CLICK THE SHUTTER OR WALK AWAY?

joescrivens said:
you asked if a row of caskets would say the same thing. thats like asking in education if a diagram of a heart is as effective as disecting the real thing. they both have the same end but one is more effective than the other ...
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True. Literally. Some things just get the point across better for some people.
 
Adey said:
Yes but thats photos in general, its got nothing to do with how graphic they are. I probably shouldnt of said "shockingness" its not really accurate. The chinese may censor photos that would shock people and governments into action, but that doesnt necessarily mean they have to be that graphic.
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Which particular planet are you on, if you consider the Tsunami images graphic and these not? :

Warning: These images are graphic

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UzFmw3A3Rok/0.jpg

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/images/stories/large/2009/06/04/4fourfngzhng.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_oIAhQMTG-...incredible-amazinf-rare-photos-images-005.jpg
 
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I've never even seen the chinese photos before so how can i compare?

I think im might be having trouble explaining myself, that or people just cant be bothered to read what i say and take it as it is without adding there own assumptions onto it.

I think this is the last time im gonna try and get into these types of conversations on this board. Im constantly having my words twisted and being insulted too, its bloody ridiculous.
 
Adey said:
It was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to what i was talking about in a previous post.
(y)
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i've read a number of your posts and your are a smart guy, but that tongue in cheek effort missed a beat with me im afraid;)
 
My point was merely devils advocate.

Let me put it this way. Do you watch the news on TV? Why? Surely a newspaper should suffice?
Do you watch TV at all? Why? Surely books would suffice.

The point is, it's merely a medium. Your argument really shouldn't be whether a photograph is relevant or acceptable, your argument should be really whether the recording of the information of what's happened is necessary :)
 
Adey said:
we all despise child abuse but we dont need to see pictures of it to know how bad it is. Probably a bad comparison...
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A kind of related aside.

A very good friend of mine did jury service a few years ago and he had the misfortune to end up on a child abuse case. A key part of the presented evidence was photographic. In his opinion seeing it rather than reading about it made a significant difference. There's an element of filtering that goes on when reading, whether deliberate or not. (Incidentally he said it also made it harder to think about the accused as innocent until proven guilty.)
 
Vantage said:
So why take the photo. I do not understand the reasoning behind taken a photo of three babies. For what, to show the world what a tsunami can do? Do we honestly need to see that? Like I said before, what if a posted something like this in here. What would be the reaction then?
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Just because a picture isn't taken or you don't happen to see the picture it doesn't mean that the event has not happened. Frankly I think we should all feel very lucky that we have the option to click the back button and choose not to experience anything to do with a natural disaster like this. The people in the pictures aren't so lucky.

Do we need to see it? No.
Can it do good for us to see it? Yes - it can raise awareness and spur people into action to help.

One man choosing to help a single child rather than take a picture will be a saviour to that one child. Another man who takes a picture before helping the child could help to bring aid to hundreds of other children in the same situation.

jomike said:
The people taking the photos are also affected by what they see and photograph, and they have to have strong characters to cope. Some don't.

There was the case of Kevin Carter, a member of the bang bang club in South Africa, a group of news photographers covering the violence leading up to the 1994 elections. He won a Pulitzer prize for a photo of a starving child in Sudan being watched by a vulture. There was an outcry about this because he did not intervene. He had also lost a colleague and fellow bang bang club member Ken Oosterbroek, killed in a friendly fire incident in a SA township, shortly before.

He commited suicide shortly after recieving the Pulitzer prize.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter
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This sprang to mind immediately for me too.
 
What was the purpose of the three babies being shown in the first place? For starters it’s a close up. Has absolutely no bearing to the tsunami devastation as a picture. It could have come from anywhere. Why was it necessary to be put into the slideshow when quite simply the photos already in the slideshow were enough to tell the story? Shock value of course!

Maybe the photographer was so busy looking for the Dread photo to shock, he may just have missed the chance to capture a moving rescue. Or do these kind of photos not tell a story or sell as well as Three Dead Babies?
 
Vantage said:
What was the purpose of the three babies being shown in the first place? For starters it’s a close up. Has absolutely no bearing to the tsunami devastation as a picture. It could have come from anywhere. Why was it necessary to be put into the slideshow when quite simply the photos already in the slideshow were enough to tell the story? Shock value of course!

Maybe the photographer was so busy looking for the Dread photo to shock, he may just have missed the chance to capture a moving rescue. Or do these kind of photos not tell a story or sell as well as Three Dead Babies?
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That picture is an element of the story - and the fact it is in the slideshow gives it context.

Of course it is more shocking than a picture of say, a person waiting for food rations, but the photographer hasn't engineered the situation. He / she has documented several elements of one natural disaster. Why do you feel that the bits you find most distasteful or shocking be excluded?
 
Daysleeper40 said:
That picture is an element of the story - and the fact it is in the slideshow gives it context.

Of course it is more shocking than a picture of say, a person waiting for food rations, but the photographer hasn't engineered the situation. He / she has documented several elements of one natural disaster. Why do you feel that the bits you find most distasteful or shocking be excluded?
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only due to fact that I cant get my head around how unnecessary it is. Its a picture for picture sake. Psifox showed a link where the power of photography can ultimatly make a difference. Showing the world the desperation and pain others endure while we live like kings. For that I would Click, no doubt about it.
 
Davec223 said:
Yes we do need to see them, Its all to easy to live in a bubble and pretend nothing bad ever happens, if images like Africa back in the eighties we probably would have been none the wiser to what was happening, thank good they were and people like Bob Geldof did something about it.

Very true, but sadly the money that was raised did not go the the people who needed it most, but ended up the hands of the corrupt African rulers!
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Vantage said:
Wheres the limit? What point would you say enough is enough?
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There are photographs of the result of the Lockerbie disaster in existence, documenting the bodies hanging from trees, still strapped to their seats. They don't need to (and probably never will) be published, but the situation needed to be recorded.

Hadley said:
To clarify, how would you feel if it where you dead relatives being published to the world?
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DemiLion said:
Ask the survivors of the holocaust!
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Taking the above to two points together, of course it's harrowing and disturbing, but what if there was no photographic evidence of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis?

The photographs are the only independent hard proof that we have to disprove the rantings of the likes of David Irving.

Adey said:
But wouldnt a picture of a row of small caskets tell us the same thing?
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Probably, but the bodies weren't in caskets.

Vantage said:
Its a picture for picture sake.
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The alternative is to show the world pictures only of people being rescued, so the message that comes across is no-one died, everyone was saved, all is well.
 
Vantage said:
only due to fact that I cant get my head around how unnecessary it is. Its a picture for picture sake. Psifox showed a link where the power of photography can ultimatly make a difference. Showing the world the desperation and pain others endure while we live like kings. For that I would Click, no doubt about it.
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I wasn't trying to make a point against showing the details of the dead from the Tsunami, more, proving imagery makes the difference.
The films from 1984 showing babies starving to death were designed to shock and they did. I remember them still.

It's not a picture for a pictures sake, it is a image to show what has happened and it becomes a little bit of history recorded forever. If they help generate aid donations good. If it just records what happened that's good too, as it's not down to the photo journalist to save the world by himself. He is there to tell the story.
 
Vantage said:
only due to fact that I cant get my head around how unnecessary it is. Its a picture for picture sake. Psifox showed a link where the power of photography can ultimatly make a difference. Showing the world the desperation and pain others endure while we live like kings. For that I would Click, no doubt about it.
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I showed my wife the photos.

When she saw the one of the dead babies she said "I want to donate some money to help"

Is that worthwhile enough for you - there's a direct example of how that photo helped
 
So the death toll of 400 and rising isnt enough for her then. Not sure what to think!
 
the more visceral something is the more of an impact it has. For some people hearing the number dead is enough, for others emotive images shake them into action.
 
Vantage said:
So the death toll of 400 and rising isnt enough for her then. Not sure what to think!
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a death toll is theoretical and 400 dead isn't really a big deal, whats the global death rate like 3% of 6 billion people

the photo shows what is happening in terms that you understand, connects on a more emotional level
 
gabe said:
Davec223 said:
Yes we do need to see them, Its all to easy to live in a bubble and pretend nothing bad ever happens, if images like Africa back in the eighties we probably would have been none the wiser to what was happening, thank good they were and people like Bob Geldof did something about it.

Very true, but sadly the money that was raised did not go the the people who needed it most, but ended up the hands of the corrupt African rulers!
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That wasn't the fault of the charity or the goodwill from the public generated in the frist place.
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Vantage said:
So the death toll of 400 and rising isnt enough for her then. Not sure what to think!
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That comment is below the belt.

All through this thread you are saying that there is no need to "see" photo's such as the one of the childrens corpses. You were shocked by it, don't think it is necessary etc etc.

Were you not shocked or horrified to read about it in the paper? Would reading about it or listening to a news reader report that 400 people died not have the same effect on you?

Apparently not or you wouldn't have posted this thread in the first place. Pictures are more emotive - you've proved that yourself.
 
Vantage said:
So the death toll of 400 and rising isnt enough for her then. Not sure what to think!
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and no the number 400 isnt enough for her. in the same way that when you hear the empire state building is 1453 ft tall it means nothing until you actually see it. numbers are often arbritrary they do not convey the emotion of an event the way an image does, or when i heard how many people died in the world wars, cant remember the number but i remember thinking it was a lot. then i went to arlington cemetary in washington and saw the rows upon rows of graves and it smacked me right in the face- a similar experience im sure in normandy.

seems strange having to explain that i presumed it would be a given, especially to people on a photography site. :shrug:
 
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Vantage said:
So the death toll of 400 and rising isnt enough for her then. Not sure what to think!
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400 is just a number, many people need visuals to make the emotional connection with the victims that the charities rely on.

Do the nspcc need to show unhappy looking children in unpleasant looking surroundings on their adverts asking for £ a month? Do WSPA need to show graphic details of tortured bears on thier adverts asking for £ a months - how about cancer research, dogs trust, you get my point? To make an emotional connection most people need visuals. If they didn't, charities wouldn't blow massive amount of money providing them. They work!
 
gabe said:
swanseamale47 said:
True, and it didn't do Geldof's career any harm either!
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To a large extent, true but shortly before Band Aid, the Boomtown Rats had finished recording an album "In the Long Grass" and a single from it "Dave" was expected to do reasonably well in the charts until another Geldof song threw a spanner in the works.
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The photo of the babies is the most disturbing to me, and I'm quite surprised that the BBC's editor passed this set of photos as they are usually rather reserved in their judgement.

I think that events such as the tsunami must be recorded, for historical purposes.
It takes a lot of guts to press the shutter in these circumstances but it has to be done.
 
fabs said:
These types of photo have been taken for a very long time. Some equally, if not more, horrific stuff was taken in WWII (not even counting the holocaust),
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i was going to mention the holocaust..

to the OP, surely by your reasoning the photos of the dead in the concentration camps serve no purpose then?
 
neil_g said:
i was going to mention the holocaust..

to the OP, surely by your reasoning the photos of the dead in the concentration camps serve no purpose then?
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I breached Godwin's Law on page 2 though! :p :D

For those who care, BBC R4 announced an hour or so ago that 135 people previously list as missing presumed dead have been found, dropping the MIA stats to 163.

For the more morbid, however, the good news is that the death toll still stands at 413.
 
Vantage said:
What was the purpose of the three babies being shown in the first place? For starters it’s a close up. Has absolutely no bearing to the tsunami devastation as a picture. It could have come from anywhere. Why was it necessary to be put into the slideshow when quite simply the photos already in the slideshow were enough to tell the story? Shock value of course!

Maybe the photographer was so busy looking for the Dread photo to shock, he may just have missed the chance to capture a moving rescue. Or do these kind of photos not tell a story or sell as well as Three Dead Babies?
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The Purpose of the 3 deead babies is to tug at the heart strings of parents from around the world, this kind of image is exactly what helps raise aid for these disasters. Yes the image could hav come from anywhere, BUT it didn't it came from the Tsunami, so it DOES have a lot of bearing on the Tsunami devastation and loss of life it causes.

As to the photographer being to busy looking for the dread photo, I am sorry but this comment says a lot more about the way you think than him, How do you know what else he captured, how many people he helped, you don't, the sameas I don't. But I still do not see the issue with the image, Hostory has to be recorded and the world has to know the personal lose of disasters as well, this image does exactly this.

Vantage said:
only due to fact that I cant get my head around how unnecessary it is. Its a picture for picture sake. Psifox showed a link where the power of photography can ultimatly make a difference. Showing the world the desperation and pain others endure while we live like kings. For that I would Click, no doubt about it.
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As you do not like the image or can not see what good it can do for helping raise aid for these causes, you concider it wrong and therefore should not be seen, this in my opinion is almost burying your head in the sand as if you do not see these terrible images of disasters then they do not happen, reading about them is in no way the same as seeing images. I can read horror books quite easily but can not watch a horror films because the images always affect me more.

Vantage said:
So the death toll of 400 and rising isnt enough for her then. Not sure what to think!
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See last part of above answer, it comes down to the same thing, 400 people in words is very hard to imagine, see 400 people in an image you can see how many it is. Same thing with the news, images really do speak a 1000 words.

As to the "Not sure what to think!" Again it seems to be because its not what you like/believe then there is something wrong with you attitude.
 
helloo my name is millie , my dad is davec223 ^^^
today i heard my nan and dad talking about the Tsunami and about the photos , i had already heard on the news about the tsunami but i wanted to see the pictures, so my dad showed me. At first i was nervous about see them because i didn't no how graphic the pictures were, i'm quite good at looking at things horrific but this was very mild. Like my dad said me and him and the rest of the family knew someone in a tsunami and as my dad has told me it was very horrific for him. If he was to look at these pictures he probably wouldn't even compare to the things that he saw. To be honest i feel sorry that you find these images pointless because i have to disagree. i'm 12 i learn things in school about the planet and one of are topics at the moment is Tsunami and me and my class have seen more graphic photos then that !!!!
 
To me the 3 dead babies represent that in any indiscriminate disaster where people have been under tremendous heartache and stress, can in the wake of it all still live and breath a desire to respect and offer what little they have to readdress realty and the possibility to offer hope to a mother or father who are looking for the children, that in the end they are offered the love of human kind from a stranger and respected after they had fallen,


Merc
 
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It is of my opinion that these images will be viewed by generations to come and that they will have the same impact on history as the b&w images from the Vietnam War did in the 60's and 70's.
Personally i don't have a problem with people taking shots like these provided that they are done in an informative and newsworthy way and not voyeuristically so.

The image of the three children tragic that it is shows just how indiscriminate natural disasters like these are and that they do need to be documented.

To me the principal is no different to sex and violence on tv after 9pm......you have an "off" button on your remote if you dont want to view.
 
Sad, yes. Disturbing? Not really.
I've taken shots of worse myself TBH...

As others have said, it's the job of the journalist to record all of it - otherwise generations to come might be forgiven in thinking no-one actually died there.
 
Arkady said:
As others have said, it's the job of the journalist to record all of it - otherwise generations to come might be forgiven in thinking no-one actually died there.
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This.

Though I think that it, and any photo or report of dead people -is- in some ways disturbing, but not really... damagingly so. Then again, everyone has different emotional makeups I guess.

A very famous image from near a concentration camp in Belsen, Germany:

BergenBelsen-boy.GIF


And an interesting accompanying quote:


1945 Photo by George Rodger: "It wasn't even a matter of what I was photographing, as what had happened to me in the process. When I discovered that I could look at the horror of Belsen --4000 dead and starving lying around-- and think only of a nice photographic composition, I knew something had happened to me and I had to stop. I felt I was like the people running the camp --it didn't mean a thing." George Rodger in "Dialogue with photography", Dewi Lewis Publishing.
 
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x Millie x said:
helloo my name is millie , my dad is davec223 ^^^
today i heard my nan and dad talking about the Tsunami and about the photos , i had already heard on the news about the tsunami but i wanted to see the pictures, so my dad showed me. At first i was nervous about see them because i didn't no how graphic the pictures were, i'm quite good at looking at things horrific but this was very mild. Like my dad said me and him and the rest of the family knew someone in a tsunami and as my dad has told me it was very horrific for him. If he was to look at these pictures he probably wouldn't even compare to the things that he saw. To be honest i feel sorry that you find these images pointless because i have to disagree. i'm 12 i learn things in school about the planet and one of are topics at the moment is Tsunami and me and my class have seen more graphic photos then that !!!!
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slightly off tack.. hey new milton people! thats my home town :D
 
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