ZEKE Fall 2019

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Aesthetics of DOCUM Why good pictures of bad things matter Why is it that the documentary photography community is obsessed with seeking really good photographs about really bad things that the human race brings upon each other? It is the core principal of the Social Documentary Network (SDN), ZEKE magazine and other similar organizations. While we are driven to defend victims of human rights abuses (an admirable goal), why do we place such a premium on images that present such abuse, or in some cases solutions, in a highly aestheticized manner? With SDN, we have competitions with respected jurors, all whom pour over visual stories of the human condition to select the one that is the most 40 / ZEKE FALL 2019 original, well-crafted, thoughtfully composed, and addressing something that the public deserves to know more about and possibly act on. But it is those photographs that are most aesthetically successful that win the awards. Much has been written by me and others about photographers giving voice to the voiceless, using powerful photography to inspire action, shining a light in dark places and other similar noble, if not canned, responses. Perhaps it is that artists (in this case documentary photographers) use their strengths to challenge injustices in the same way writers, poets, playwrights, and activists use the strengths they have to achieve similar outcomes. But I believe there is more to it. Photo by Maryam Ashrafi from her SDN exhibit, Mourning Kobané. A YPJ fighter looks over the wreckage left by fighting on a street in Kobané, Syria, March 2015. An Obsession with Aesthetics Why are we obsessed with aesthetics when aesthetics really has little to do with the problem or solution? Would all these resources be better spent if instead we were out on the streets demanding action? I believe the answer to our obsession with, or commitment to, aesthetics lies somewhere in the following explanations. One is that the media knows that to gain readers and viewers, they must provide interesting and complex images that only an inspired photographer can deliver. Otherwise what remains is a dense page of grey type that will neither sell content nor attract advertisers. But
ENTARY WHY GOOD PICTURES OF BAD THINGS MATTER By Glenn Ruga more significantly, a text-heavy factual account will only draw the scholarly, intellectually curious, or the activist and not the ubiquitous everyman/ everywoman with a job, children, rent/ mortgage, and driven towards stability for themselves and their family. The majority of people on our planet don’t have the time nor the mental capacity to engage, but might pay attention when their sensibility is stopped in its tracks by a photo such as the Syrian child Aylan Kurdi dead on a beach in Turkey. The second reason I believe gets to a more fundamental issue. The human race is capable of the basest and ugliest actions as evidenced by the many genocides (loosely defined) committed just in the last hundred years (the Holocaust, Armenia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sudan, Darfur, Bosnia, Syria, DRC, Rohingya, etc.) But the human race is also capable of great heights of intellectual, emotional, physical, cultural, and magical achievements such as love, birth, Mozart, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, NASA, Pablo Picasso, Pablo Casals, Billie Holiday, Nelson Mandela, Vincent Van Gough, Serena and Venus Williams, Henri Cartier Bresson, Toni Morrison as well as the drawings of children the world over. Acts of Defiance For all who strive for beauty in the face of suffering, it is an act of defiance against those who bring misery on this planet, and what is a more perfect example than an artist striving for perfection where misery abounds. In her exhibit on SDN titled Mourning Kobané, Paris-based Iranian photographer Maryam Ashrafi made this stunning photograph of a young woman who, along with members of YPJ (Women’s Protection Units), “mourn during the ceremony for Ageri, their fellow fighter, who was killed during clashes with Islamic State in Eastern frontline of Kobané, Syria.” This photograph is not of dead comrades or headless victims of the despicable Islamic State. Rather it is a stunning portrait shot not in a studio with lights and assistants but rather under challenging conditions during a funeral wrought with intense emotions and under constant fear of attack. The young woman’s eyes, her gaze, her colorful scarf and military fatigues, the soft blue sky and horizon line so thoughtfully placed, the woman on the left side of the frame, possibly injured in battle, all create a stunning work of art. How can one not be moved by this? What happened? Who are the YPJ (a heroic story unto itself)? The photo is a weapon against the horrors of the Islamic State. Its secondary target is all who say that women cannot engage and triumph in battle. The power of this beautiful photo of a Kurdish warrior I hope has launched a thousand people to join her struggle to save the Kurdish and other residents of Kobané from ISIS. (nb. Sarina, the subject of this photo, was martyred in battle in the fall of 2018.) Kurdish photographer Younes Mohammad has extensively photographed the wars and carnage in Iraq Photo by Younes Mohammad. Mosul, Iraq: A man from the Ghadesiya neighborhood was wounded during the battle for Mosul by a suicide ISIS car bomb. He was rescued and treated by medics of the Iraqi army in a field clinic. and Syria. His portfolio includes some very graphic images of bodily destruction caused by war. But it is not the gore that makes him a great photographer, rather it is his photographs of the passion, tenacity, and emotional depths of his subjects amidst such horrible conditions that have lasting value. His photograph in his SDN exhibit on the battle for Mosul, In Less than an Hour, of a man from the Ghadesiya neighborhood wounded during the battle for Mosul by a suicide ISIS car bomb, is a stunning example of a great photo made during battle. The young man (by the caption we assume he survives) has the look of calmness while medics are rushing into action. The photograph makes interesting use of color (blue latex gloves, blue jacket liner, and contrasting yellow plastic stretcher) and strong linear elements of the medics’ arms and the aluminum frame of the gurney, all pointing toward the central subject—the wounded soldier who lays calm amid chaos. Younes reassures us that although chaos reigns on the battlefield, it has not destroyed our soul as a species. Turning to other parts of the world and other issues, the SDN website has Not a subscriber? Click here to receive the print version of ZEKE. ZEKE FALL 2019/ 41
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ZEKE Fall 2019

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