, as shown in the article Documenting the Social Scene, the powerful photography that Hine and Riis have captured of immigrants encapsulate the need for change; furthering the separation of their photojournalism from illustrative and recreational art. From Hine documenting much of the practices of child labor, to Riis exposing the harsh living conditions of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, (Maher) both photographers comply to a code of ethics and sense of journalistic integrity— Riis and Hine showcase the truth behind the photos in a way that attempts to humanize the subjects on film as much as it attempts to engage a moral debate of the situations at hand. In addition, to exemplify the impact of photojournalism, we must consider the perspective of the Gilded Age

Before starting this project, I knew very little about photography, photographers, or exactly how much impact photographical images have had on our society. I have never taken a photography class, or researched too in depth about specific pictures or photographers. This project has allowed me to delve deeper into the world of photography in order to understand just how much influence pictures can have over society’s beliefs, emotions, and understandings’. I have have chosen two highly influential photographers, Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange, who I have found to both resonate with me and perfectly capture human emotions in way that moves others.

They contributed many photo essays to Arizona Highways, though Adams was less than thrilled with their color reproductions. Still, they are important for they championed a “uniqueness of the ‘American’ earth at a time when other artists and intellectuals were drawn to ideas of internationalism” (Dunaway, 2005, p. 131). The Sierra Club’s new storytelling technique the coffee table book and National Geographic’s photo-driven essays also grew in popularity. Other conservation organizations quickly grasped the value of photos as a way to appeal to Americans on a more personal and intimate level the importance of humanity’s relationship with land and nature (Corbett, 2006; Neuzil, 2008; Sierra Club,

Photographers have the ability to capture a certain moment in their lifetime. Some of them take advantage of the image in front of them and some do not fully understand the purpose of the moment. Is it worth recording the moment? Everyday people take images on their cell phones because they want to share them with friends and family. In 1993, Kevin Carter went on a trip to Sudan and took a picture of a starving Sudanese girl being stalked by a vulture. However, what photographers, like Kevin Carter, fail to realize is that every time a picture is taken, a part of the individual photographed is taken away. Kevin Carter’s presentation of the starving child serves not only as a claim of the ignorance of American people, but also as the measures

There are two phenomenal photographers that have inspired me and my desire to learn more about photography and to become an environmental photographer. The two professional photographer are Ansel Easton Adams and Mary Ellen Mark. One photographer who inspires me is Ansel Adams. Ansel Adams was considered to be an environmental photographer. Adams was born in San Francisco, California. His family migrated to California from England. His grandfather started a lumber business to help make ends meet. Ironically later in his life Adams would condemn the lumber industry for depleting the red wood forest in California. He was an only child and spent countless hours leaning astronomy from his father. His father bought him a three inch telescope

Photographs are used to document history, however selected images are chosen to do so. Often times these images graphically show the cruelty of mankind. In her book, Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag asks, "What does it mean to protest suffering, as distinct from acknowledging it?" To acknowledge suffering is just to capture it, to point it out and show somebody else that it exists. In order to protest suffering, there has to be some sort of moral decision that what is shown in the photograph is wrong, and a want from the viewer to change that.

The colors are disappearing. The blues, greens, yellows, and even reds that once painted stretching fields, running rivers, and tranquil forests are gone. Conserving the earth and all of its resources is more important now than ever before. Conservation photographer, Daniel Beltrá, captures the environment’s most vulnerable moments to create compelling images that enchant his audience. The goal of his work is to allure the eye with conflicting beauty until inevitable displeasure sets in and one begins to understand the true horror of the scene before them. He illustrates the environment from ten-thousand feet up through the small back window of an airplane or helicopter. This view allows Beltrá to capture the entirety of his subject and enables a single frame to reveal a substantial picture (Beason). Conservation and the impact of man is a concept that is understood over time. We do not always see the immediate consequences of our actions as, many times, our actions outlive us. Photographs provide a window into a moment in time that allows us to observe years of impact.

Susan Sontag said photographs sends across the harmlessness and helplessness of the human life steering into their own ruin. Furthermore the bond connecting photography with departure from life tortures the human race. (Sontag 1977:64)