Comments on: Photographing Gaza – more questions in the case of AP vs. Stuart Franklin

By: Photographing Gaza – AP, Franklin and being political | David Campbell -- Photography, Multimedia, Politics

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:37:50 +0000

[...] « Photographing Gaza – more questions in the case of AP vs. Stuart Franklin [...]

By: Tucho

Tucho — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:58:24 +0000

The original text is out now:

“PhotoQ managed to get hold of the text by a third party. Neither the organisation of Noorderlicht, nor Mr Franklin delivered it to us.”

http://photoq.nl/articles/nieuws/actueel/2009/09/06/disproportionate-force/

By: David Campbell

David Campbell — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:49:10 +0000

Andy – the notion of pictures ’speaking’ for themselves is questionable – as I argue in my previous post on this – even though in this case it is something that both AP and Franklin believe.

All pictures are framed by political discourses and journalist texts, and this is what helps create meaning over time. But this framing does not determine meaning once and for all, as the heated debates over photographs show.

From the summary above I doubt if Franklin’s curatorial essay explained fully the meaning of the pictures, especially as it apparently reiterates political views that often accompanied the original publication of the photographs in the press. None of this prevents any new audience reaching its own conclusions about the meaning of the images.

By: Robert Goddyn

Robert Goddyn — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 07:02:39 +0000

Is this because of the contest / exhibition ?? If a magazine or a daily newspaper will tell the Stuart Franklin’s essay with photo from several wire agencies include AP will AP comment in the same way ?? No i think because it is already printed !! AP must be happy because they selling images !! And if the photo’s from the photographers who have be using for the exhibition ask direct from the photographer him self, because the most of the photographers are temporary working or delivering photo to wire agencies are they have a comment to it, I think tyhey will be happy that the photos have be using for essay of Stuart Franklin.

By: Andy Levin

Andy Levin — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:42:33 +0000

This is fairly simple in my opinion. Show the pictures and let the pictures speak for themselves.

The whole point of the Gazan work is that the images are so overwhelming that there is only one possible conclusion. But as journalists it is essential that we allow our audience to arrive at that conclusion on their own–otherwise we are just propagandists.

Why bother to see the show if the meaning has already been explained in the program?