Tamara and Andy were married in downtown Montreal in a beautiful ceremony before celebrating into the night.
Jessica and Shane Jessica and Shane were married at an orchard in Franklin, QC, on the last weekend in July. It was a beautiful, very sunny day, which created some dramatic shadows. The ceremony was officiated by one of the … Continue reading
Genevieve and Sam
Gev and Sam were married in May in Hemmingford, QC. From the piper parading the bride and her family to the church to the emotion of the ceremony it was a fantastic day. The overcast skies made for beautiful pictures and brought a little rain for luck.
This gallery contains 18 photos.
This has been a busier summer than expected. As a wedding photographer, and just one small cog in the wedding planning machine, I had never imagined that work that actually goes into planning a wedding until I began to plan … Continue reading
New post on PhotoPhilanthropy – an interview with the executive director at Blue Earth.org – a fantastic non-profit supporting photography inspiring social change.
Social change will not come from documentary photographs alone. This may seem like a statement that flies in the face of social documentary photographers working to affect change through their work, however it is an adage worth holding onto. Certainly the somewhat intangible relationship between change and photography is something I have found to be worth exploring both in my research and as an aspiring photographer.
This issue came up recently in a conversation with Bart J. Cannon, the executive director for Blue Earth, a non-profit organization dedicated to photography that makes a difference, who spoke candidly about his personal opinions on the social change potential of photography. The discussion was extremely enlightening.
Sarah Rennie: Does Blue Earth have a specific principle when it comes to the photographers and projects it supports?
Bart Cannon: Well our basic mission is social change. We are not a fine arts organization, we’re interested in documentary photography, specifically documentary photography, photojournalism, however you care to describe it, which is specifically for the purpose of creating a positive change in society. So we try to help projects that are covering under-reported issues, and issues that are important, and work with photographers who are dedicated to public education, helping people know about a problem, and to helping find avenues for solving it.
SR: Do you encourage associations between photographers and other organizations and groups?
BC: Well if the goal is social change there’s going to have to be an action step. So we want people to provide educational activities, which involve taking action. So, it’s not just simply throwing the images out there and telling the story, it’s, ok, well what do you do about it.
SR: Interesting. For so many it’s about getting the pictures out there.
BC: Humans are strongly visually motivated and sometimes just getting the image out there can make an enormous difference, but that’s not always enough. As long as it’s not something sensationalistic like thugs attacking civil rights marches in the 1960s. Sometimes it’s a little more esoteric. A photograph of an iceberg melting may not move people unless they understand the context. And then, OK, well what precisely can I do about it?
SR: Context is always an issue. What are some of the key components of a good project?
BC: We always tell people who are applying that there are various factors which come into play. Our ability to help, how it fits into our portfolio of projects… We don’t want to duplicate projects for example. And always the quality of the photographs is going to be key but the real issue is going to be the storytelling component and the practicality. You’d be surprised how many applications we get from people who say, “yeah I’m going to go down the amazon and I’m going to document all these issues – budget for $1000”. Well… how are you going to eat, where are you going to stay, how are you going to get down there? Then you have all these fabulous images, now what? Have you even thought about that?
We can’t always make everything go the way we want it to, but we definitely want our project photographers thinking about getting the word out, and what that actually means to the public.
SR: How important do you think it is that people interact with images. Does this promote change?
BC: Humans are primates and primates respond strongly to visual stimulus. That’s my own personal knee jerk response. People have a difficult time responding to something unless they can see it. So if you want to demonstrate the fact that the Amazon is disappearing show them a field of it burning – people get that, they understand it in simple visceral terms. And sometimes on complex issues it helps to put things in very stark perspective like that.
SR: Is that enough or do we need to start pushing a bit more?
BC: I think that’s beyond my purview, that’s more of a political question. Not that I’m dodging politics, I’m a political scientist by training, but there’s only so much that we’re able to do. We aren’t able to organize or to engage in field work to get people lobbying to change laws or to boycott abusive corporations etc. That’s at the tactical level, which really has to be addressed on a very specific case-by-case basis.
SR: Which types of images do you think may work best to convey a message of change?
BC: There are lots of dramatic images out there that I’ve seen over the years but it really depends on the issue and the story. I tend to approach photographs not so much from an artistic perspective but more from a social scientist approach, which is documentation. So I think actually producing photographic evidence is very strong and useful in persuasion. So a dramatic image in itself isn’t sufficient, I want to see data.
If glaciers are melting, show me a washed out gully where the glacier used to be, that’s strong data that makes a difference. Especially if you can show me what it used to look like before.
SR: When photographers submit to Blue Earth, do you want them to be telling you a story?
BC: That’s what project photography is about. If they’re not telling a story it’s not project photography and it’s not documentary. There’s got to be some sort of narrative there to tell people what this is. If you’re not telling a story, you start crossing into the line of fine art photography and it becomes an exercise in photographic technique, which is fine – it’s just not documentary photography. Particularly if your goal is not just to document, that is to take pictures of facts for shelving in an archive, but… if you’re trying to create change, you’ve got to be telling a story.
SR: My research focuses on the interaction between images and audience, and on images as a catalyst for change. Do you have any thoughts on this?
BC: It all comes again to the storytelling. You’ve got to have a compelling narrative in order to motivate change. It’s fine is somebody is emotionally moved by an image, it’s good if they learn something, but if you’re actually trying to do something concrete like reduce carbon emissions, you’ve got to have some kind of action plan, even if it’s as simple as writing a legislator to affect an upcoming vote on EPA regulations. It’s that concrete step that makes a difference. My personal background is that I was an activist in college, worked at a human rights organization for 12 years before coming to Blue Earth, so that’s my personal interest and maybe that’s my bias, but I’m not interested in enlightening the world. I’m interested in making it better. One comes before the other absolutely, but being moved by an image is not interesting to me, I want to know how that image is going to educate the audience and tell a narrative, which can give them an action step. So that’s probably not exactly the answer to your question, but that’s how I would personally approach it.
SR: That is really interesting in the sense that some of the photographers I’ve spoken to do not share that opinion. Once the photo is out, it’s out of their hands. Their job is to take the picture, and once it’s taken it’s up to the audience to move forward. But you are suggesting that it is up to the photographer?
BC: I would say so. I mean, if your job is to engage in photojournalism or social change photography, however you want to describe it, this implies you’re actually trying to make a difference. Images in and of themselves are wonderful but they are not doing anything – it’s the audience that’s going to do something and if you’re not out there poking the audience to do something then it’s not really serving your purpose as far as I can tell. It serves as valuable archival, historical, evidence, which is valuable but that’s not creating change.
SR: Really interesting. So then, what is your idea of social change?
BC: I wouldn’t put it in general terms, it’s always specific. Social change is stopping the factory from dumping the poisons in the water of that Texas town. That’s concrete positive change. Concrete positive change would be legislation passed by congress to have specific strengthened requirements for the use of toxic chemicals in water tables. You know, very specific actions I think are what make a difference. If you want to have change at the very tactical, feet on the ground level, it’s not about changing the whole gestalt or the general attitude toward the earth, it’s about actually giving people solutions, or tactics, or steps they can take to improve things.
SR: So the photographs would be a visual cue, or a method for prodding people?
BC: I would say so. And related to that is documenting solutions. You can document a huge trash dump and accompany that with photographs of a green and effective recycling plant. Ok here’s a problem and here’s a step, it’s not insurmountable and awful and terrible, here are actual people working on the ground today attempting solutions. And I think that’s a key part of it too. So the image of the trash dump may be shocking and get people’s attention, and that’s marvelous, but we can also follow that up with additional images, or a narrative that will help people get involved.
SR: Great point. Thank you so much for this.
This conversation was part of an interview informing my research, which addresses a personal conviction that social change photography can have a significant social impact by questioning images’ effect on, and ability to affect, a diverse audience. If you have any thoughts on this topic, or on any of the issues raised in the above interview, I would love to hear from you.
A few shots from the Saint-Lawrence Choir’s concert on Saturday night in Montreal. The choir, under the direction of Maestro Michael Zaugg, is one of the more innovative groups in Montreal. The evening was complimented by a group of artists painting throughout the presentation. Great show.
The Unseen Project officially launched on February 24th at the Maison Trestler Art Gallery, in Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec. The vernissage also marked the start of the Detour-Retour series of expositions in the Vallee-du-Haut-Saint Laurent, an initiative of TRACE. The five other artists in the series, Evelyne Bouchard, Isabelle Paradis, Steven Ladouceur, Melissa Campeau, and Sebastien Gaudette, are amazingly talented and it is an honour to be included in such a stellar collection.
The Unseen Project will be on display until April 10. An interpretive evening is planned for March 10, which will feature a retrospective of some of my photographs as well as a presentation on the evolution of social documentary photography and the role photographs may play in movements for social change. All are invited!
Blog first published on www.photophilanthropy.org January 7, 2011
Buzz words like audience interaction, effect and intent are commonly thrown about in critiques of photographs however these do not highlight the actual ‘behind the scene’ practice of social change, or socially-engaged photographers. In a recently published retrospective book entitled Leaving Art, renowned performance artist and author Suzanne Lacy conceives of a continuum of artist positions or strategies that is worth delving into a bit further here from the perspective of a photographer. The artist continuum she describes moves the artist, or, in this case, photographer, from “experiencer”, to “reporter”, to “analyst”, and finally, to “activist”.
Becoming a photographer starts with the actual corporeal experience, as s/he reveals observations as a witness. Moving one step further along the continuum, the reporter consciously calls attention to something. As for my journey along the continuum, when I first started to imagine myself as a photographer, I was living in North-Eastern Finland as a visiting student at the University of Joensuu. The semester was short and it left me plenty of time to travel to neighbouring Scandinavian and Baltic countries, as well as Russia and parts of Western Europe as well.
As I was traveling I began to notice that I was able to find affective photographs, even in the most desperate, dangerous or deprived conditions – from carefully potted plants sitting in a crumbling concrete window, to laundry catching the sun in a ghetto, to flowering vines growing amid coils of razor wire. Cities I discovered were often built around former town centers now preserved to bridge the history of the old with modern development. In between, on the boundaries of the old and the new, exist an eclectic blend of artist enclaves, ethnic and often impoverished communities that in turn thrive at the intersections of these two worlds. I have found myself attracted to, and almost compelled, to photograph the lifestyle of those communities sitting in the shadow of the looming development of cities. The photographs are reflective of a discomfort with the obvious disparities in wealth and livelihood that exist in every city. Such images were the inspiration for my first gallery exhibit, and they chart my development as a photographer from wide-eyed experiencer to reporter.
The next move along the continuum to “analyst” shifts the focus of the photographer away from a reflection of observational skill towards a more intellectual endeavor, where the aesthetics of an image are used to draw attention to the meaning behind the image. This often involves bringing in captions and texts to help the audience understand the photographer’s intention. Finally, the move from “analyst” to “activist” is the key, I believe, to social change photography. Calling oneself an activist today comes with a heavy burden, as the media often reinterprets the term to contain an aggressive and sometimes violent element. Activism does consist of taking intentional actions to bring about change, but this can be done in an open, inviting and peaceful manner. In my case, this constitutes taking pictures, which I then contextualize within real situations that I believe not only resonate with an audience but also invite the audience to become part of that action.
My intention here is not to call for an activist photography movement to take root, they already exist the world over. It is to highlight the fact that an organization and site like PhotoPhilanthropy is already taking much-needed steps to create a network of socially involved photographers; the website teaches collaboration, it encourages cross-over with other disciplines, and the images featured both resonate and create meaning with the public. In a recent interview, Founder, Nancy Farese described her excitement at the number of photographers submitting their work with NGOs to the site. “I thought it was particularly fascinating to look at the cross-national images, such as the the Russian photographer shooting in the Gaza Strip or the Japanese photographers taking photos of arsenic poisoning in the water in India. It is inspiring and eye-opening to me personally and I thought other people might be interested as well.” For Farese, accessing an emotional response in an audience through the images on the PhotoPhilanthropy site is not the main goal. Rather, it is “trying to direct action as a result of [the image] and make people feel as if they can engage.” Perhaps most significantly, the website not only works to distribute photos, but offers communications tools to photographers so they can get their images, and message, to a wider public.
Engaged photographers today are looking at an ever-expanding social responsibility, and this is sometimes hard to embrace as we develop new definitions of photographers and expand the uses of images. There are huge advantages to photographers pairing with NGOs and socially-motivated organizations, as this offers the photographer a chance to work with a developed vision and in coordination with the strategy of an organization – which is training only available through experience. For young photographers, the catch right now is trying to find a way of working within today’s sometimes vacuous visual culture. One way of going about this is to change how we understand our relationship with images by deciding first where we slot in on Lacy’s continuum, and from there, where we see ourselves moving. For some, acting as a witness will be enough, while others may find themselves to be PhotoPhilanthropists, working to find a way to engage others in a visual story of positive social change.
Blog first published on www.photophilanthropy.org December 20, 2010
Images reach out to us. They beckon. We are drawn to them, to look at them and to be touched by them. But in the end it is we who decide whether to allow ourselves to be affected. Sometimes the decision is easy for example, images depicting happy, familiar or nostalgic scenes are often greeted with a smile. Social change photographs are not the same. They ask us to think and can bring out emotions and responses that are not necessarily pleasant. They invite and can sometimes force a critical engagement. They cause us to step back, to blink, to move closer, or to look away. Reacting to and engaging with this type of photograph is a total body event. But only if we let it happen. As someone who like to look at pictures as much as take them, I am often struck by the freedom I have in choosing the degree to which I am willing to let myself look at something, and in determining how to interpret and respond to an image. I can let myself be carried away or I can cut my experience short, turn my attention away, and never look back. I am interested of course in the images that hold me, make me churn, and keep me coming back. To me, a photograph is never a complete and static representation of a subject, but an open, dynamic process at the centre of a network of infinite interrelations between different viewers, each with their own way of seeing, thinking and being. In looking at an image I am connected at once to the photographer, the subject and a myriad of other viewers. But where does that power to arrest a viewer come from? Who has the power in this relationship? And, is it possible to imagine the creation of such relationships through social change photography as a unifying practice? With a bit of a rethink, I believe we can.
I particularly like the way in which Ariella Azoulay, professor of visual culture at Bar Ilan University, Israel, considers photography as existing within a civil space. In her book, The Civil Contract of Photography, she suggests the contemporary proliferation of cameras and images has resulted in a “new form of encounter, an encounter between people who take, watch and show other people’s photographs, with or without their consent, thus opening new possibilities of political action and forming new conditions for its visibility.” The users of photography then, the photographer, the photographed and the audience are not identified within the world of photography by the specific state/nation power that may govern them outside of photography. As a result, within the civil space of photography, people are able to look at and show images that reflect certain power relations, as well as the outcomes of power, and in looking at and showing these images, we open new critical spaces to address and negotiate the issues that may be reflected in the images.
Often when we talk about photographs we do not think about the power geometries contained in the image and in so doing we forget how significant power is in determining an individuals ability to affect and be affected. It is easy to assume that the power to create meaning within a photograph lies with the intention of the photographer, who is free to photograph a subject of her choosing at will, and to exhibit the product to a select audience. And while this may describe many photographer-image-audience relationships, imagining power flowing in a unidirectional fashion from photographer to audience risks missing other dimensions of the situation, specifically the dynamic civil space of photography that affords each participant the capacity to both affect and be affected and to distinguish meaning for themselves. In her most recent Photophilanthropy post documenting her and photographer Nancy Farese’s work in Africa with the Carter Center, writer Cate Biggs asks “How do they see us?” and reflects on the strange sensation of becoming the ‘photographed’ when cameras held by their African ‘subjects’ focused on her instead. In this sense, it is much more rewarding to think of power as something that circulates, as a dynamic force that is never possessed by one individual in a relationship. I can remember the first time I had the camera turned on me and the immediate feelings of surprise and then discomfort that this produced. It is an unsettling that has stayed with me years later to the extent that I am now experimenting with taking photographs of ‘haunted’ embodied spaces, or places in which the absence of people asks viewers to imagine the individuals that would complete the image for them. It is my hope that this may bring people face to face with their assumptions about different populations, to empower if you will the absent subjects and the viewer.
Azoulay asserts that the political space of photographs can be reconstructed such that the photographed, photographer and audience become equals as participant citizens. Like Azoulay, I believe relationships between images and audiences can not be founded on empathy alone. Concepts such as ‘shame,’ ‘compassion,’ or ‘pity,’ can be thought of as a way of directing the viewers gaze in photographs, however limiting our interaction with images to a reading that produces such charged feelings allows for a superficial experience and is a reflection of unbalanced power exchange where the spectator is disempowered and the photographed victimized. In this sense, the audience is left to ‘feel’ without haven been given any idea of how to interpret the affect of the image, or how to act in response.
In an recent interview , Nancy Farese addressed how she manages her role as a photographer, “it has been interesting because as i come back and talk with people about my experiences people often say to me, for example “oh you see those babies and don’t you just want to bring them back and give them a better life?” and I always feel like “No! The deeper I go into this work, the more respectful I become of individuals and would therefore never want to photograph someone in a way that was not dignified. and I think this is one of the powers of photography, to feret that out and sort of isolate and identify an individual for what they are though they may be socially lost in a crowd. And then as a viewer or as a photographer to try and allow the viewer to glimpse that and identify that.” For Farese, and many other photographers working to promote social change, the desire to stir in viewers something deeper than an empathetic reaction is a reflection of the civil possibilities of photography. A good photograph reaches out for us. And in reaching out for us, it invites us to reach back, to share, to be affected, and to participate.
This is a space for me to expose some of my work as a social documentary, travel and wedding/event photographer. It is also a space for me to reflect on thoughts around photography and some of the issues relating to images and their consumption that challenge me as both a researcher and photographer. I encourage feedback or comments
