[LRflex] Re: Sick kids and comments

KEITH LONGMORE offered:
Subject: [LRflex] Sick kids and comments

 

>>Folks

I read with some interest the comments from Ted and others about the 

latest offerings from Steve B.  I got to thinking, in the light of some 

other unrelated events.  The comments that caused me to start thinking
were:<<<<<<<

 

>>>it moves and impresses me how some people get a positive message from 

these images of resilient children, and others see only a frightful

and negative side to it...<<<<<

 

Good morning Keith,

Some of what you say are ones feelings due to personal experience on both
sides of the scene. Or having to photograph the scene as we find them. This
doe not mean we are cold hearted photojournalists, it means we have a job to
do, so get on with it. Trust me, you cry then or later, sometimes years
later.

 

And hopefully the children are in excellent care, say in a modern Western
world hospital and not lying on a plastic ground sheet in a fly infested
tent somewhere in Darfor!

 

>>>>and:

I am always afraid to look....it's too disturbing, it makes me cry so

I won't look...<<<<<<

 

I find people strange who will not, nor do not look at Dr. Steve's pictures
of well cared for children regardless of their complications. However, the
same people will watch the 6 o'clock news and or other like minded telecasts
of death and destruction around the world. And not bat an eye!

 

>>Isn't it commonly the case, Ted, that the more graphic images that
photojournos take are usually kept back from publication in the media, in
case they upset someone?<<<

 

That's usually a corporate management controlled editing choice, not the
photojournalist who took the picture. Primarily because the bean counters
don't want the editorial folks upsetting ad space buying business people. Or
public who may stop buying the paper. ERGO:  Ad space drops and the paper
looses money. 

 

>>>> This is very much the case here, where images of terrorism are 

concerned, even on late-night news on TV.<,

 

As I say, generally that's a management decision. Or in the case of the USA,
the President's dictum. "no flag draped coffin pictures!"

 

>>>>Maybe there is also fear of sick voyeurism.<<<<<

 

Well there are some very weird people out in the cold cruel world.

 

>>>>But, you know, I can't help feeling that the impact of 

man's cruelty and barbarism are both even more moving and the fortitude 

and positiveness that many of the victims of war and terrorists display 

even more cause for admiration and perhaps awe, again, even more than 

kids like Steve's.<<<<<

 

Well suffering is suffering no matter what illness or as the in word of
Iraq. "collateral damage" when referring to injured and dead children. At
least when we see Dr. Steve Barbour's pictures we know the child is under
extremely fine care with an illness and not a "stray?" bullet.

 

>>>>I say this because whoever gets sick, young or old, that's an inevitable


part of life;<<<<<

 

It is, but that isn't what the pictures are about because they illustrate
caring and "repaired children" and shouldn't be taken as a "well that's life
everyone gets sick attitude." I mean, after all cancer in a child can be
just as destructive as a piece of shrapnel or bullet. And you still can't
show their inner feelings.

 

>>>but war and terrorism are entirely avoidable, and therefore, I believe,
more disturbing, or whatever the right word is.<<<<<<<

 

Well the United Nations was supposed to eliminate war and violence along
with pictures of the same.  However it hasn't stopped anything as long as
you have leaders who attack another nation at a whim! No matter whomever
that maybe. 

 

Besides the human race is too full of demigods who wish to show their
supposed strength and position of authority over everyone else. So war and
destruction will always go on! And as long as it happens there will be
photojournalist ready to photograph it no matter how visually disturbing to
the viewer. 

 

Some with the idealistic concept "their pictures will make a difference!" It
doesn't, other wise the world would be living in complete peace and harmony.
Wont happen in the lifetime of anyone on this list or any other at the
moment!

 

>>>In the context of this forum, and noting the comments that Steve 

captures the essence of these kids in his photos, I can honestly say 

that I have never seen any photographer genuinely capture the trauma of 

war as it affects the victims.<<<< 

 

Well I have to disagree completely. And I say this with experience of
assignments and books published on medical staff in hospitals and covering a
couple of wars. Because Dr. Steve's photographs have time after time shown
the child in various forms of recovery and recovered going home. These are
physical things we can see. Or in the case of war, we see the travesty of
dead children and adults lying about or in over worked hospitals.

 

Is this not showing the trauma of war or a child in a western hospital?  

 

However, if you mean the "mental trauma," as inside the victim's mind or
inward feelings, then that kind of "feeling isn't possible to photograph.
Nor is it possible to photograph the actual feelings of any injured person
because it's inside.  The torn body?  Now that's a piece of cake, gut
wrenching, but easy to photograph.

 

Is it the mental image of human verses physical image what you mean when you
say:

>>>> I have never seen any photographer genuinely capture the trauma of war
as it affects the victims.<<<< 

 

>>>> I wonder: has anyone here seen Ernst 

Friedrich's 1924 anti-war book 'Krieg dem Kriege'?  Or the photographs 

of victims of the Japanese atrocities at Nanking or Harbin? Or the 

survivors of, for example, the bombing of Hamburg? Those images 

certainly capture the awful ghastly horror of man's predilection for 

killing and maiming and other excesses; but do they capture the effects 

on the victims who survived?<<<<<<<

 

I  would think that's a rather difficult question to answer due to most of
the horror we see from your locations listed, the "victims are dead!"  You
might ask the survivors of Hiroshima, Nagasaki or the folks who survived
Hamburg. They can tell you, but you can't photograph what the image is in
their mind.

 

>>>>Or the fear and pain of the victims who 

succumbed?  I don't think so, and as I said, I have yet to see the 

photographer who can even get close to really bringing it home to 

his/her audience.<<<<<<<<

 

Well in this case you are talking about the inner feelings of people and
that's not a recordable photo image.

 

>>>>How do you capture the soul of say one of the soldiers in Friedrich's 

book, most of his face missing, having to be fed by tube for the rest of 

his life, unable to exist outside of an institution; of the consequences 

of shell-chock, like the old man who used to roam Coventry city centre 

every day in the 50s and 60s, dressed like a soldier, wearing white 

gloves, marching his imaginary squad up and down, directing traffic, 

oblivious to the real world around him;<<<<

 

My point above. It's impossible to show their feelings. You can show the
physical aspect, but I don't believe there's a camera . IE: the kind we use,
film or digital, that can record what you are describing. 

 

>>>of one of my work colleagues 

many years back, who went to war as a Jack-the-lad type, reached Lt 

Commander in the Royal Navy, and came back unable to 'say boo to a 

goose' for the rest of his life?  What about Simon Weston, horrifically 

burned in the Falklands War, yet having the guts to turn it into 

something positive, to go on TV, to schools, etc.,, without hiding his 

injuries, and campaigning for various military-related causes?<<<<

 

More of the same, other than Simon Weston whom you say uses his war damaged
face to teach and show the physical effects of war. However, that still
doesn't show his "inner feelings" in a photograph.

 

>>>>Could any of us really show - really, truly show - what such people feel


and represent?  Could you, Steve?  Could you Ted?  Somehow, I doubt it.  

And if you did, what of the media?  Would they respect it?  Would they 

show it to the world?  I doubt that, too.  Reality, in all seriousness, 

is not for the masses.<<<<<

 

Keith about now I think you are beating on a dead horse simply because you
are talking about two things: the physical damage to see. The other? Inner
feelings and impossible to photograph.

 

>>>Sorry if this sounds a bit maudlin, but I felt  I had to make the
point.<<<<

 

I don't know about "sounds maudlin," but it sure as hell sounds very
confusing. Besides this is a round table beer in hand topic discussion and
not an online type with days between answers and questions.

 

ted

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