Estan Cabigas

In the 2007 World Press Photo exhibit, seeing the images face to face in the three venues that were held here in Metro Manila last year, I can’t help but be surprised at the variety of entries. You have what you can call as hardcore photojournalism, the type that is quite familiar to many people for many decades. These are images of war and suffering; of injustice and hate; of struggle and inequality. News as it happens, they say, wherein the photographer, close witness to the unfolding event, brings us into the action. Interspersed within these kinds of photos are light moments and generally, life as it happens. And there is one other, a more recent entrant into the usual language of the genre: the conceptual, more subjective type of images that leaves out the familiar but stokes the curiosity of the viewer.

For a moment, one wonders if the judges have gone confused with art and photojournalism with the audience left more to interpret than to read it straight. Jean Revillard’s Makeshift Huts of Immigrants was a compelling work that might be better suited at the walls of a gallery than one that is celebrating the events that shaped the world in 2007. Or the work of Massimo Siragusa about liesure in his native country. What about the series of portraits of Afghan women shot behind a crude box camera at a studio by Lana Slezic, the marathon runners of Erik Refner and, to some extent, Christoph Bangert’s German Army Sniper Practice Target that juxtaposed a real barren landscape with that of a drawn, lush one? The composition of the jury in the World Press Photo is also something that might be a sign of the times: photographers specializing in war, nature, sports, editorial and art; a curator and five photo editors huddled and locked inside a room in Amsterdam to find those images that will be named winners in the different categories of the contest.

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin in their Foto8 article entitled Unconcerned But Not Indifferent has stirred hot discussion on the relevance of photojournalism in today’s consumerist culture. The two are calling for a new visual language for a genre that is struggling to find it’s place. Less of the photographic cliche’s and romantic images that have defined past eras that are still being produced. Are the familiar war photos still enough to move people to action? Or because of the daily barrage of images in a digital and wired world, such photos are bound to become illustrations. Do these still communicate the message or is the message left as a mere caption to an event? No wonder, while flipping through the guest book filled by viewers during the exhibit in Metro Manila, one can read not a few references to the same old war images or enough of war images and suffering.

…a new language in photojournalism – one that presents images that are more aware of what they fail to show; images that communicate the impossibility of representing the pain and horror of personal tragedy.

- Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin

The makeshift huts of Jean Revillard are stark in its representation. Centered in the frame and devoid of people, it’s a riveting illustration of the immigrant issue engulfing France. A traditional photojournalist might interpret the image with the usual human drama but what the photographer did in this series is to photograph instead the temporary shelters, often assembled from sheets of plastic and set up within the wooded areas in Calais. To add to the conceptual approach, a series of flash heads, calculatedly positioned illuminates thus giving a rich, saturated and contemporary image. The result is a seeming ad campaign for a brand that is designed more to catch the attention of the consumer. Is this approach wrong?

Purists might scoff at these kinds of image and news making but also as a photographer and observer, I do agree that in today’s global culture it takes much more than a well-composed and romantic photo to present an issue. Of course, the more violent, the more brutal, and the more in-your-face doesn’t always get past the self censorship and what is considered as good taste but the photographer of this generation must compete with a billion other images inundating us every minute. What must be done to catch the viewer’s attention? Sexy and almost naked bodies doesn’t always guarantee readings beyond the surface. Trite compositions and the usual hackneyed themes might be interpreted as the same old stories. Seen that. Next.

Revillard’s work is something that is out of the ordinary. Something that is new. One that makes the viewer look more closely, read again, think and ponder. Once you get their attention, you are halfway through in delivering your message. Whatever your working style is, communicating your message is the most important.

But then again, this might not sit well with many.