tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/press-photography-10301/articles
Press photography – The Conversation
2020-03-19T18:56:56Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/133615
2020-03-19T18:56:56Z
2020-03-19T18:56:56Z
Friday essay: the uncanny melancholy of empty photographs in the time of coronavirus
<p>Over the last few weeks, photographs in the news and on social media have documented our behaviour in response to COVID-19. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/desperately-seeking-toilet-paper-pasta-or-hand-sanitiser-some-relief-is-just-weeks-away-133916">Panic buying</a> of pasta, rice and, surprisingly, toilet paper is represented in empty shelf after empty shelf. </p>
<p>That’s not all that is empty. </p>
<p>Images of empty public spaces – from the streets of Ginza, to soccer stadiums, to the Venice canals, to lone masked travellers on buses, trains and trams – evoke a sense of apocalyptic films and the end of days.</p>
<p>Photographs of empty public spaces are increasingly filling our news feeds, documenting our response to a worldwide pandemic. </p>
<p>While these pictures point to a frightening situation, we can’t help being drawn into the otherworldly and unfamiliar scenes. They make us stop, look and linger as we try to comprehend what these places without people are saying.</p>
<p>Our attraction to images of the world without us reveals a collective fascination for the apocalypse or, perhaps, extinction. </p>
<p>Take the Instagram feed <a href="https://www.instagram.com/itsabandoned/?hl=en">Beautiful Abandoned Places</a> and its 1.2 million followers. These photographs show buildings in ruins or overgrown with weeds; old tourist sites now empty. </p>
<p>The images are “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/what-ruin-porn-tells-us-about-ruins-and-porn/index.html">ruin porn</a>”: when we take voyeuristic pleasure or delight in the sight of architectural decay or dilapidation. </p>
<p>The appeal comes from looking at a scene that could cause discomfort (or estrangement, or isolation) but doesn’t. The viewer is looking at a representation of the scene, not the scene itself, from a position of far-off comfort. </p>
<p>But another definition of ruin porn, a moral definition, is gaining pleasure from someone else’s failure, as seen through these architectural ruins. </p>
<p>Morally compromised as outsiders, we aestheticise a picture of another’s decline while looking away from factors that contribute to crisis. </p>
<p>The images in our current news feeds – despite what they say about coronavirus – offer similarly compelling visuals. We take delight in the formal composition of these images, which fall into tropes of the photographic picturesque. </p>
<p>The absence of people provides us with the ability to see into the distance with endless visual perspective. We feel as though we are alone in the landscape, a heroic adventurer. </p>
<p>Why is our absence from the world so fascinating to view in photographs? </p>
<p>In the early era of photography, anything moving would be rendered invisible, while architecture (or a corpse) was the perfect still subject. Take for instance Daguerre’s 1839 photograph of the <a href="http://100photos.time.com/photos/louis-daguerre-boulevard-du-temple">Boulevard du Temple</a>, Paris, a bustling city street.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321209/original/file-20200318-37392-11m6tk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321209/original/file-20200318-37392-11m6tk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321209/original/file-20200318-37392-11m6tk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321209/original/file-20200318-37392-11m6tk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321209/original/file-20200318-37392-11m6tk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321209/original/file-20200318-37392-11m6tk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321209/original/file-20200318-37392-11m6tk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321209/original/file-20200318-37392-11m6tk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Louis Daguerre’s Boulevard du Temple, photographed in 1839.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this photograph, the street appears empty – with the exception of two figures who have stood still long enough to be captured by the exposure time required to portray the scene. </p>
<p>Photographs have always provided us with an alternative view of the world without us. </p>
<p>Contemporary fine art photographer <a href="https://www.skny.com/artists/candida-hofer?view=slider#6">Candida Höfer</a> has made a successful career out of photographing large-scale empty spaces like public libraries, museums, theatres and cathedrals. <a href="http://www.thomasstruth32.com/smallsize/photographs/duesseldorf/index.html">Thomas Struth</a>’s empty street photographs make German cities look like ghost towns. </p>
<p>These artists demonstrate a longstanding fascination with photographing architecture devoid of human subjects. </p>
<p>This fascination may be due to what architectural historian Anthony Vidler described as “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/architectural-uncanny">the architectural uncanny</a>”. Abandoned and deserted spaces, he said, make our familiar spaces become unfamiliar. </p>
<p>For Vidler, this estrangement from space hinges on visual representation such as in photography. </p>
<p>These photographs of empty public spaces capture a departure from our everyday and instead visualise this uncanniness: an alternative reality emptied of our presence. </p>
<p>The uncanny, wrote Vidler:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Would be sinister, disturbing, suspect, strange; it would be characterised better as “dread” than terror, deriving its force from its very inexplicability, its sense of lurking unease, rather than from any clearly defined source of fear – an uncomfortable sense of haunting rather than a present apparition. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While we hide away and quarantine ourselves indoors, the world outside is captured in the collective imaginary as eerily without us. What we thought we knew of public spaces is instead evoking the sensation of being alone in a haunted house. </p>
<p>In images where we expect to see hundreds or thousands of people, we find instead a few lonely figures presented to us by a single observer: the camera. </p>
<p>Pictorial urban life emptied of its citizens produces an assortment of emotional responses: estrangement, social alienation, melancholy. </p>
<p>The Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico captured this in his 1913 painting <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/28433765@N07/27367950011">Melancholy of a Beautiful Day</a> where an ominous figure stands alone in an empty town street accompanied only by his shadow and a Roman statue in the distance. </p>
<p>Made over a century ago, de Chirico’s painting surprisingly resonates with the photographs we are seeing in the news today. While it offers a historical example of the surrealist fascination with psychological dream states, it is also prescient of our current reality. </p>
<p>The images being captured by news photographers point to our fear of the pandemic and, fundamentally, of each other. </p>
<p>The photographs expose how swiftly we can become estranged from our everyday lives, how our surroundings can suddenly become something other – something fragile and tenuous. </p>
<p>The empty shelves, the empty restaurants, the grounded planes, the empty airports, the depopulated Mecca without worshippers, Trafalgar Square without tourists: these are all signals of the slowing of progress. </p>
<p>Photography is so good at capturing this because it is an unmediated mechanical eye that confronts our all-too-human eye. In these instances, the camera is able to be where we cannot be. </p>
<p>The mechanical eye is further exaggerated in the photographs which provide us with a distinctly nonhuman view of open, empty spaces. </p>
<p>Drone images give us an aerial perspective not readily available to the human eye. When viewed in the context of a global health crisis, there is no mistaking that we are – somewhat strangely – bearing witness to our own erasure. </p>
<p>We are accustomed to seeing images of crisis represented by fires, floods, bombs, warfare. The photographs we see as a result of COVID-19 are an emptying out and a slowing down. </p>
<p>This is a different sort of crisis, one that is mirrored in the uncertainty and slowing down of our financial markets and the need for government stimulus packages. </p>
<p>As cultural historian, <a href="https://newleftreview.org/issues/II21/articles/fredric-jameson-future-city">Frederic Jameson</a> said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps this is precisely what these photographs are showing us: how the pandemic paradigm of “social distancing”, which isolates us physically from each other, disrupts and stops our lifestyles. </p>
<p>The pausing or end of our gathering in public, in airports and hotels, at tourist sites and sporting matches, in shopping malls, museums and bars, signals a rupture to the flow of everyday life.</p>
<p>Photographs of empty public spaces unmask the illusion that we are integral to existence. Even without a camera operator, optical technology will linger on and capture scenes of the world without presence. </p>
<p>Who can say whether that operator is human, or nonhuman, like a satellite from outer space that is still programmed to picture our buildings even if we aren’t in them? </p>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As cities, galleries and tourist destinations shut down across the world, news photographers are showing us our world anew.
Cherine Fahd, Director Photography, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney
Sara Oscar, Lecturer in Photography, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/106441
2018-11-07T03:29:03Z
2018-11-07T03:29:03Z
What image will define the 2018 election?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244235/original/file-20181107-74769-kfpzwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1309%2C718&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Images of Donald Trump from the midterm campaign.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Illustration by Bob Britten</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every election has its iconic images. Or does it?</p>
<p>There are standout images from previous campaigns. Barack Obama’s “Hope” poster, with all its homages and parodies, is a classic example. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244196/original/file-20181106-74754-17c41lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244196/original/file-20181106-74754-17c41lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244196/original/file-20181106-74754-17c41lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244196/original/file-20181106-74754-17c41lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244196/original/file-20181106-74754-17c41lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244196/original/file-20181106-74754-17c41lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244196/original/file-20181106-74754-17c41lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244196/original/file-20181106-74754-17c41lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A supporter holds the poster of Barack Obama by Shepard Fairey, in Wisconsin, Nov. 5, 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/118017088?src=ZUrilYg65G2UyYVwmhgFaA-1-0&size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock, Juli Hansen</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner dogged him through his 2004 campaign <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/04/14/bush-was-haunted-his-own-mission-accomplished/E73SdIkXxBfUGsbyXv7ISI/story.html">and beyond</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244243/original/file-20181107-74751-j4uere.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244243/original/file-20181107-74751-j4uere.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244243/original/file-20181107-74751-j4uere.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244243/original/file-20181107-74751-j4uere.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244243/original/file-20181107-74751-j4uere.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244243/original/file-20181107-74751-j4uere.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244243/original/file-20181107-74751-j4uere.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244243/original/file-20181107-74751-j4uere.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The image that haunted George W. Bush’s re-election efforts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Boston Globe screenshot</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Michael Dukakis’ ill-advised 1998 photo in a tank was widely seen as “<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/dukakis-and-the-tank-099119">a huge mistake</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244199/original/file-20181106-74775-zeudl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244199/original/file-20181106-74775-zeudl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244199/original/file-20181106-74775-zeudl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244199/original/file-20181106-74775-zeudl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244199/original/file-20181106-74775-zeudl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244199/original/file-20181106-74775-zeudl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244199/original/file-20181106-74775-zeudl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244199/original/file-20181106-74775-zeudl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This shot of presidential candidate Michael Dukakis damaged his candidacy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Politico screenshot</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But this campaign season seems to work on different principles. As someone who’s worked in news design and graphics and now <a href="https://reedcollegeofmedia.wvu.edu/faculty-staff/faculty/bob-britten">teaches these subjects</a>, I’ve spent a good bit of attention on news visuals. To me, it seems like in 2018, images just don’t seem to stick in the same way as they used to.</p>
<p>As the midterm campaigns got underway, images appeared that were used to characterize the politics of one side or the other. One June image that circulated widely showed a crying Honduran child allegedly separated from her parents at the border. Later we learned she and her mother <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/us/immigration-toddler-trump-media.html">were detained together</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244200/original/file-20181106-74772-1nbco3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244200/original/file-20181106-74772-1nbco3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244200/original/file-20181106-74772-1nbco3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244200/original/file-20181106-74772-1nbco3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244200/original/file-20181106-74772-1nbco3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244200/original/file-20181106-74772-1nbco3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244200/original/file-20181106-74772-1nbco3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244200/original/file-20181106-74772-1nbco3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screenshot from The New York Times of photo taken by Getty photographer John Moore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New York Times screenshot</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Also widely seen were photos of now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, from Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. </p>
<p>These images had some staying power, but they haven’t been notably present in the late campaign. The Honduran child image, seemingly good material for a campaign focused on immigration policy, didn’t make any significant October appearances, and while Kavanaugh’s impassioned, sometimes sneering face has been decent meme fodder, there’s not really one single image that’s persisted. </p>
<p>Maybe that’s the difference. Thinking of icons as single images is so 20th century, a time when cameras were far less ubiquitous. But <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/">we’re all documenters</a> and publishers now, and the photos we see come from a much wider range of sources.</p>
<p>Yet there is an image that shows up again and again this campaign season. It’s not a specific photo, it’s the face of a man, one who isn’t currently on the ballot.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244247/original/file-20181107-74751-pykobd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244247/original/file-20181107-74751-pykobd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244247/original/file-20181107-74751-pykobd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244247/original/file-20181107-74751-pykobd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244247/original/file-20181107-74751-pykobd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244247/original/file-20181107-74751-pykobd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244247/original/file-20181107-74751-pykobd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244247/original/file-20181107-74751-pykobd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Donald Trump at a campaign rally, Nov. 5, 2018, in Cleveland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Election-2018-Trump/9b5896b5866848dba377380f4f6511fa/2/0">AP/Tony Dejak</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>President Trump is a presence in nearly all election media. His photo broods alongside his tweets, gazes nobly on Fox News and gawps foolishly in the images of MSNBC and elsewhere. There’s no single Trump image that stands out and no prominent images of him doing something – as with Bush or Dukakis – but his face is everywhere, inescapable.</p>
<p>Better photos may win awards, but the photos that stick have become a broad pool that reflects personalities, not events. Trump’s no Kim Kardashian, but their shared sense of visual branding defines this campaign, and this era, far more than any substantive moment: Today’s photographic icons may not depict what happened so much as who happened.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Britten has no funding or affiliations relevant to this story's subject.</span></em></p>
Here’s a riddle: What’s the dominant image of the 2018 election campaign? There isn’t one. But there are many.
Bob Britten, Teaching Associate Professor, West Virginia University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/104112
2018-10-01T20:10:01Z
2018-10-01T20:10:01Z
Ten photos that changed how we see human rights
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238593/original/file-20181001-18997-808w5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This 1904 photograph showing the massacre of villagers by Dutch KNIL forces in the Indonesian village of Koetö Réh was used by the Dutch to argue for the paternalistic colonial state as protector. We now see it as evidence of imperial atrocity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nearly 70 years ago, in December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>.
At this time, the UN’s cultural arm, UNESCO, sought to harness the “universal language” of photography to communicate the new system of human rights globally, across barriers of race and language.</p>
<p>UNESCO curated the ground-breaking <a href="http://www.exhibithumanrights.org">“Human Rights Exhibition”</a> in 1949, seeking to create a sense of a universal humanity through photographs. It sent portable photo albums around the world, so that the exhibition could be recreated by anyone, anywhere.</p>
<p>In the decades since, visual images have played an important role in defining, contesting, and arguing on behalf of human rights. Photographs are a crucial way of disseminating ideas, and creating a sense of a shared humanity – but they can also justify arguments for conquest and oppression. Here are ten photos that show how we have seen human rights.</p>
<hr>
<h2>A human ‘family’</h2>
<p>Many of UNESCO’s 1949 photographs could be accused of picturing a falsely harmonious human “family” – literally, in this instance, by showing a collage of four families from different cultures, all seemingly alike.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238580/original/file-20181001-18997-krd72t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238580/original/file-20181001-18997-krd72t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238580/original/file-20181001-18997-krd72t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238580/original/file-20181001-18997-krd72t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238580/original/file-20181001-18997-krd72t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238580/original/file-20181001-18997-krd72t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238580/original/file-20181001-18997-krd72t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238580/original/file-20181001-18997-krd72t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Families. UNESCO, Human Rights: Exhibition Album (1949).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Scenes of war</h2>
<p>However a counter-narrative of atrocity and what it termed “struggle” was introduced through scenes of war. There were images of soldiers washed ashore on a beach and a heap of corpses at Buchenwald in a discourse centred upon the violation of human rights. Some visual theorists argue that such images are crucial in proving the existence of distant suffering and injustice. Others have criticised them for exploiting the victims further, or anaesthetising suffering.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238583/original/file-20181001-19006-jxwo2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238583/original/file-20181001-19006-jxwo2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238583/original/file-20181001-19006-jxwo2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238583/original/file-20181001-19006-jxwo2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238583/original/file-20181001-19006-jxwo2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238583/original/file-20181001-19006-jxwo2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238583/original/file-20181001-19006-jxwo2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238583/original/file-20181001-19006-jxwo2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">War dead. UNESCO, Human Rights: Exhibition Album (1949).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dignity and humanity</h2>
<p>Often, the power of seeing someone very different from ourselves can create a sense of proximity, and the recognition of another’s full humanity. For example, after Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery in Maryland in 1838, he became a leading campaigner in the abolitionist movement in the United States. He believed in the power of his dignified and serious photographic portrait to counter racist caricatures, and became the most-photographed man of the 19th century.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238584/original/file-20181001-18994-11frsj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238584/original/file-20181001-18994-11frsj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238584/original/file-20181001-18994-11frsj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238584/original/file-20181001-18994-11frsj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238584/original/file-20181001-18994-11frsj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238584/original/file-20181001-18994-11frsj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238584/original/file-20181001-18994-11frsj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238584/original/file-20181001-18994-11frsj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unknown photographer, Frederick Douglass (c.1841-1845), Full-plate daguerreotype.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Onondaga Historical Association.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A changed context</h2>
<p>Sometimes, photographs taken for one purpose can come to have a very different meaning, as the social context for viewing them is transformed. In 1904, during the final throes of the Aceh War, the military doctor H.M. Neeb took a series of now infamous images that showed the massacre of villagers by Dutch KNIL forces in Koetö Réh, where more than 500 people died, 130 of them children. Dutch rulers subsequently used these photographs to argue for the paternalistic colonial state as protector. We now see them as shocking evidence of imperial atrocity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238585/original/file-20181001-18994-s9h6sa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238585/original/file-20181001-18994-s9h6sa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238585/original/file-20181001-18994-s9h6sa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238585/original/file-20181001-18994-s9h6sa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238585/original/file-20181001-18994-s9h6sa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238585/original/file-20181001-18994-s9h6sa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238585/original/file-20181001-18994-s9h6sa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238585/original/file-20181001-18994-s9h6sa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">H.M.Neeb, Koetö Réh, 14 June 1904.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Biscuits in a revolution</h2>
<p>Fifty years later, during the revolution in Indonesia in 1945-50, it became taboo to show the massacre of civilians. Instead, showing soldiers as humanitarians – for instance, distributing biscuits to local children – was the preferred image.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238588/original/file-20181001-19000-12h9f9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238588/original/file-20181001-19000-12h9f9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238588/original/file-20181001-19000-12h9f9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238588/original/file-20181001-19000-12h9f9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238588/original/file-20181001-19000-12h9f9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238588/original/file-20181001-19000-12h9f9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238588/original/file-20181001-19000-12h9f9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238588/original/file-20181001-19000-12h9f9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Collection Bob van Dijk, Soldier distributing biscuits to Indonesian children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BC010, Image bank WW2- NIOD, Amsterdam</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Transforming colonial classification</h2>
<p>In Australia, many photographs of Aboriginal people were taken for official purposes, to classify them on racial grounds, or document the “progress” children were making in state homes. However, Aboriginal families now use these photos very differently. Photo-artist Brenda L. Croft uses photography to tell the story of her father Joseph, removed in the 1920s as a child from his Gurindji/Malgnin/Mudburra people of the Victoria River region in the Northern Territory. When he was physically reunited with his mother Bessie in 1974 their reunion was tragically short-lived. She died just seven months later.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238587/original/file-20181001-18991-13nf5e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238587/original/file-20181001-18991-13nf5e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238587/original/file-20181001-18991-13nf5e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238587/original/file-20181001-18991-13nf5e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238587/original/file-20181001-18991-13nf5e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238587/original/file-20181001-18991-13nf5e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238587/original/file-20181001-18991-13nf5e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238587/original/file-20181001-18991-13nf5e3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brenda L. Croft, ‘shut/mouth/scream’, diptych, 2016, from the series ‘blood/type’. Pigment print, 91 x 89.5cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image copyright and courtesy of Brenda L. Croft</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Croft uses photography to explore her journey home, re-asserting her connection with places and kin fragmented by the ongoing impact of colonialism. Her “shut/mouth/scream” shows Bessie’s face, cropped from an official mug-shot that classified her on racial grounds. Croft has transformed it into a confronting and emotional portrait.</p>
<h2>Documenting protest</h2>
<p>Other troubled histories are kept alive in the present through photographs that document protest. Vera Mackie’s images act as a witness to demonstrations staged at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul against the militarised sexual abuse perpetrated by the Japanese in the Asia Pacific War. They focus upon an “icon of peace”: a commemorative statue on the site of the protests.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238592/original/file-20181001-19018-1f6pokr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238592/original/file-20181001-19018-1f6pokr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238592/original/file-20181001-19018-1f6pokr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238592/original/file-20181001-19018-1f6pokr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238592/original/file-20181001-19018-1f6pokr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238592/original/file-20181001-19018-1f6pokr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238592/original/file-20181001-19018-1f6pokr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238592/original/file-20181001-19018-1f6pokr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vera Mackie: The Peace Monument, Seoul.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vera Mackie</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Evading sterotypes</h2>
<p>Australia is a party to international legal treaties such as the UN Refugee Convention, so is obliged to ensure that asylum seekers found to be refugees are not sent back to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. Yet many find it hard to engage with the plight of refugees currently incarcerated in sites of offshore detention such as Manus Island and Nauru. The Australian government has increasingly restricted media and public access to such places so <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-worth-a-thousand-words-how-photos-shape-attitudes-to-refugees-62705">we have difficulty seeing and understanding</a> what is happening there. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-worth-a-thousand-words-how-photos-shape-attitudes-to-refugees-62705">Friday essay: worth a thousand words – how photos shape attitudes to refugees</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Australian photojournalists such as Fairfax’s Kate Geraghty have sought to document the refugee experience in ways that evade stereotypes either of victimhood or threat. Geraghty’s photograph of Iranian asylum-seeker <a href="https://www.theherald.com.au/story/1681315/video-photos-asylum-seekers-arrive-on-manus-island/">Pezhma Gorbani holding his ID card</a> against a bus window after his arrival on Manus Island in 2013 shows his despair and defiance, but also highlights the issue of press access.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238600/original/file-20181001-18997-1chtrk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238600/original/file-20181001-18997-1chtrk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238600/original/file-20181001-18997-1chtrk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238600/original/file-20181001-18997-1chtrk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238600/original/file-20181001-18997-1chtrk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238600/original/file-20181001-18997-1chtrk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238600/original/file-20181001-18997-1chtrk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238600/original/file-20181001-18997-1chtrk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kate Geraghty, Pezhma Gorbani 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kate Geraghty, Sydney Morning Herald, Fairfax Media.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘I was a refugee’</h2>
<p>Some refugees have taken matters into their own hands, using social media as an act of protest and political solidarity with others around the globe. Using the hashtag #iwasarefugee, Alisha Fernando showed herself as a baby, asleep aboard a ship after her Vietnamese family was rescued at sea.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238589/original/file-20181001-19000-19gr6gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238589/original/file-20181001-19000-19gr6gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238589/original/file-20181001-19000-19gr6gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238589/original/file-20181001-19000-19gr6gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238589/original/file-20181001-19000-19gr6gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238589/original/file-20181001-19000-19gr6gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238589/original/file-20181001-19000-19gr6gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238589/original/file-20181001-19000-19gr6gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alisha Fernando in 1982, Instagram post, February 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Instagram</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Asserting control</h2>
<p>Fernando contrasted this with a photo of herself and the captain of the boat that had rescued her, taken 21 years later, after she had become an Australian citizen. In this way refugees are asserting some control over their own image and eloquently demonstrating their humanity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238591/original/file-20181001-19003-1765r8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238591/original/file-20181001-19003-1765r8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238591/original/file-20181001-19003-1765r8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238591/original/file-20181001-19003-1765r8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238591/original/file-20181001-19003-1765r8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238591/original/file-20181001-19003-1765r8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238591/original/file-20181001-19003-1765r8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238591/original/file-20181001-19003-1765r8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alisha Fernando and Willem Christ in 2013, Instagram post, July 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Instagram</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While visual theorists are often wary of <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/photography-at-the-dock">the power of images to manipulate viewers</a> or exploit their subjects, we must not assume that images are fixed in their meaning and effects. We cannot do without images that reveal atrocity, evoke fellow-feeling, and construct a shared humanity.</p>
<p><em>The book <a href="https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/visualising-human-rights">Visualising Human Rights</a> has just been published by UWA Publishing and includes contributions from Sharon Sliwinski, Susie Protschky, Brenda L.Croft, Vera Mackie, Mary Tomsic, Fay Anderson, Suvendrini Perera and Joseph Pugliese.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Lydon receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
From depictions of slavery to colonial massacres to contemporary portraits of refugees, photography is a powerful tool in evoking ideas of shared humanity.
Jane Lydon, Wesfarmers Chair of Australian History, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/62705
2016-07-28T19:51:05Z
2016-07-28T19:51:05Z
Friday essay: worth a thousand words – how photos shape attitudes to refugees
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132091/original/image-20160727-7041-1f1k6qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Photos of beaming young asylum-seekers with their families aboard HMAS Adelaide in October 2001 told a completely different story to the government's spurious 'children overboard' claims. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Project SafeCom, Jack H Smit.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the last two decades we have seen the unprecedented politicisation of immigration. Many Australians remember the wave of immigration after World War II when our rapidly developing industrialised economy addressed its labour shortage. Yet, like many Western countries, since the end of the Cold War we have worked to prevent refugees from seeking asylum by making our borders impenetrable.</p>
<p>Today, we distinguish between migrants, who arrive via our Migration Program (currently up to 190,000 places per year), and refugees, admitted through our Humanitarian Program, (<a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/media/pressrel/4540865/upload_binary/4540865.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22media/pressrel/4540865%22">providing 13,750 places in 2016-2017</a>). Migrants make <a href="http://www.ssi.org.au/faqs/refugee-faqs/148-what-is-the-difference-between-a-refugee-and-a-migrant">a conscious choice</a> to seek a better life elsewhere. Refugees are forced to leave their country because of persecution.</p>
<p>Photography has mapped a distinctively Australian version of this global story. Once migrants were represented as complex, vulnerable, diverse people, as in David Moore’s iconic 1966 photograph, Migrants arriving in Sydney. This image allows us to empathise with the fear, anxiety and hope felt by newcomers, poised between old and new, tradition and change.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132082/original/image-20160726-7045-7zu18w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132082/original/image-20160726-7045-7zu18w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132082/original/image-20160726-7045-7zu18w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132082/original/image-20160726-7045-7zu18w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132082/original/image-20160726-7045-7zu18w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132082/original/image-20160726-7045-7zu18w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132082/original/image-20160726-7045-7zu18w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Moore Migrants arriving in Sydney 1966, gelatin silver photograph.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of NSW, gift of the artist 1997 © Lisa, Michael, Matthew and Joshua Moore</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By contrast, today the Australian government seeks to suppress photographs of asylum seekers, seemingly from fear that such images will prompt empathy with them and undermine border security policy. As asylum seekers have come to be widely viewed as a security threat, refugee policy has been militarised, displacing attention from the situation of those attempting to reach Australia to their supposed menace to our way of life.</p>
<h2>The power of photos</h2>
<p>Researchers have long debated the impact and ethics of photographs of those very far away or different from ourselves – how do such representations allow us to empathise with their subjects’ plight? Do our responses to such photos prompt political or social change? Or, after a moment of compassion or shame, do these feelings simply subside, letting us return to business as usual and thereby reinforcing the status quo? </p>
<p>Clearly, Australian government and military officials believe, very deeply, in the power of such imagery to undermine – or conversely, support – their agenda. </p>
<p>Two episodes in our recent history reveal the power of photography to shape attitudes and influence public debate. The first is 2001, the year of the Tampa incident, Children Overboard, and the Pacific Solution. The second is the increased border protection measures introduced by the Abbott government from 2013, still in place today.</p>
<p>During the late 1990s, increasing numbers of people attempted to travel to Australia by boat to seek asylum, including Afghanis, many being members of the persecuted Hazara minority. In August 2001, the Norwegian vessel MV Tampa rescued 438 mostly Afghan refugees from their sinking boat, around four hours from the Australian territory of Christmas Island. </p>
<p>The Australian government blocked the Tampa from landing on Christmas Island. Indonesia, which had not ratified the 1951 Convention on Refugees, refused to receive them. When the Tampa entered Australian waters without permission, the Australian military intervened. After much delay, the refugees were taken to Nauru.</p>
<p>Australian citizens’ understanding of these remote events was necessarily highly mediated. A review carried out by <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10361146.2013.840769">researchers from the University of Queensland</a> examined the visual representation of asylum seekers on the front pages of two prominent Australian newspapers at this time – The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132281/original/image-20160728-21574-1hwmo3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132281/original/image-20160728-21574-1hwmo3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132281/original/image-20160728-21574-1hwmo3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132281/original/image-20160728-21574-1hwmo3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132281/original/image-20160728-21574-1hwmo3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132281/original/image-20160728-21574-1hwmo3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132281/original/image-20160728-21574-1hwmo3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The boat carrying asylum seekers pulls up alongside the Tampa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wallenius Wilhelmsen/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Their analysis showed the predominance of pictures of boats, mostly from a distance, as well as those depicting asylum seekers as large groups (42%). In contrast, there was a striking lack of images showing individual asylum seekers with clearly recognisable facial features (only 2%). </p>
<p>The researchers concluded that the effect of this pattern was to dehumanise refugees and frame the refugee “problem” as a potential threat that demanded mechanisms of security and border control. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most widely circulated image from this crisis was an aerial view of the Tampa showing the rescued refugees sitting on the deck in rows, in a space defined by shipping containers. Powerful as it was, this image did not show a single human being’s face.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131942/original/image-20160726-31171-he5nn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131942/original/image-20160726-31171-he5nn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131942/original/image-20160726-31171-he5nn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131942/original/image-20160726-31171-he5nn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131942/original/image-20160726-31171-he5nn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131942/original/image-20160726-31171-he5nn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131942/original/image-20160726-31171-he5nn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Asylum seekers on board the Tampa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wallenius Wilhelmsen/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Following the Tampa incident, a new border protection initiative titled Operation Relex implemented a restrictive public affairs plan that tightly regulated the collection and circulation of information and images. </p>
<p>The Director-General of Defence Communication Strategies, Brian Humphreys, later testified to the Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident that Defence Minister Peter Reith had <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/committee/maritime_incident_ctte/report/report.pdf">explicitly instructed personnel</a>, “Don’t humanize the refugees”.</p>
<p>The inquiry concluded that this restrictive public affairs plan intended to retain “absolute control” of the facts, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>to ensure that no imagery that could conceivably garner sympathy or cause misgiving about the aggressive new border protection regime would find its way into the public domain. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Visual theorists express concerns about the ethical use of images of suffering. They argue that such images exploit their subjects by violating their privacy or showing them as abject and less-than-human. In addition, there are well-grounded fears that identifying individuals may render them vulnerable to persecution in their home countries.</p>
<p>However, the complete suppression of images by the state also acts to erase the social experience of suffering. In this way, the absent image may be as powerful, and terrifying in its effects, as images of suffering.</p>
<h2>Empathy overboard</h2>
<p>John Howard’s government did, however, make active use of photographs to advance its agenda at this time. In October 2001, in the immediate lead-up to a federal election, a boat designated Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel 4, carrying 223 asylum seekers, was intercepted by HMAS Adelaide north of Christmas Island, and then sank. </p>
<p>Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock claimed that passengers had thrown children overboard as a means of forcing the Australian navy to rescue them. Defence Minister Peter Reith and the prime minster repeated this claim, and on 10 October released photographs that supposedly proved it. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131943/original/image-20160726-23383-1t6ab63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131943/original/image-20160726-23383-1t6ab63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131943/original/image-20160726-23383-1t6ab63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131943/original/image-20160726-23383-1t6ab63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131943/original/image-20160726-23383-1t6ab63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131943/original/image-20160726-23383-1t6ab63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131943/original/image-20160726-23383-1t6ab63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An October 8, 2001 file photo of video footage of refugees being rescued in seas off Christmas Island by defence personnel from HMAS Adelaide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Defence PR/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, journalist Virginia Trioli challenged their status as proof during a radio interview with Reith, pointing out</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Mr Reith, there’s nothing in this photo that indicates these people either jumped or were thrown? </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/07/07/3263420.htm">Reith responded</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well, quite frankly, if you don’t accept that, you don’t accept anything I say … they are clear as day. A mother and her presumably son, aged seven or eight clearly in the water and clearly being assisted by a female member of the Royal Australian Navy … Now, we have a number of people, obviously RAN people who were there who reported the children were thrown into the water.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However a later Senate inquiry found, on the basis of evidence provided by senior Navy personnel, that the photographs offered as evidence of children thrown overboard on 7 October were actually pictures taken the following day, 8 October, while SIEV 4 was sinking.</p>
<p>The inquiry concluded that the Howard government had deliberately told lies about these events and suppressed the truth for political purposes.</p>
<h2>A different picture</h2>
<p>In mid-2003, meanwhile, an anonymous source published photographs of the rescued asylum seekers taken by Navy personnel aboard HMAS Adelaide in October 2001. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132081/original/image-20160726-7064-w6vnc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132081/original/image-20160726-7064-w6vnc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132081/original/image-20160726-7064-w6vnc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132081/original/image-20160726-7064-w6vnc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132081/original/image-20160726-7064-w6vnc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132081/original/image-20160726-7064-w6vnc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132081/original/image-20160726-7064-w6vnc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aboard the HMAS Adelaide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Project SafeCom, Jack H Smit.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These photographs show how these rescued people responded aboard the navy vessel. Note the good health and happiness of the children. Imagine the effects on the Australian public in October 2001 of seeing these happy, relieved families: would our political history have been different?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132076/original/image-20160726-12749-10vu7oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132076/original/image-20160726-12749-10vu7oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132076/original/image-20160726-12749-10vu7oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132076/original/image-20160726-12749-10vu7oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132076/original/image-20160726-12749-10vu7oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132076/original/image-20160726-12749-10vu7oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132076/original/image-20160726-12749-10vu7oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children drinking milk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Project SafeCom, Jack H Smit.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Howard government’s response to the “children overboard” affair was “The Pacific Solution” – establishing Nauru and Manus Island as offshore processing centres. According to <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/ParliamentaryLibrary/pubs/rp/rp1516/Quick_Guides/BoatTurnbacks">a report compiled by parliamentary library staff</a> using a variety of official sources, the policy was effective in halting boat arrivals in 2001.</p>
<p>With the election of the Rudd government in 2007, after six years of operation, Manus was closed. However a sharp rise in arrivals of asylum seekers by boat up to 2012 led to the re-opening of offshore processing centres under then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard. </p>
<p>In October 2011, meanwhile, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship announced a new media policy designed to control media access to asylum seekers. A key part of this policy was to regulate the use of images and, in particular, to <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/privacy-or-censorship/story-e6frg6z6-1226235957485">prevent journalists from showing the faces of asylum seekers</a>, justified as protecting the individual’s identity. This policy <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/newsandmedia/Documents/media-access-deed-of-agreement.pdf">remains in place</a>.</p>
<p>After the election of the Abbott government in 2013, Operation Sovereign Borders was mounted, a key component being the Regional Deterrence Framework, at a cost of A$420 million. This is still in place.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rT12WH4a92w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Part of this campaign entailed the production of a video and poster, captioned “No Way. You will not make Australia home.” This stated, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Any vessel seeking to illegally enter Australia will be intercepted and safely removed beyond Australian waters.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>At sea</h2>
<p>In response to these official campaigns, those seeking to arouse empathy with asylum seekers and counter aspects of the Australian government’s policies have also turned to photography. </p>
<p>In 2014 Hazara refugee Barat Ali Batoor’s photo on board an asylum seeker boat between Indonesia and Australia won Photo of the Year in the Nikon-Walkley Award for Excellence in Photojournalism. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132084/original/image-20160727-7064-jei8kw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132084/original/image-20160727-7064-jei8kw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132084/original/image-20160727-7064-jei8kw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132084/original/image-20160727-7064-jei8kw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132084/original/image-20160727-7064-jei8kw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132084/original/image-20160727-7064-jei8kw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132084/original/image-20160727-7064-jei8kw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132084/original/image-20160727-7064-jei8kw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barat Ali Batoor, The First Day at Sea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Barat Ai Batoor</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Batoor was lucky to survive the two-day voyage. The boat he and 92 other asylum seekers took from Indonesia ran aground on rocks before reaching Australia. His camera was ruined, but his images survived. He was officially recognised as a refugee and resettled in Australia in 2013. In response to his photo, the Walkey judges said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For all the years of debate about asylum seekers, this is the first time we’ve seen what one of those boats look like. No-one else has been there. The processes Barat Ali Batoor went through to get on that boat, and facing the possibility it could sink – which it did – that took phenomenal courage and commitment to telling a story. Batoor broadened the debate and helped us visualise what happens before the boats arrive at Christmas Island.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since 2014, we have seen ever-increasing tightening of control of information about detention centres. In July 2015, reporting of abuse within the Manus Island centre was made illegal, prompting a campaign of civil disobedience by staff.</p>
<p>Events such as the tragic death in February 2014 of Reza Berati, a 23-year-old Iranian national, have aroused great concern. Medical staff have repeatedly testified to the trauma for inmates of these places, especially children. The Australian government has continued to invest heavily in media programs to discourage refugees. </p>
<p>Commissioned by the Immigration Department, the telemovie <a href="http://putitouttherepictures.com/journey/">Journey</a> cost $5.6m and was filmed in three countries, screening in 2015 in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. It aimed to inform audiences in “source countries” about the </p>
<blockquote>
<p>futility of investing in people smugglers, the perils of the trip, and the hard line policies that await them if they do reach Australian waters.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In September 2015, however, photographs of a three-year-old Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, whose body had washed up on a beach in Turkey went viral on social media.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132079/original/image-20160726-7058-1uas657.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132079/original/image-20160726-7058-1uas657.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132079/original/image-20160726-7058-1uas657.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132079/original/image-20160726-7058-1uas657.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132079/original/image-20160726-7058-1uas657.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132079/original/image-20160726-7058-1uas657.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132079/original/image-20160726-7058-1uas657.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aylan Kurdi, Bodrum, September 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Aylan had drowned with his brother Galip, who was five, and his mother Rehan as they tried to reach the Greek island of Kos in a small, overloaded rubber dinghy.</p>
<p>European newspapers debated whether or not to show the image, because historically, publishing images of dead children has been taboo for Western media. But the next morning most European newspapers ran the photo on the front page. British prime minister David Cameron’s initial response was to reiterate his policy that “we can’t take any more people fleeing from war”. </p>
<p>But within hours of seeing Aylan on all the front pages he admitted that he was deeply moved, and within days he announced that Britain would accept 20,000 more refugees.</p>
<p>In Australia, our papers carried the photo the following day. Initially the tragedy was represented as a European problem, with headlines such as “The images that stopped Europe”. Tony Abbott expressed sorrow but blamed the choice of refugees to flee by boat:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well, I’d say if you want to stop the deaths, if you want to stop the drownings, you’ve got to stop the boats …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For a week, refugees were the subject of almost every radio and TV debate. Pressure from voters and Coalition backbenchers caused the prime minister to pledge $44 million in emergency aid to refugees still detained in camps, and on September 9, Abbott announced Australia would resettle an additional 12,000 refugees from the Syria/Iraq conflict. </p>
<p>There is a clear link here between the empathy aroused by such affective images – of which Aylan’s was perhaps only the most shocking – and its concrete political consequences.</p>
<h2>Shutting our eyes</h2>
<p>The Australian government currently has obligations under various international treaties to ensure that the human rights of asylum seekers and refugees in Australian territory are respected and protected.</p>
<p>As a party to the UN Refugee Convention, Australia has agreed to ensure that asylum seekers who meet the definition of a refugee are not sent back to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. This is known as the principle of non-refoulement. </p>
<p>Australia also has obligations not to send people to third countries where they would face a real risk of violation of their human rights under these instruments. On April 26 this year, Papua New Guinea’s supreme court ruled the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island illegal. Offshore detention was among three areas of concern raised by the UN’s recent universal periodic review of Australia’s human rights record. Our refugee policy remains a troubling and unresolved question for the nation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132136/original/image-20160727-5656-1jbwrnk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132136/original/image-20160727-5656-1jbwrnk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132136/original/image-20160727-5656-1jbwrnk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132136/original/image-20160727-5656-1jbwrnk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132136/original/image-20160727-5656-1jbwrnk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132136/original/image-20160727-5656-1jbwrnk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132136/original/image-20160727-5656-1jbwrnk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Authorities respond to an inmates’ hunger strike at Manus Island in January 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Refugee Action Collective</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This recent history reveals the intense politicisation of media representations of these events. Official responses with their focus on border protection have framed immigration and asylum seeking as a military threat, constituting asylum seekers as invaders and enemies of the state. </p>
<p>Increasingly, we have seen our government move from attempting to control images of events such as shipwreck or rescue or conditions in detention centres, <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/committee/maritime_incident_ctte/report/report.pdf">to simply prohibiting them</a>. </p>
<p>The more troubling aspects of these policies – such as effects upon asylum seekers and particularly children and families under indefinite detention – remain invisible.</p>
<p>We forget that the occupants of offshore processing centres are not enemy soldiers but refugees – they are already victims of conflict in their home countries. Many of them are children, and we have specific responsibilities towards them under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.</p>
<p>The examples I have reviewed here demonstrate the Australian government’s profound fear of the power of photographs to provide a counter-narrative to its own policies, and specifically, to create empathy between Australian public audiences and asylum seekers. </p>
<p>They show that in certain contexts, displaying and circulating images, or conversely, restricting them, may have a significant impact on viewers’ attitudes and subsequently on events. </p>
<p>Harsh national border defence policies are maintained at the expense of refugee well-being. Many atrocities have been committed in the shadow of such secrecy: only this week Four Corners revealed terrible conditions prevailing within <em>onshore</em> juvenile detention centres as well, prompting immediate public outrage, and leading Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs to call for a wide-ranging inquiry into Australia’s detention culture. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lih50T0p2cI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>I suspect that most Australians would feel just as sad, angry, or ashamed if they witnessed conditions within offshore detention centres: yet so far most Australians have not been prepared to insist on seeing into these places, nor to demand that we soften our policy of mandatory offshore detention. </p>
<p>As ethical – and privileged – Australian citizens, there is a moral imperative for us to engage with and respond to what these pictures show us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Lydon receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
Images move us to act – as last week’s episode of Four Corners has shown. Our government has gone to great lengths to suppress photos that humanise asylum seekers – but when they seep out, empathy is aroused.
Jane Lydon, Professor, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/26428
2014-05-08T01:57:00Z
2014-05-08T01:57:00Z
We need press photographers to record the first draft of history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48010/original/rv5fprmt-1399508806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fairfax staff are on strike today in protest against cuts to the picture departments at the company's mastheads.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Julian Smith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the documentary <a href="http://sensiblefilms.com/portfolio/gallipoli-from-above/">Gallipoli from Above</a>, an Australian production that recently aired on ABC TV, Hugh Dolan, author of <a href="http://www.panmacmillan.com.au/display_title.asp?ISBN=9781405039857&Author=Dolan,%20Hugh">36 Days: The Untold Story Behind the Gallipoli Landings</a> argues that at 4am on April 25 1915, the Australians landed 4,500 men in the dark. The soldiers took the Anzac Cove beachhead (Z Beach) in 20 minutes, which was a tactical surprise to the Turkish defenders. </p>
<p>The Australian war correspondent <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/20388.asp">Charles Bean</a> landed with his camera six hours later. He stepped ashore, walked up the beach, stopped, turned around and took a photograph of the beachhead. His photograph shows just one dead soldier laying at the shore line. Bean went on to document the Gallipoli landing, an event that has become deeply ingrained in the fabric of Australian culture and mythology. Bean’s photographs are a critical link to our national memory and heritage.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48005/original/jfw58drq-1399507322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48005/original/jfw58drq-1399507322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48005/original/jfw58drq-1399507322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48005/original/jfw58drq-1399507322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48005/original/jfw58drq-1399507322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48005/original/jfw58drq-1399507322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48005/original/jfw58drq-1399507322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">C.E.W. Bean’s photographs of the Gallipoli landing helped define the event in the Australian imagination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yesterday afternoon, Fairfax journalists announced a 24-hour strike.</p>
<p>One of the issues at stake is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/07/fairfax-media-threatens-striking-journalists-with-the-sack">the major cuts</a> to the photographic departments of mastheads around the country. Some 30 picture department staff are <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/fairfax-announces-70-80-redundancies-across-production-lifestyle-photographic-225029">set to lose their jobs</a> and Fairfax will make greater use of images outsourced from Getty Images.</p>
<p>This being so, we need to ask just who will be left to record our history? How many Charles Beans could Australia now produce? Will we ever again see the remarkable likes of another <a href="http://www.awm.gov.au/people/2684.asp">Neil Davis</a>, who recorded unforgettable images of the Vietman War and died on the job in Bangkok in 1985? Or the laser-sharp insight of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ware">Michael Ware</a>, who reported from Baghdad during the Iraq War?</p>
<p>Press photographers help record the first draft of history. That being so, is a cost-effective digital imaging database housed on a server somewhere in the United States actually a reliable mechanism to represent Australian visual history?</p>
<p>Well, maybe. After all, it was two contract photographers who were staking out Jamie Packer’s Bondi Beach apartment block, waiting for a first sighting of Miranda Kerr when they scored an unexpected money shot over the weekend. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48009/original/c7xyrpk7-1399508182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48009/original/c7xyrpk7-1399508182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48009/original/c7xyrpk7-1399508182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48009/original/c7xyrpk7-1399508182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48009/original/c7xyrpk7-1399508182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48009/original/c7xyrpk7-1399508182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48009/original/c7xyrpk7-1399508182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The story of the Packer-Gyngell stoush was made by the photographs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Paul Miller</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Photographs and video footage of a good old-fashioned Australian punch-up between Packer and David Gyngell <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/behind-the-bidding-war-for-packer-and-gyngell-fight-photos-20140505-zr545.html">reportedly</a> scored the photographers’ media company more than A$250,000. The contractors are working the way many photographers now do, supplying images to digital databases on a contract basis. </p>
<p>The punch-up images were the focus of an intense bidding war between a range of very interested parties. When the images were locked up in this process the story had no real legs – but when News Limited published them, the story went global. No photos, no real interest in the story. In this day and age footage matters. </p>
<p>Paradoxically in an age where the image is everything and everyone has a form of a camera in their mobile phone the livelihood of press photographers is under extreme financial pressure.</p>
<p>Our way of seeing the world and documenting it has digitally shifted. Citizen journalist with mobile phone cameras and Facebook accounts helped advance the the Arab Spring. Ben Lowy’s <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/11/01/why-time-magazine-used-instagram-to-cover-hurricane-sandy/">iPhone photograph of super storm Sandy</a> hitting New York was published on the cover of Time magazine, a first. </p>
<p>At Gallipoli we had the views of just a few – now we potentially have the views of everyone with a digital device and the ability to be in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time. Many Australian solders in Iraq and Afghanistan had helmet cameras while on patrol. I wonder what the Australian War Memorial, an institution that Charles Bean helped establish, will be doing with this footage. When will we see this version of history displayed?</p>
<p>There is a vast difference between a citizen happening to stumble upon an event with a smart phone and a professional photojournalist with their vast professional experience deciding to be at a specific place at a specific time to document history unfolding. What price will we pay to support the latter? </p>
<p>It costs nothing for the networks to ask their to audience send in their mobile phone photographs or video footage. Neil Davis made a decision to be, as it turns out, in the wrong place for the right reasons and he paid with his life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillip George does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In the documentary Gallipoli from Above, an Australian production that recently aired on ABC TV, Hugh Dolan, author of 36 Days: The Untold Story Behind the Gallipoli Landings argues that at 4am on April…
Phillip George, Associate Professor, School of Media Arts, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.