Exercise - Walk the Line by Max Houghton and Imaging War by Jonathan Kaplan

http://www.oca-student.com/sites/default/files/Foto823_KaplanHoughton.pdf

Read here ..


Imaging War - Jonathan Kaplan  (war surgeon, author, photographer).

This article talks about turning doctors into surgeons and how it used to be such a hands on learning experience.  21,000 hours of training were required in emergency rooms and theatres.  A very hands on experience of the body and its parts, the instruments and how to use them all planning outcomes and responding to problems.

The first part of the learning was to deal with stab wounds and bullet holes, but it was said 'to learn the art of surgery you had to go to war'.

Perhaps there are similarities in the assimilation of the practice of photojournalism.  A certain amount can be learned by studying images, but in the end you need to take your own photographs.  Go to war !

The problem of being a war surgeon is how not to become a casualty yourself.  War wounds are
particularly awful and gory.  Over the years he discovered that their was an interest for his photographs of the casualties.  Graphic surgical pictures do exist, although not sure whether there is a market. But in reality surgery is hugh entertainment.

Over the past decade surgical training has been cut back to 9,500 hours, and many of these changes have been made possible by introducing imaging technology.  Computer generated digital casualties can give the surgeons a wide range of injuries to treat.. and there is even now remote telepresence surgery, robotically manipulated.

Televised surgery is also booming - so what are the limits on what we might wish to be shown. ?
Once having submitted an amputation for landmine injury for publication, they wouldn't submit incase someone saw it and was put off and so therefore wouldn't make a purchase.  So the question of what kind of images of the human body are considered suitable for publication is one that rightfully persists.


Walk the Line - Max Houghton 

The question of which images are fit for publication on the grounds of taste is one with which picture editors grapple with on a daily basis.
Dead American soldiers are a no no for the US press, yet the image of a war-battered American soldier
sweeps to victory at the world press awards.

Two examples, the first of Saddams sons who were displayed as trophy images, then at a conference one woman declared she couldn't look at the 'falling man' (twin towers), and issued a plea for the family. Yet no plea was issued on behalf of the dead Taliban.

Jonathan Kaplan words, "I usually find that the goriest pictures don't actually tell the story very well'
The gore tends to distract from any emotion or feeling other than basic revulsion at the image rather than the tragedy that is being illustrated.


One picture discussed was that of a bleeding dying mother who's baby son sat beside her distressed. There was question over wether to publish and / or whether to use black and white. A journalist Tracy McVeigh felt this woman should not be a nameless victim of the latest Kenyan violence.  She opened body bag to find this woman and eventually identified her as Grace Mungai.  After that she was able to find her husband and son - this picture was then a story not just an illustration.

Another story was that of the reports of down syndrome suicide bombers, they found themselves looking at the faces, trying to see, anyway that wasn't published, they drew a line.


Obviously there has to be lines, borders, that we don't cross and I think most people will get a gut feeling about something, if it make you wince and feel no way then thats a good sign !

I suppose its more difficult when the picture is less offensive, and some feel it acceptable and other do not.  It would also depend on the report also, if it was meant to shock then the picture would be appropriate.  Clear as mud I feel ..

Also when the reporter knows the person in the picture, or the name is known then that also makes it more personal to every one - I felt myself change about the Kenya picture when the journalist discovered who she was.

Exercise - Don McCullin - Shaped by War

Listen to BBC Radio 4 ..here...



Don McCullin is a professional photographer, best known as a photographer of conflict and combat, in battle zones from Vietnam to the Falklands. Don McCullin has just published his latest book entitled Shaped by War and has a photographic exhibition of the same name at the Imperial War Museum North, in Manchester. Don has also captured on camera the still lives and landscapes in his home county of Somerset, as well as the tranquillity of the ancient ruins on his journeys across the Roman Empire published under the title Southern Frontiers. 


I Listened to the BBC Radio 4 interview, Excess Baggage, Travellers tales from around the world. 

Don McCullin grew up in south London and didn't have a very privileged upbringing.  It was probably this which made him look to leave home.  At that time people left school at 14 or 15 with no education.  He went for national service and applied for the RAF stationed in Oxfordshire.  He wanted to move further afield and was sent to Egypt, however the first year he was behind barbed wire so wasn't that enthralling. Eventually he moved to Nairobi and then his photography and experiences got under way. 

Back in London he was involved with a local discrepancy / altocation and took photographs and he managed to sell them to the Observer newspaper, for a fee of £50.  This is where it started and he was given a contract, for a 2 day week with the paper.  

In 1961 he went to see the Berlin wall being built.. He has been to many a tense and dangerous place.  In the 60/70/80's it was easier to travel, with less security and he was excited to travel, now he dreads the airports and travel.  In these times he travelled light, with three cameras, two light meters and rolls of film.  Also he took breakfast as hated being hungry in the mornings !! 

He said he didn't feel in danger in the war zones, it was his choice to be there and he knew what he was letting himself in for, so he felt like he could complain.  He loved to work alone and took pictures of the starving and dying - sometimes people were asking him for help but he was unable - this still haunts him today. He now doesn't want to see that desperation in peoples eyes.  He travelled some beautiful places and was able to photograph the countries as well as the people in them. 

He loves to photograph landscapes, they are his medication and meditation ... He find landscapes reviving.. 
This is the paradise at the end of his garden at home.
When asked why his landscapes are so often of winter he says, there is a darkness about him, he still uses film and he wants to make shots that are noticeable .... He loves the naked English countryside, just because trees are naked doesn't mean they are dead. 

His book Southern Frontiers ( a journey across the Roman Empire ) .. He was asked if he felt the shadows cast by the past, he says there is always danger in these places, and he can hear the distant cries of others. 
He has taken some beautiful pictures of areas with war and tanks just around the corner, quite surreal.  He still take pictures of people with caution as people can get upset and be aggressive towards him, always be careful.

Sommerset is his sanctuary, his spiritual home and now looks forward to that, he needs comfort and a hot bath and be at peace with himself.

Exercise - The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes - Catherine Lutz

Read the article which can be found..here..


The National Geographic Magazine is of tremendous potential cultural importance.  Its photographs have voraciously focused on the third world scenes. Its an idealogical practice that powerfully relates to the history and structure of the society in which it has developed.

Some of the issues raised are particular to this specific genre of photography while many others illuminate photographic interpretation more generally.

National Geographic photographs of the non westerner can be seen not simply as captured view of the other but a dynamic site at which gazes or view points intersect.  This intersection creates a complex and multi dimensional object.  It allows viewers to negotiate a number of different identities both for themselves and those pictured.

The article is exploring the significance of the gaze, and the seven kinds of Gaze that can be found in the photograph.  The seven are...

1. The Photographers Gaze
2. The institutional Gaze, magazine gaze.
3. The Readers Gaze.
4. The Non - Westerners Gaze.
5. The Explicit looking done by westerners.
6. The Gaze returned or refracted.
7. Our own academic gaze.

The Gaze and its significance.
The photograph and the non western person share two attributes, they are objects at which we look. The photograph has this quality because its usually for beautiful attraction or documentary interest. The look is necessary to cross the span created by perception.  Some see the gaze as an act of mastery or control. The gaze can be seen by some as masculine.  John Berger points out gender ideologies and envisages men as active doers and women as passive presence.  Men by what they do to others and women by their attitudes towards themselves. (men act and women appear ).
The unique vision of the female spectator is explored, and seen as multiple because it can move between identification with the object and with the spectator.

There is no single masculine spectator position for viewing the ethnic representations in the National Geographic. While the image makers at National Geographic are overwhelmingly white and male.
Lacans view of the Gaze can be helpful as a model for the potential effects of looking.  Lacan speaks of gaze as something distinct from the eye of the beholder.

What can be done in the photograph is to manipulate the gaze of the other - via such a process as photo selection - so that it allows us to see ourselves reflected in their eyes in ways in which are comfortable, familiar and pleasurable. This taming of the gaze occurs when we move and realise that the picture does not change as our gaze changes.

Foucaults analysis of the rise of surveillance in modern society is also relevant to the understanding of the gaze in photography.
The magazines gaze at the Third World operates to represent it to an American audience in ways which can shore up a western cultural identity.  The gaze is not, however, a singular or monolithic - we might say the gaze is meaningless.

Many gazes can be found in any photograph in the National Geographic - this is true whether the photo is of a landscape with no people or a single person looking straight into the camera - the gaze is not simply the looking of a photographed subject.

THE PHOTOGRAPHERS GAZE 
This is represented by the cameras eye and laves its clear mark on the structure and content of the photograph. As photographers give people and imaginary possession of a past that is unreal they also help people to take possession of place in which they are insecure. The photographers gaze and the viewers gaze overlap somewhat.  Photographers feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever remarkable they encounter.  Conventions of photography force us in ways to follow the cameras eye and see the world from its position.

THE MAGAZINE GAZE
This includes the whole institutional process by which some portion of the photographers gaze is chosen for use and emphasis.1. The editors decision, to commission articles - 2.The editors choice - selection of photographs. 3.The editors - layout and design.
The magazine gaze is the most evident and accessible to the National Geographic reader 4. The caption writer - verbal fixing of a vantage on the pictures meaning.

THE MAGAZINE READERS GAZE
The photograph is not only perceived, received, it is read. The public consumes a stock of signs, independent of what the photographer may intend. The reader is invited to dream in the idealogical space of the photograph.  This fact distinguishes the readers gaze from that of the magazine gaze and led them to investigate the former directly by asking a number of people to look at and interpret the pictures.  Anything that draws the readers attention to the fact that a camera ( rather than the readers eye alone ) has been at work - Jarring, un natural colours, off centre angles, photo retouching.
The readers gaze has a history and a future and it is structured by the mental work of inference and imagination .. is the woman smiling or smirking..  The readers gaze is structured by a large number of cultural elements or models.


There is not one readers gaze, each individual looks with a unique personal, cultural and political background or set of interests.
On the one hand, photographs allow participation in the non western scene through vicarious viewing. On the other they an always alienate the reader by first alienating the reader - first they create or require a passive viewer and second they frame much of an actual viewer would see, smell or hear.
The presumed consent of the other to be photographed can give the viewer the illusion of having some relationship with the other.  The viewer doesn't choose where he or she enters the photo, but is forced to take the route of the cameras eye.

The voyeuristic look requires and promotes distance between the reader and the subject, while the narcissistic identification promotes the illusion that the photo is a mirror.
Finally, this gaze is also structured by the context of reading.
Amongst popular magazines, the National Geographic sits near the top of a socially constructed hierarchy of magazine types.. ( ie. High Brow), as a scientific journal presenting facts about the world, as a journal with beautiful / artistic, rather than merely prosaic photos.

NON WESTERNER SUBJECT'S GAZE
The gaze of the other found in National Geographic can be classified in at least four types, he can confront the camera, look at something and someone within the picture frame, look off into the distance, or a gaze can be absent altogether.  The look into the camera in all cases must suggest the acknowledgement of the photographer and the reader. The return of the gaze does not contest the right of the viewer to look and may in fact be read as the subject's assent to being surveyed.  Facial expression is crucial - the local person looks back with a number of faces, friendly smiling, hostile glaring, vacant, curious.  The return of the look is not normally confrontational or challenging. If the other looks back and smiles at the camera, it can be read by the viewers as the subjects assent to be surveyed.

The portrait is a collaboration between subject and photographer, despite the fact that the other is still subjected to an un returnable gaze.  Virtually all the photographers at NG saw the return of the gaze as problematic and used such pictures sparingly. They almost fake intimacy, the use of direct gaze suggest a less gritty value.  Those who are actually or culturally defined as weak - women, children, people of colour, the poor, the tribal, those without technology - are more likely to face the camera.  Historically the frontal portrait has been associated with the rougher classes.  There is a trend for the urban people to look at the camera.

AN EXPLICIT WESTERN GAZE
Through the years NG has been publishing articles on the non western world.  These photographs show the westerners engaged in a variety of activities.  Interacting with a native in conversation work of play.  These pictures form a fascinating set as they represent more explicitly and directly than others the kinds of intercultural relations between the west and its global neighbours.
The pictures of westerners can serve a validating function by proving that the author was there. The reader can be convinced that the account is a first hand one, brought from the field rather then from the archives.

In her analysis of the role of the gaze in the cinema, Mulvey (1985) argues that it takes three forms - the camera, the audience and the characters, the first two forms have to be obscured or invisible.
If the viewer becomes aware of his or her own eye or that of the camera they will develop a distancing awareness rather than an unconscious involvement.

As more and more people travelled to exotic locales of the NG articles, staff saw that the picture of the intrepid traveller no longer look intrepid and so had less interest.

THE REFRACTED GAZE OF THE OTHER
(To see themselves as others see them )
In a small number of NG issues, a native is shown with a camera or mirror.  These are both tools of self reflection.  For many Americans self knowledge is a central life goal.  There is a childish naivety when a native see his reflection.

There have been changes, where the indians may have stood unwillingly for photographs they are now charging 80 cents a person as they pose.   It depicts the act of looking at unwilling subjects, suggesting two things.  The first voyeurism of the photograph of the exotic.  The camera gaze is doubled in this picture, not the native subject as in the photos above where the camera enters the frame in some explicit sense, and this doubling underlines that western gaze.

Success in avoiding boredom is key to retaining readers interest and memberships for NG.

THE ACADEMIC SPECTATOR 
This gaze is simply a sub type of the readers gaze.  We read the NG magazine with a sense of astonishment and wonder, both as children and, in a way that is different only some of the time as adults.

We aim to make pictures tell a different story than they were originally meant to tell, one about their makers and readers, rather than their subjects.
This seventh kind of looking is guided by the idea that an alternative gaze is possible, one which is less dominating, more orientating toward seeing how a scene and its viewer might be changed than toward its imagined essential, unchanging and unsatisfactory form.
As we are invited to dream in the photograph, we are also invited to forget and be lost in it.
Our reading theory has also tutored our gaze at the photographs in distinctive ways, told us how to understand the techniques by which they work.   We are captured by the temptation to view the photographs as more real than the world or at least a comfy substitute for it.

Through attention to the dynamic nature of these intersecting gazes, the photograph becomes less vulnerable to the charge or illusion that it masks or stuffs and mounts the world, freezes the life out of a scene.  While the gaze of the subject of the photograph might be fairly lost in the heavy criss crossing traffic of the often more privileged producers and consumers gazes, very contemporary stories of contestable power are told there nonetheless.

Exercise .. On Foucault: Disciplinary Power and Photography by David Green

Read the article 'On Foucault : Disciplinary Power and Photography by David Green.

http://www.oca-student.com/sites/default/files/OnFoucault.pdf

Which can be read here here ..


Michel Foucault is a French philosopher he explores the elements of control that stem from a correctional application of visibility, that of prisons, using the Panopticon.  The Panopticon was conceived by Jeremy Bentham in1786, it allowed the surveyor to see, control and gaze at a population of surveyed individuals without ever being seen himself.

Writings of the French historian have been widely reviewed in this country, although their reception has not always been favourable.  The consensus is that they merit careful consideration.
His writings are notoriously difficult, he refuses to acknowledge traditional boundaries.

Behind his investigations lie two themes : the development of certain forms of rationality which posit man as the subject and object of knowledge and the second, the complex relations bonding power and knowledge which are implicit to such forms of rationality.

Foucaults work can be best viewed as an attempt to understand how the human and social sciences became historically possible, to map out the conditions that enable their emergence and to indicate the consequences of their existence.

Power must be recognised in its positive forms when it enables the production of knowledge.  Conversely no power can be exercised without the extraction, distribution or retention of knowledge.

The important thing here is to believe the truth isn't outside the power, or lacking in power, contrary to the myth whose history would repay further study, truth isn't the reward for free spirits, the child protected solitude, not the privilege of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves.

Foucault is not necessarily concerned with the correctness or otherwise of the concepts, methods and content of the modern sciences but with the effect of power which is linked to the institution and functioning of an organised scientific disclosure within society.

Foucault most widely read work - Discipline and Punishment - (1975 ), returns to the analysis of a single disclosure / institution relation which had provided the structure of his earlier studies of Madness and Civilisation and the Birth of the Clinic.

The gradual replacement of types of punishment which are violent, replacing them gradually with a more subtle approach.
Amongst the 'technology' of disciplinary power are the mechanisms of surveillance for which Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon provided the ideal model.

The Panopticon was a construction with central tower, enclosed by a circular building whose cellular spaces are open on the inside and their occupants exposed to the unremitting gaze the tower affords.
I this field of uninterrupted visibility in which only the observer remains unseen, it becomes possible to compare individuals to each other and to impose a system of formal equality, thereby exercising a normalising judgement, it was possible to gauge differences between individuals. The Panopticon was the perfect manifestation of disciplinary power and the principles of its functioning.   By virtue of its methods of fixing, dividing, recording, it has been one of the simplest, crudest, and almost concrete, but perhaps most indispensable conditions for the development of the immense activity of examination but has objectified human behaviour.

A constant theme in his work was the analysis of discipline and those at which it has been directed.  These forms of tactics of power are not manifest as physical violence - indeed the body is touched as little as possible.  The function of power lies in its ability to extract knowledge.
Foucaults earlier historical studies cover the period of 18th & 19thC , a series of profound demographic, political, social and cultural changes consequent upon the rise of industrial capitalism.   He is careful to distance himself from a simple casual relation based upon the Marxist principle of economic determination.

Foucault suggests that its is not the exclusion of the criminal and the insane which served the interest of the bourgeoisie but the techniques and procedures themselves of such an exclusion.  It was the actual mechanism of disciplinary power, the apparatuses of surveillance, which become politically useful and lent themselves to economic profit.  In the case of the factory or workshop discipline may have been evoked as a moral incentive but the importance of discipline increasingly become one of maximising productivity and thereby the profitability of labour.

The physical division of space and segregation of individuals, the carefully controlled rhythm of activities and the imposition of rigid temporal sequences, became common features of both the prison and the workplace.
The mechanisms of discipline which Foucault describes at length in Discipline and Punishment, gave rise to a political anatomy of the body, a certain way of rendering the accumulation of the men docile and useful.  The techniques of disciplinary power enabled the improvement of the efficiency and profitability of labour.  In so far that discipline is power which engages and infiltrates the physical capabilities of individuals caught within its mechanisms we can speak of politics of the body.  But disciplinary power also engaged the body as a species body gave rise to a politics populatio, the focus of which was a series of regulatory controls effective at the level of the social.  As the problems caused by the rapid expansion of urban populations became more evident the need for political control and intervention became more necessary.

Foucaults 'History of Sexuality' is not a renunciation of pleasure nor a rejection of the flesh but an intensification of the body through concern for its health and vitality.  The body which became the focus of discipline not only as a means to render it more productive but also more morally and physically healthy.  The effect of this was to subject the body in an ever more derailed way to endless medical and psychological examination and to the mechanisms of surveillance.

The photographic image is regarded as a form of empirical truth, evidence of the real.  The camera has revealed a new kind of knowledge making it possible to measure and compare each individual to another.  Photography therefore was contingent to other methods used in the observation and classification of individuals, forming a part of the mechanisms of surveillance and the exercise of a normalising, disciplinary power.   Photographic records are kept along with writing, measurements, documentation.  The employment of photography in the fields of Anthropology, medicine, and criminology draws together a whole series of discursive operations, along with the axis of race, class, gender.  Subject to the gaze of the camera the body became an object of the closest scrutiny, its surface continually examined for the signs of its innate physical , mental and moral inferiority.

Historical perspectives are only necessary and defendable as a means of helping us to understand the present and allowing us to create the appropriate and effective means of working strategically within the relations of power and knowledge which currently endure.

The force and value of Foucaults ideas are owed to the fact that we continue to live in a society which is characterised by the forms of discipline and mechanisms of surveillance which he has identified.  A criticism of this is to say there is no implausible form of resistance, Foucaults response has been to insist that wherever there is power there is potential for resistance. But the forms of power are localised and specific so so should the forms of resistance.
This means there cannot be an overall strategy for an oppositional cultural politics of photography.  On the contrary it is necessary to develop alternative ways of working with photography, and to develop different photographic forms and devices suitable to the varied contexts in which the photograph is placed and used.

Response to Tutor Report for Assignment 3

Response to Assignment three tutor report... 


I have been thinking about this assignment and I am happy with it.  My intentions with the pictures were to tell a story of how to make a cake, I wasn't really thinking it was illustration but I can see where
the lines cross for the observer. Also with the number of pictures that was because the assignment asked for that many rather than it being my selection, which may have been less.

I have taken a few snapshots, for my own practice and these are of a tree surgeon.  The story being the felling of the tree.  I shall add these to my blog as another example.

I have noted all the comments ad will look through the pictures again and adjust any I feel need it, as per your suggestions.

I think at the time the constant rain just drained me of any enthusiasm but I do look and have been looking at other scenarios of story telling ....

ASSIGNMENT THREE - VISUAL STORYTELLING

ASSIGNMENT THREE - VISUAL STORYTELLING


This assignment is to be of a set of 10 images, telling a story.  It is to be in colour.

My Assignment Word document and final ten images can be found in my
dropbox here....

File names are .. TraceyFieldDocAss 3



____________________________________________________________________

Below is my final cut of images from which I will select 10 to go with my word document for the assignment.

TREE FELLING 

These tree felling photos had been one of my options and I have just uploaded a few photos as another example of story telling.

David Campbell - Lecture on Documentary

DAVID CAMPBELL - LECTURE ON DOCUMENTARY



http://www.oca-student.com/node/94235

The David Campbell video can be seen here..


This, well not video, it was to listen to David Campbell taking about documentary and narrative, photography and literature.

He spoke about photographer Tod Papageorge who was giving a speech and quoted the saying of
Robert Cappa .. If you pictures aren't good enough - then you are not close enough... his version was if
your pictures aren' good enough then you are not reading enough.
Reading - research - understanding. This is how things begin to link and relate to each other.

The most powerful of works which sustain over time is one that understands its own context.

Narrative is the relationship, the idea of a story, an idea of an event or issue.
The story develops over time .. in connection to an event etc.. its not automatic .. you make the story.

Alan Feldman, an american anthropologist, said the event is not what happens, the event is that what can be narrated.
There is a reality and truth.

You don't encounter an events in the world with their meaning formed .. an event is formed via narration.
We understand historical events not at the time - we didn't understand the were in the French Revolution, for example,  until after the event and we talk about it now.

The holocaust also, wasn't known at the time, we talk about the holocaust now 20 years after. The stories are told by storey tellers.

If you understand how narrative works you can construct your image. Your process of telling your story.  The subjects you have will have their own stories and so that will encroach on you story and may change it.

Narration has a series of different levels.  You need an accumulation of evidence.  It doesn't mean that anything goes. As an example ... you wouldn't portray JFK killing as a comedy... so there are limits to all stories.

Every narrative has guidelines, not set in stone, but you need ..

Construction, including some things and excluding others.  When story telling you have to edit some of your information otherwise you would have too much information.
The point is to understand your limits... you need your own narrative construction.
Why is narrative so common?  it is because people have always told stories, since time began ..
Narrative offers a sense of coherence and purpose.   Real events have a coherence - start, middle and end.  Even if imaginary, we desire a comprehensive story, although we know its not true.
Mediating our desire for completeness.

We need to understand limits linked to other things / themes / assumptions.
Storytelling relates to context, make inclusions and exclusions obvious.
In journalism generally there is a debate about the future of context. The structure of news has no context, its all quite immediate, in a 24hour period so there is no time or need to expand the story further, linking to other things.. could they change this ?  ( its just a debate ).

Traditional Forms of Narrative
Conventional
Time - your story needs a sense of time - normally linear - Beginning, Middle and end.
non-linear is when time shifts about, this is also acceptable.

Characters - who drive the story forward.  The arch of a story - when you follow a character.
Account of connected events.
Space
drama
Causality - how things came about.
Personification

This is not a template - understand these dimensions.  Most  important - individuals - relationship - context.

Example .. HIV aids - we don't encounter the pandemic of Aids, but you will meet people who may be effected by it, relatives, or medications, it could be an article re:fundraisers etc.. lots of areas are effected by HIV.

Unemployment - you don't see unemployment, but you do see people effected by it, those unemployed, poor areas, job seekers..

Moments of exposition ..
Conflict
Climax - clash
Resolution

Not every story has a resolution, get resolved.  These are just guide lines, elements.
Key Moves.. Introduce a location.
Give the story a face.
Let the tell their own story
Contextually
Dramatic form
All channels to deliver a story.

The point of narrative is to convey information and break it down.

In the end the most important thing is that you covey 'your' message, tell the story you want to tell.
You need to have the story in you mind beforehand.  There will be things along the way that will
change and the story will develop and you will have to move with it.

You will also have to plan - where you will take you pictures and what time, and why .. You need to prepare.

What is the issue that motivates you to go ?
Who are they ?
What events ?
What is the context ?

Ie: back to the Aids story .. firstly research everything you can .. decide what area you want to photograph.  It may be the medical centre you want, staff and cures,  or the Aids victims themselves.  Plan all this in advance.

Power & Responsibilities 

What work does the image do ?

Some photos can lead to changes, however sometimes the demands are too high stating that an image will change the world or stop a war.   But they can effect peoples opinions which can eventually change things..

One example is of a zurich exhibition of the gold trade in eastern congo, when the company saw these images they stopped trading - this is a good example of change. This was one company changing a policy - not stopping a war.

You need to be realistic as to what you expect from you image, or images.

Responsibilities - photographer who had activist views, became an activist who took photographs.

Thought and research gives maximum outcome, if narrative and context are better understood.