The Power of Photographs

"Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... It remembers little things long after you have forgotten everything... "

- Aaron Siskind -

According to Kress & Van Leeuwen (1998), in the early years, the linguistic (writing) mode has always been the dominant mode for communication to take place. However, there has been a transformation among the literate culture when visual communication emerged.

Personally, I do not agree to the violation and visual alterations for manipulation purposes in order to achieve a particular impact for the audience. However, according to Winslow (2006), the photojournalism and visual ethics have become prevalent among the journalism community.

Tim Leberecht published an article for Cnet News on May 18th 2008 with the title, ‘... just make something look nicer?’. In this article, he mentioned about visual ethics amongst document designers in current times. The article focused on an issue concerning the ethical media presentation - photojournalism ethics. In contrast to popular saying of ‘camera never lies’, Lester (1999) said that the faking of photographs is done either through stage direction or picture manipulation which have long traditions. It is also rumoured that a few of the Pulitzer Prize winning images which are filled with human’s depiction of joy, sorrow and hardships were all done by digital manipulation to achieve an impact.

Children suffering in Somalia

The media had been criticized several times for publishing gruesome images to the public which is unethical. As an example, the shocking photos of Nurin Jazlin, whose body was badly battered, were published on the front page of the mainstream media which aimed to attract the readers’ attention. According to Webber (2000), the principle of utilitarianism, in which consequences of one are considered in relation to another’s consequence, may be used to justify the publication of gruesome accident photos.

Media consumers ranged at different age group, culture, background and so forth. Their perspective of a photo may differ from one another due to their background and upbringing. As suggested by Shriver (1997), a reader’s knowledge and cultural context plays a role in the evaluation of graphics. Therefore, in my opinion, photojournalism should be done ethically with respect, dignity and consideration of all audience.

References:

Leberecht, T 2008, …just make something look nicer?, Cnet News, viewed on 13th June 2009,< http://news.cnet.com/8301-13641_3-9947035-44.html?tag=mncol>.

Lester, P 1999, Photojournalism an ethical approach, Fullerton Education, viewed on 13th June 2009, < http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/chapter6.html>.

Shriver, K 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York.

Webber, J 2000, The ethics/skills in interface in image manipulation, Australian Journal of Information Systems, vol.7, no.2, pp.90-94.

Winslow, DR 2006, ‘A question of truth: photojournalism and visual ethics’, National Press Photographers Association, viewed 13th June 2009, <http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2006/08/ethics.html>.