tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/news-photography-76983/articlesNews photography – The Conversation2023-12-05T13:38:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164932023-12-05T13:38:37Z2023-12-05T13:38:37ZMohamed Amin was a famous Kenyan photojournalist – there’s much more to his work than images of tragedy<p>Kenyan photojournalist <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/mohamed-39-mo-39-amin-photojournalist-extraordinaire-mohamed-amin-foundation/YQWRSpXAe2iFhA?hl=en">Mohamed Amin</a> (1943-1996) rose to fame for documenting the 1984 <a href="https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/1980s-ethiopia-famine-facts">famine</a> in neighbouring Ethiopia with powerful images of the tragedy. He also captured the Ethiopian people’s suffering during the brutal reign of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mengistu-Haile-Mariam">Mengistu Haile Mariam</a>. These <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/how-mo-amin-inspired-change-in-ethiopia-mohamed-amin-foundation/xwUxTsVZRpdvlA?hl=en">images</a>, <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/reporting-ethiopian-famine/">broadcast</a> by the BBC, shocked the global public and had a significant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/oct/22/ethiopian-famine-report-influence-modern-coverage">international impact</a>. They mobilised governments, individuals and institutions. This even led to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Live-Aid">Live Aid</a> – the famous 1985 benefit concert to raise funds for victims of the famine.</p>
<p>As a result, <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/The_Man_who_Moved_the_World.html?id=JhQxAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">some</a> <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/6/30/mohamed-amin-the-kenyan-who-moved-the-world">sources</a> refer to Amin as “the man who moved the world”, reducing his visual work to this tragedy. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Tamara+Antona+Jimeno&btnG=">lecturer and researcher</a> in journalism, and a photographer and scholar completing a <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ismael-crespo-martinez-1245765">PhD</a> on Amin, we recently published a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311983.2023.2236395">paper</a> on Amin’s vast earlier body of work.</p>
<p>We wanted to highlight that Amin had already undertaken intense and prestigious work in Africa, Asia and the Middle East before these photos of tragedy. His visual collection, spanning from 1956 to 1996, comprises over 8,000 hours of video and approximately 3.5 million photographs. </p>
<p>It’s important that people understand the greater scope of Amin’s images: he captured the first shots of African lives after European imperialism. If French photographer <a href="https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/henri-cartier-bresson/">Henri Cartier-Bresson</a> was considered the eye of the world, Amin is the eye of postcolonial Africa. </p>
<h2>International fame</h2>
<p>On 23 October 1984, the UK public broadcaster, the BBC, aired a shocking <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYOj_6OYuJc">report</a> by journalist Michael Buerk, featuring images by Amin, on the Korem refugee camp in Ethiopia: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Death is all around. A child or an adult dies every 20 minutes. Korem, an insignificant town, has become a place of sorrow. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ethiopia was under the Marxist dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam, who had ousted the last Ethiopian emperor, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Haile-Selassie-I">Haile Selassie</a>, through a military coup in 1974. In 1984, the country still had restricted areas for foreign media, but the BBC correspondent had been taken to the Ethiopian highlands by connections of Amin, a Kenyan cameraman and photojournalist.</p>
<p>The impact of the report was extraordinary. A story set in a developing country with no British angle was viewed by <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/6/30/mohamed-amin-the-kenyan-who-moved-the-world">nearly a third</a> of the adult British population. The images were quickly replicated by other international TV networks. Soon enough <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/oct/22/ethiopian-famine-report-influence-modern-coverage">425 TV channels</a> worldwide had broadcast Amin’s images to a global audience of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/6/30/mohamed-amin-the-kenyan-who-moved-the-world">470 million</a> people. “Mo” Amin was making history. He had become the cameraman of the Ethiopian famine.</p>
<p>The images catalysed the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/live-aid-concert">largest</a> humanitarian relief effort the world has ever witnessed. Public visibility turned Amin into an international celebrity. He and his family were <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/mohamed-amin-and-family-at-the-white-house-with-george-bush-mohamed-amin/dAE7LYGk2UT_BQ">received</a> at the White House in the US in 1985. At the ceremony, US vice-president George Bush officially presented the cameraman with a symbolic cheque for two billion dollars in humanitarian aid for Africa.</p>
<h2>Earlier work</h2>
<p>Interest in Amin’s work stems from three main aspects. The first is his vast and diverse body of work. The second is his focus. He centred on Africa, outside the western media’s epicentre, with a pan-African perspective. The third is that his images capture postcolonial events as they unfolded, in a time before the mass globalisation of the internet and social media. His postcolonial coverage of African dictators, such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Bedel-Bokassa">Jean-Bédel Bokassa</a> (in the Central African Republic), <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mobutu-Sese-Seko">Mobutu Sese Seko</a> (Congo) and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Idi-Amin">Idi Amin</a> (Uganda) exemplify the importance of his earlier work.</p>
<p>The two <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311983.2023.2236395">main themes</a> of his work are postcolonialism and everyday Africa. From the 1960s to the early 1980s, in the early period of African independence, his response to the western media’s portrayal of Africa was to create photo books that showed everyday African life from an African perspective. These publications allowed him to give his work a personal and pan-African orientation, freeing it from the daily urgency of serving western news interests. He created a total of 55 books of his own work. </p>
<p>His book <a href="https://www.google.co.za/books/edition/Cradle_of_Mankind/_qMvAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=Cradle%20of%20Mankind%20%20mohamed%20amin">Cradle of Mankind</a> (1981) was the outcome of an expedition he led, considered to be one of the first circumnavigations of Lake Turkana and its desert to the north of Kenya. The aim of this adventure was to document the life of the six tribes living along the shores of the lake. The book was accompanied by exhibitions in Nairobi and London. The expedition earned him the honour of being admitted as a member of the Royal Geographical Society of London in 1982.</p>
<p>His documenting of African dictators reveals another extraordinary body of work, the camera up close and personal. The dictator Idi Amin, for example, granted him three exclusive personal interviews (in 1971, 1980 and 1985).</p>
<p>He also journeyed far beyond the continent. His works on Asia and the Middle East include books on Mecca (1980) and The Beauty of Pakistan (1983), among others. </p>
<h2>Amin’s legacy</h2>
<p>There is a constant stream of references to Amin’s work in the media, a couple of biographies have been written about him, and his images are constantly used to illustrate books and articles on tourism, nature or history. However, there are few academic studies of his work and fewer still international retrospective exhibitions.</p>
<p>Currently, it’s possible to access just a small portion of his work online. In 2021, 25 years after his death, the <a href="https://moaminfoundation.org/about-us/">Mohamed Amin Foundation</a> made 6,553 digitised images available in 58 thematic reports and galleries through <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/project/mohamed-amin-archive">Google Arts & Culture</a>. This is a small step towards showing his complete body of work.</p>
<p>The global impact of Amin’s photos and videos concerning the Ethiopian famine is undeniable. However, it’s important to emphasise that his broader legacy constitutes one of the single most extensive historical photographic archives of Africa ever created – and it deserves greater attention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216493/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>His photos and videos depicting postcolonialism and everyday life in Africa have been overlooked.Tamara Antona Jimeno, Lecturer at Journalism and Global Communication, Universidad Complutense de MadridIsmael Martínez Sánchez, PhD Candidate in Journalism, Universidad Complutense de MadridLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1366072020-05-04T04:50:40Z2020-05-04T04:50:40ZHead On Festival review: every photograph tells a virtual story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332183/original/file-20200504-42918-z3gtqy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C2%2C791%2C596&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Marcia Macmillan's winning landscape photograph: Whimsical Warrior.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Head On Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rather than cancel, organisers of the annual <a href="https://www.headon.com.au/2020-festival-program">Head On Photo Festival</a> announced they would deliver the 2020 program online. </p>
<p>This includes live-streaming artist talks, panel discussions, photography workshops and over 100 virtual exhibitions featuring international and Australian photographers. </p>
<p>The festival, established in 2008, showcases <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/documentary-photography">documentary photography</a>, a style commonly associated with photojournalism and other forms of reportage. By definition, documentary images “appear unstaged”, portraying everyday scenes, world events, people and places, captured this year at a time of intense change and unprecedented events. </p>
<h2>Element of surprise</h2>
<p>Like many international photo festivals, there are conventional images galore. But thankfully, there are also a few surprises. </p>
<p>One such surprise is Anna Bedynska’s <a href="https://www.headon.com.au/exhibitions/clothes-death">Clothes for Death</a>, a series of affectionate portraits of individuals next to the clothes they have chosen for their burial outfits. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329679/original/file-20200422-108510-1o0iijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329679/original/file-20200422-108510-1o0iijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329679/original/file-20200422-108510-1o0iijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329679/original/file-20200422-108510-1o0iijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329679/original/file-20200422-108510-1o0iijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329679/original/file-20200422-108510-1o0iijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329679/original/file-20200422-108510-1o0iijj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329679/original/file-20200422-108510-1o0iijj.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anna Bedynska’s Clothes for Death.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Head On Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Adopting an experimental mode of social documentary, Bedynska pushes the medium beyond traditional modes of social commentary from the outsider looking in. Instead, the project shows photography can start difficult conversations about taboo subjects in tender and ethical ways. </p>
<p>The portraits also note our human connection to clothing and how dressing, even in death, is an important part of self-expression.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329678/original/file-20200422-108547-1em00lz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329678/original/file-20200422-108547-1em00lz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329678/original/file-20200422-108547-1em00lz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329678/original/file-20200422-108547-1em00lz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329678/original/file-20200422-108547-1em00lz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329678/original/file-20200422-108547-1em00lz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329678/original/file-20200422-108547-1em00lz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329678/original/file-20200422-108547-1em00lz.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anna Bedynska’s Clothes for Death.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Head On Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conversely, <a href="https://www.headon.com.au/exhibitions/art-aging">The Art of Aging</a> by Canadian photographer Arianne Clément is a series of black and white photographs of naked women over the age of 70. Yet another taboo subject – women of a certain age, or even over 30, rarely feature naked or otherwise in visual culture. </p>
<p>Consequently, The Art of Aging is a work of visual activism showing older women and their bodies to be just as sexually charged as their younger counterparts. Like the portrait of a woman laying on her bed with the air of a teenager, the look in her eye suggests she knows something we don’t. </p>
<p>There are also wonderful images of coupled intimacy, showing people over 70 in the context of their sexuality and desire for each other. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329681/original/file-20200422-108497-11uo0ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329681/original/file-20200422-108497-11uo0ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329681/original/file-20200422-108497-11uo0ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329681/original/file-20200422-108497-11uo0ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329681/original/file-20200422-108497-11uo0ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329681/original/file-20200422-108497-11uo0ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329681/original/file-20200422-108497-11uo0ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329681/original/file-20200422-108497-11uo0ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arianne Clément’s The Art of Aging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Head On Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Changing bodies</h2>
<p>Jimmy Pozarik was photographer-in-residence at Sydney Children’s Hospital when he photographed 25 patients who were receiving treatment for this <a href="https://www.headon.com.au/exhibitions/then-and-now">Then and Now</a> series. </p>
<p>Anyone who has spent time in hospital with a child will recognise the distress and trauma of the scenes, as well as the incredible fight for life that some children and their parents experience.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329690/original/file-20200422-108521-52uwfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329690/original/file-20200422-108521-52uwfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329690/original/file-20200422-108521-52uwfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329690/original/file-20200422-108521-52uwfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329690/original/file-20200422-108521-52uwfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329690/original/file-20200422-108521-52uwfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329690/original/file-20200422-108521-52uwfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329690/original/file-20200422-108521-52uwfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jimmy Pozarik’s Then and Now.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Head On Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pozarik pairs the images taken during the residency with photographs from today. The images show the wonder of photography to document the way our bodies and appearances are transformed in time. </p>
<p>It is also worth an online visit to <a href="https://www.headon.com.au/exhibitions/unknowingx">The UnKnowing … X</a> by British photographer Richard Sawdon Smith. A series of black and white self-portraits present him costumed and role-playing, signalling erotic practices and the body in pain and power. </p>
<p>In accompanying notes, Smith candidly states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As I approach my sixth decade, I’m reflecting on past lives and the unknown of the future, dipping into the dressing up box to create new and potentially different roles … The X of Unknowing … can be a kiss from me to you, a reference to non-binary, non-gendered specific pronouns, or referring to an undetermined space, both literally and metaphorically. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Imaginatively, erotically and ironically, Smith plays “a man approaching 60” in various guises that constitute a lifetime of playful self-knowledge. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329768/original/file-20200422-47784-a7go90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329768/original/file-20200422-47784-a7go90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329768/original/file-20200422-47784-a7go90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329768/original/file-20200422-47784-a7go90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329768/original/file-20200422-47784-a7go90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329768/original/file-20200422-47784-a7go90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329768/original/file-20200422-47784-a7go90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329768/original/file-20200422-47784-a7go90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Sawdon Smith’s The Unknowing … X.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Head On Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Canadian photographer Pierre Dalpé’s series <a href="https://www.headon.com.au/exhibitions/wigstock">Wigstock</a> also illustrates the role of costuming, this time in an iconic New York City drag festival. </p>
<p>The inclusion of Smith and Dalpé’s distinctive works help us visualise queer bodies beyond the customary timeframe of Sydney’s Mardi Gras festival, evidencing Head On’s inclusivity and diversity. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329694/original/file-20200422-108492-1vm4f8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329694/original/file-20200422-108492-1vm4f8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329694/original/file-20200422-108492-1vm4f8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329694/original/file-20200422-108492-1vm4f8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329694/original/file-20200422-108492-1vm4f8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329694/original/file-20200422-108492-1vm4f8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329694/original/file-20200422-108492-1vm4f8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329694/original/file-20200422-108492-1vm4f8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pierre Dalpé, Shotgun Wedding from the Wigstock series.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Head On Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Big winners</h2>
<p>The festival prides itself on supporting professional photographers as well as amateurs. Work submitted to the festival is judged without the photographers’ names or biographies. The images and proposals are considered on merit rather than reputation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332184/original/file-20200504-42935-khq855.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332184/original/file-20200504-42935-khq855.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332184/original/file-20200504-42935-khq855.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332184/original/file-20200504-42935-khq855.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332184/original/file-20200504-42935-khq855.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332184/original/file-20200504-42935-khq855.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332184/original/file-20200504-42935-khq855.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332184/original/file-20200504-42935-khq855.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fiona Wolf’s The Gift.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Head On Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Festival award winners were <a href="https://www.headon.com.au/blog/winners-2020-head-photo-awards">announced on Friday night</a> from thousands of submissions from 61 different countries and across three categories: portrait, landscape and student. Fiona Wolf won the portrait category for The Gift, RHW 2020, which showed the “modern family story of a girl born by a warrior woman to two loving dads”. Marcia Macmillan won the landscape category for Whimsical Warrior, a picture of her daughter running towards a dust storm. Student winner Joel Parkinson’s Within Without was a self-portrait reflecting on his transition from childhood to adulthood and “the last vestiges” of innocence. </p>
<p>Festival events encourage audience participation through live Q&A sessions and promise hands-on interaction in workshops. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.headon.com.au/civicrm/event/info?id=138&reset=1">Visual Storytelling in Portrait Photography</a> with Oded Wagenstein (tonight at 6pm) is one of several workshops to look out for. </p>
<p>Timely panel discussions include <a href="https://www.headon.com.au/civicrm/event/info?id=167&reset=1">Photography, Trauma & Healing</a> on Thursday 7 May at 12pm and another on <a href="https://www.headon.com.au/civicrm/event/info?id=173&reset=1">Alternative Facts; Falsifying the image in the era of deep fakes</a> on Sunday 17 May also at 12pm. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329777/original/file-20200422-47788-nmh9td.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329777/original/file-20200422-47788-nmh9td.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329777/original/file-20200422-47788-nmh9td.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329777/original/file-20200422-47788-nmh9td.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329777/original/file-20200422-47788-nmh9td.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329777/original/file-20200422-47788-nmh9td.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329777/original/file-20200422-47788-nmh9td.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329777/original/file-20200422-47788-nmh9td.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From Nick Moir’s Watch and Act series.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Head On Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Head On Photo Festival is <a href="https://www.headon.com.au/2020-festival-program">online</a> until 17 May 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136607/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cherine Fahd 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>The Head On Photo Festival showcases documentary photography. Luckily, it’s an artform that lends itself well to online display and celebration.Cherine Fahd, Director Photography, School of Design, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1336152020-03-19T18:56:56Z2020-03-19T18:56:56ZFriday 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 SydneySara Oscar, Lecturer in Photography, School of Design, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1287742019-12-19T19:06:53Z2019-12-19T19:06:53ZFriday essay: seeing the news up close, one devastating post at a time<p>We are used to being spectators of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/pictures-that-change-history-why-the-world-needs-photojournalists/282498/">news events</a> — viewing difficult images beamed to us from the other side of the world, the next state or the next suburb. </p>
<p>This spectator lens can start to feel so familiar that we become numb to what we are witnessing. News reports show us another scene of destruction, another disaster, another cry for help, another decline. We can look away from the paper, turn off the television or radio. But our social media marches on. </p>
<p>Instagram images of smoke, coloured orange by the bushfire sun, catch us off-guard. Social sharing of images like those of the current bushfires cuts through the resistance we’ve built up to the news cycle, chipping away at the degrees separating us from the event itself. </p>
<p>Bringing us closer to disaster, for better or worse. </p>
<h2>The frame</h2>
<p>For the most part, news images are taken by professional photographers trained to frame a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/obituaries/archives/henri-cartier-bresson-photography">decisive moment</a>; the picture-perfect scene that will capture an “event”. Photographers know how to manipulate light and composition to create a great image. We are accustomed to seeing catastrophes through their expert eye. </p>
<p>Our newspapers feature stunning photographs, such as one captured recently by Sydney Morning Herald photographer <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/i-could-smell-the-hair-on-my-face-cooking-at-the-scene-of-the-blow-up-20191206-p53hf8.html">Nick Moir</a>. In it, two firefighters hold their hands to their heads while running through an apocalyptic, dizzying shower of fire. </p>
<p>SMH photo editor Mags King told us “images taken by professional photojournalists … still retain their visceral impact and trigger a deeper reaction or a lasting thought on the subject”.</p>
<p>She notes that the fire photos taken by Moir are “highly considered”. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The impact, judging by the feedback, has been tremendous. They are nightmarish, powerful, all encompassing. I think people can see that they are not snaps. These are the type of photos that make you feel and that is the skill of a photojournalist who understands the tenets of photojournalism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sometimes that consideration can push an image too far. In 2015, a significant number of entries (20%) were <a href="https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/world-press-photo-manipulation-ethics-of-digital-photojournalism/">disqualified</a> from the <a href="https://www.worldpressphoto.org/">World Press Photo</a> competition for excessive manipulation and post-processing. </p>
<p>The 2019 World Press Photo <a href="https://www.worldpressphoto.org/media-center/press-releases/2019/presenting-contests-winners/38264">top prize</a> went to John Moore of Getty Images for his capture of a simple image, devastating in its natural depiction of a Honduran toddler crying as she and her mother were taken into custody by US border officials in Texas. </p>
<p>The winning photo is framed at the height of the small child, while her mother and the official’s figures are cut at waist height. We can see the child’s emotional reaction to the events unfolding at the adult level above her. </p>
<h2>Stop, look, read</h2>
<p>In photojournalism, the proximity of the photographer to the event is key. <a href="https://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_9_VForm&ERID=24KL535353">Robert Capa</a>, the photojournalist who founded Magnum Photos in 1947 with Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, George Rodger and William Vandivert, famously <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/2007/11/15/if-your-photographs-arent-good-enough-youre-not-close-enough/">said</a> “if your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”. </p>
<p>Capa was so close to crisis that it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/may/13/robert-capa-gerda-taro-relationship">cost him</a> his life in 1954 when, at age 40, he stepped on a landmine while on assignment for Life in Northern Vietnam. </p>
<p>The task of the professional photojournalist — to distil a crisis artfully in an image that makes us stop, look and read — has never been more difficult. Exposure to images has reached unprecedented levels, while our trust in news has <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/240786">declined</a>.</p>
<p>The proportion of Australians <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/240786">avoiding news</a> increased from 57% in 2017 to 62% in 2019, and 28% say they are worn out by the volume of news. Meanwhile, social media <a href="https://napoleoncat.com/blog/instagram-users-in-australia/">analysts</a> report 9,442,000 Instagram users in Australia in 2019, accounting for 37.2% of the country’s population.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-F1LYN2QhFI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Red Cross bushfire appeal recently encouraged people to share images of the Burnt Christmas Tree on social media.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sharing, caring</h2>
<p>Viewing images on Instagram offers a different, though linked, perspective to the photojournalist. </p>
<p>As the devastating bushfires ravage parts of New South Wales and Queensland, “ordinary” people are sharing, viewing, commenting on and “liking” images of the crisis engulfing the state. </p>
<p>Captured on smart phones, images posted on Instagram still frame the event as spectacle but from a different point of view. Proximity is still key, but it is gained via a different path. And the path images take to reach us is also different. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307606/original/file-20191218-11891-yyywar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307606/original/file-20191218-11891-yyywar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307606/original/file-20191218-11891-yyywar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307606/original/file-20191218-11891-yyywar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307606/original/file-20191218-11891-yyywar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307606/original/file-20191218-11891-yyywar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307606/original/file-20191218-11891-yyywar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307606/original/file-20191218-11891-yyywar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Have accusations of fake news, caused us to turn away from traditional news sources?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/0917-central-park-new-york-city-712096945">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On Facebook and Twitter, news sharing from faceless sources is deemed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/us/politics/facebook-fake-news-2016-election.html">responsible</a> for the spread of fake news. Instagram (though owned by Facebook) is designed primarily so that images provide information. Caption plays a supporting role only. </p>
<p>The images are taken by amateurs and they are people we mostly know, or feel like we know, and follow on social media. </p>
<p>As Waleed Aly <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/theminefield/">noted</a> in response to photos on Facebook of the London Bridge attack in 2017, “images can be weaponised to evoke and reinforce existing narratives, confirm prejudices and galvanise a sense of shared outrage”. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B6IJDEJHYwD","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>A social stage</h2>
<p>The algorithmic bubble that drives our social media feed, exposes us to images and sentiments that mirror our own. But increasingly, the public is <a href="https://theconversation.com/media-files-australians-trust-in-news-media-is-falling-as-concern-over-fake-news-grows-119099">suspicious</a> of “spin” in news and images of crisis transmitted to us through news outlets that are owned by those with political biases, special interests and powers. </p>
<p>Researchers in <a href="https://www.intellectbooks.com/amateur-images-and-global-news">Finland</a> who studied issues of trustworthiness in amateur images in newspapers versus professional images, found that people tended to trust amateur ones more than the professional. </p>
<p>The amateur snaps were imbued with authenticity, and a lack of vested interests associated with news corporations. </p>
<p>That same authenticity might be available to us via Instagram, ironically the natural home of colour filters, selfies and silicon enhancements. </p>
<p>According to sociologist and social media theorist <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2947-the-social-photo">Nathan Jurgenson</a>, the ontology of the “social photo” — the fundamentals of its reason for being — is sharing. </p>
<p>“Social photos are not primarily about making media but about sharing eyes,” he <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2947-the-social-photo">writes</a>. </p>
<p>Images shared among friends and followers fuel a “social process” as catalysts for dialogue. Like the newspaper once did, Instagram offers a communal conversation. </p>
<p>While Instagram is a brand that carries a slick aesthetic, the feature of sharing and commenting creates a collective cultural archive. News photography can affect <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-worth-a-thousand-words-how-photos-shape-attitudes-to-refugees-62705">change</a> but our responses to these images have reportedly <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/19/490679863/the-little-boy-in-aleppo-can-one-photo-end-a-war">dimmed</a> as we become inured to images of children like three-year-old Alan Kurdi caught up in the <a href="https://time.com/4162306/alan-kurdi-syria-drowned-boy-refugee-crisis/">refugee crisis</a>.</p>
<p>Instagram has become a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137469816_11">repository</a> that collects and organises images through its various tools of hashtags and geolocation. More than just the playground for “influencers” and their polished images, it is the contemporary family album that also features images from connections who act as “our man on the ground” photojournalist. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-photos-that-changed-how-we-see-human-rights-104112">Ten photos that changed how we see human rights</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Closer to home</h2>
<p>One might encounter a stream of images in seemingly random succession: a hotel room in Cologne, a family pet, children playing in the suburbs, a duck-faced selfie, a red sun, an image of smoke obscuring the Sydney Opera House, a radio announcer posing with Samuel L. Jackson, a friend’s son ice-skating somewhere, riots in Hong Kong, the army approaching protestors angrily in Beirut, fresh paint on canvas. </p>
<p>The images in this eclectic stream catch the viewer off-guard: images of crisis are couched within images of everyday life with kids, cats, selfies and fires.</p>
<p>These are not news images that comply with the tenets of photojournalism; they are taken on a smart phone and shared immediately. The snapshot taken by your friend on Instagram, as compared to the framed shot by a professional photojournalist, has a different kind of “proximity”. </p>
<p>In the age of Instagram, being close enough to take the good picture — in Robert Capa’s terms — means not just proximity to the scene or event, but also proximity to a social network that will receive the post in their feed (unless posts are, in turn, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/simoncrerar/surreal-images-from-nsw-bushfire-crisis">re-purposed</a> by a news outlet). </p>
<p>So when someone you follow — who is a friend — “reports” on the fire from their backyard, it stops you in your tracks. A picture of a tree fern covered in lurid pink fire retardant shows how close the fire came. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B6KmbcWARS9/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Looking back on the same friend’s feed to see a bucolic photograph of a similar tree fern amongst daisies, only enhances the tragedy by showing what was once there and what has been destroyed in the fires. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B5getYWA8zI/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>For the viewer of the image, proximity means closeness to the person who took the photograph. It is this social connection — “kinship” in anthropological terms — to the photographer that can impact the way we respond to that image. </p>
<p>In the social realm, care and concern turns spectatorship into an act of obligated looking. Such an ethical response means we resist the impulse to look away.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128774/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>Instagram bushfire images cut through our news fatigue. This developing brand of photojournalism brings authenticity and a different sense of proximity.Cherine Fahd, Director Photography, School of Design, University of Technology SydneySara Oscar, Lecturer in Photography, School of Design, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1239652019-10-02T21:47:19Z2019-10-02T21:47:19ZThe strategic management of political photos in the Canadian election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295115/original/file-20191001-173387-ytjfcd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4240%2C2373&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Controlling a leader's image via campaign-sanctioned photographs is an age-old practice in politics.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trevor Brown/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Political campaigns make many strategic calculations when it comes to photographs of party leaders. Canadian voters look for specific <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2018.04.013">personality traits</a> in party leaders, such as honesty, intelligence, friendliness, sincerity and trustworthiness, and so using image management techniques can help create the impression that leaders possess these qualities.</p>
<p>Controlling how leaders appear in photographs is an age-old practice. The United States Secret Service <a href="http://ideas.time.com/2013/07/12/the-myth-of-fdrs-secret-disability/">used force</a> to prevent journalists from taking photographs of Franklin D. Roosevelt in his wheelchair. When we see photographs of Russian President Vladimir Putin <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-defends-shirtless-photos-i-see-no-need-to-hide-2018-6">shirtless</a> or New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/jacinda-ardern-hijab-photo-to-be-turned-into-brunswick-mural-2019-4">hugging a Muslim woman</a>, it’s likely the leaders have made political calculations about their image.</p>
<p>In Canada, a number of photographic mishaps stand out for damaging a politician’s career. The most notorious is of Robert Stanfield <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/an-unforgettable-fumble-for-robert-stanfield">fumbling a football</a> on an airport tarmac. Today, strategists are mindful that digital images travel fast and could go viral in moments. </p>
<p>The discovery of old photographs of Justin Trudeau wearing brownface and blackface on <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-votes-2019-trudea-blackface-brownface-cbc-explains-1.5290664">multiple occasions</a> was a shocking failure of image management, especially for someone who has <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/justin-trudeau-the-north-star-194313/">been featured on the cover</a> of <em>Rolling Stone</em> magazine. Those controversial photographs travelled around the world in an instant.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trudeau-in-blackface-a-symptom-of-canadas-widespread-anti-black-racism-123889">Trudeau in blackface: A symptom of Canada's widespread anti-Black racism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We have studied the photo management of Canadian prime ministers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1940161211433838">Stephen Harper</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0002764217744838">Justin Trudeau</a>. Both leaders appeared in almost every visual issued by their offices. Harper was humanized as an everyday Canadian who liked hockey; Trudeau has been portrayed as an accessible and youthful feminist with positive messages. </p>
<p>Their official photographers have had backstage access to document moments that can both <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/harper-dines-on-seal-meat/article1201396/">frustrate photojournalists</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39989986">delight social media audiences</a>.</p>
<p>Election campaigns are heavily stage-managed events as political operatives try to control visual messages. Carefully selected locations reinforce the leader’s announcement. Backdrops with large Canadian flags are meant to convey a prime ministerial quality. Popularity is projected when a leader mingles with supporters.</p>
<h2>Very different visuals</h2>
<p>We decided to take a quick look at some photographs issued on the official Instagram platforms of the main political parties and their leaders during the 2019 campaign and to compare them with ones taken by The Canadian Press, a national news agency, on the same day. The ones we present below highlight how official photographers and independent photojournalists can generate vastly different visuals.</p>
<p>Here’s the photo featured on Trudeau’s Instagram feed during the recent climate march in Montreal:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295095/original/file-20191001-173347-12ajw58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295095/original/file-20191001-173347-12ajw58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295095/original/file-20191001-173347-12ajw58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295095/original/file-20191001-173347-12ajw58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295095/original/file-20191001-173347-12ajw58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295095/original/file-20191001-173347-12ajw58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295095/original/file-20191001-173347-12ajw58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A recent post on Trudeau’s Instagram feed.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And here’s a photo taken by a CP photographer of the same event:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295104/original/file-20191001-173407-2q8x49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295104/original/file-20191001-173407-2q8x49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295104/original/file-20191001-173407-2q8x49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295104/original/file-20191001-173407-2q8x49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295104/original/file-20191001-173407-2q8x49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295104/original/file-20191001-173407-2q8x49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295104/original/file-20191001-173407-2q8x49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Security detail for Justin Trudeau hold down a protester carrying eggs as the prime minister takes part in the climate strike in Montreal on Sept. 27, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The official photograph of Trudeau places him in the centre of the frame, as though he is leading a large number of followers. Without context, we might think the photo is of an event that is celebrating him. </p>
<p>Directly behind Trudeau is a bodyguard (the man with sunglasses); it is rare to see the security detail of a prime minister in official pictures. The CP photograph shows a security officer holding down a protester who was carrying eggs. As we can see in <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/news/federal-election-2019-protester-arrested-as-trudeau-marches-in-montreal-climate-strike/vi-AAHWDI3">this video</a>, a number of other protesters were also looking to throw eggs at Trudeau.</p>
<p>Now let’s look at Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s Instagram:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295098/original/file-20191001-173364-1br2efz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295098/original/file-20191001-173364-1br2efz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295098/original/file-20191001-173364-1br2efz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295098/original/file-20191001-173364-1br2efz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295098/original/file-20191001-173364-1br2efz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295098/original/file-20191001-173364-1br2efz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295098/original/file-20191001-173364-1br2efz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A recent photo on Scheer’s Instagram feed.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This picture was taken the same day as the climate strike protests in Canada and around the world. The Conservative Party and CP both took a number of photographs of Scheer and his wife picking apples. By wearing Conservative party jackets, the Scheers are projecting the symbolism of a political party that supports the environment. </p>
<p>But CP also took photographs of a campaign stop in Saskatoon where climate change demonstrators were looking to draw attention to the Conservative leader skipping the worldwide protests. Conservative Party social media platforms did not make any mention of the leader’s Saskatoon visit.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295105/original/file-20191001-173358-1fxdnjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295105/original/file-20191001-173358-1fxdnjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295105/original/file-20191001-173358-1fxdnjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295105/original/file-20191001-173358-1fxdnjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295105/original/file-20191001-173358-1fxdnjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295105/original/file-20191001-173358-1fxdnjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295105/original/file-20191001-173358-1fxdnjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scheer makes a campaign stop as climate protesters wait outside with their signs in Saskatoon, Sask., on Sept. 28, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now how about Jagmeet Singh, NDP leader? Here’s one of Singh’s Instagram posts, from Sept. 20:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295293/original/file-20191002-49361-1ag5q6q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295293/original/file-20191002-49361-1ag5q6q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295293/original/file-20191002-49361-1ag5q6q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295293/original/file-20191002-49361-1ag5q6q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295293/original/file-20191002-49361-1ag5q6q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295293/original/file-20191002-49361-1ag5q6q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295293/original/file-20191002-49361-1ag5q6q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A recent post on Singh’s Instagram feed.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Singh is shown in a typical campaign photo. The leader is the centre of attention and surrounded by supporters. There is a key message on the podium and party colours are on full display. It is a typical <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/pseudo-event">pseudo-event</a> whereby an event is organized with the primary purpose of providing the media with something newsworthy.</p>
<p>Contrast that with the lonely photograph taken the same day by CP. The image of Singh on the phone portrays the downtime of a politician in a busy campaign and could possibly be interpreted as a political party led by someone who is not particularly busy or popular. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295295/original/file-20191002-49350-u2i4l9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295295/original/file-20191002-49350-u2i4l9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295295/original/file-20191002-49350-u2i4l9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295295/original/file-20191002-49350-u2i4l9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295295/original/file-20191002-49350-u2i4l9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295295/original/file-20191002-49350-u2i4l9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295295/original/file-20191002-49350-u2i4l9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Singh speaks on the phone between campaign stops along the waterfront in Windsor, Ont.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s a sharp contrast to the Prime Minister Office’s <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/politics/no-trudeau-didnt-photobomb-those-prom-kids/">photobomb</a> of Trudeau running along the Vancouver waterfront that generated international headlines.</p>
<h2>What about the Greens?</h2>
<p>So how are the Greens faring in the image game?</p>
<p>The Green Party issued the Instagram photograph below of an oil industry worker hugging Leader Elizabeth May at a climate change protest in Calgary. The message that oil can be combined with environmental sustainability conflicts with the party’s message of de-carbonizing the economy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295112/original/file-20191001-173402-1cvxsrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295112/original/file-20191001-173402-1cvxsrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295112/original/file-20191001-173402-1cvxsrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295112/original/file-20191001-173402-1cvxsrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295112/original/file-20191001-173402-1cvxsrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295112/original/file-20191001-173402-1cvxsrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295112/original/file-20191001-173402-1cvxsrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A recent photo on the Green Party’s Instagram account.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Canadian Press took a photograph at the same event, but without context, the prominent display of an hourglass could be interpreted as a protester telling May that her time as leader is up. It’s conceivable the photo could reappear at future date should Green supporters mobilize to push her out. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295113/original/file-20191001-173337-1721qk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295113/original/file-20191001-173337-1721qk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295113/original/file-20191001-173337-1721qk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295113/original/file-20191001-173337-1721qk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295113/original/file-20191001-173337-1721qk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295113/original/file-20191001-173337-1721qk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295113/original/file-20191001-173337-1721qk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">May joins climate change activists and students as they gather in Calgary for a protest and ‘die-in’ on the steps of the Calgary Municipal Building Sept. 20, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave Chidley</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Photographs issued by the PMO of the prime minister with <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/harper-thanks-nigel-wright-for-help-with-ethics-in-his-hockey-book">staff</a> or meeting with <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/3962519/justin-trudeau-defends-joshua-boyle-meeting/">visitors</a> have been repurposed for negative stories.</p>
<p>The <em>National Post</em> revealed that Green Party staff manipulated a photograph so that May was holding a <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/election-2019/elizabeth-may-was-holding-disposable-cup-in-photoshopped-image-contrary-to-partys-claims">reusable cup</a> instead of a single-use one, equipped with a metal straw and party logo — proving that the Greens are as into photo manipulation as any of the other parties.</p>
<p>These are just a few examples of the thousands of images circulating during the 2019 Canadian election campaign. Not shown are the countless photographs that candidates, campaign workers or citizens are generating. As well, while the political parties issued their photographs through social media, news organizations don’t necessarily purchase CP photographs. Why pay for a photo when you can use one at no cost? </p>
<p>The production of digital content that takes advantage of the media’s financial woes is what’s known as an <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412959216.n137">information subsidy</a>. We can see from the vastly different images above why information subsidies have implications for political journalism – and why image management is essential in a digital environment with such strong identity-centric visual components.</p>
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<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>Controlling how leaders appear in photographs is an age-old practice in politics. It’s in full force during the Canadian election.Alex Marland, Professor, Memorial University of NewfoundlandMireille Lalancette, Professor, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.