Do your own research into the bodies of work discussed in this project. Can you find any examples of work carried out amongst indigenous peoples that, in your view, honestly document the lives of their subjects without falling into some of the traps that we’ve been discussing here? If so, how has the photographer achieved this?
The works discussed in the course notes high-light some of the common pitfalls that western photographers failed to avoid when photographing non-white subjects. These include:
- Romanticism, particluarly the idea of the ‘noble savage’ or ‘primitive beauty’
- De or recontextualisation, removing the subject from their normal environment to better suit the photographers’ needs.
- Infantalisation, treating adults from non-industrialised societies like children
- Primitivism, ‘a mode of aesthetic idealization that either emulates or aspires to recreate “primitive” experience’ (Wikipedia, s.d.)
David Bruce is a South African photographer who has photographed the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen of Namibia over a number of years. I think Bruce’s black & white photographs are beautiful but I do think some of them suffer from presenting their subjects in stereotypical way. In the video below, Bruce talks about photographing the Ju/’honsai people. I think it is interesting as he defines himself as a fine art photographer and he acknowledges that his early work was not an attempt to document the lives of the bushmen and he was much more concerned with the graphic quality of the images rather than their documentary quality.
When talking about some of his early work I think Bruce is describing ‘exoticism’, he was treating the bushmen almost as extoic props, they were a means to an end for a white photographer to be able to express their artisic vision. However, it is evident from watching the whole video the Bruce’s commitment to the people and the place and how this has developed over time. Whilst I think some of the portraits with the bushmen carrying dead animals do decontextualise the subjects, almost making the carcasses look like fashion accessories, I think Bruce’s images do treat their subjects with respect and his affection for the people comes through.
Peter Lavery is a British photographer and his work, Of Humankind was published in 2000 following a commission from Tetra Pac in the early 1990s which enabled him to travel to Papua New Guinea, China, Africa , Japan and The North Pole. Looking at the images on his website it is clear that book is not exclusively a record of people from remote tribes in Africa or South America as it also includes images of western subjects. There is a consistent style to the images, black & white prints with subjects shot against a black background and whilst I can understand this approach, I think the deconstexualisation that it creates does present some issues. The pictures containing western subjects are easier to read as their clothing gives some indication to there occupation but for non-western subjects, removing them from their environments means that it is difficult to understand anything about their lives and so the images have a primitivism element to them. In a way, Lavery’s Of Humankind reminds me of Irving Penn’s Worlds in a Small Room. Penn photographed tradesmen and women in Paris, London and New York whilst working on fashion shoots and combined these with images of indigenous people taken around the world. All were photographed in natural light against awhite background and like Lavery’s work, the removal of context seemed less problematic for western subjects than it did for subjects from less industrialised parts of the world.
It is difficult to find single images of Juan Echeverria‘s work as most of the photographs featured on his Flickr site are copies of magazine spreads. His website describes him as a travel photographer and I think that this is evident in his work, much of which falls into the traps mentioned above. Some of his Himba images are features on a Spanish travel website which can be viewed here. I think that these decontextualised images demonstrate the romantic notion of primitive beauty, this being emphasised by the decision to shoot or present the photographs in black & white. Another series from a Spanish magazine on his Flickr site combines colour and black & white images. The monochrome images seem to be from the same series as mentioned above, portraits shot against a plain background, however, the colour images are shot in situ and give more information about the life the people being photographed. Overall, I find the colour images to be much more engaging and the black & white portraits as they give a small insight into the lives of the people being photographed.
I’m not sure what to make of Jimmy Nelson‘s photographs of remote tribes or communities. His work is shot in colour and is certainly eye-catching, mostly comprising of individual or group portraits. The majority of his shots are staged with the subjects in, what appears to be, ceremonial dress, single portraits are often taken in doors against relatively dark backgounds, whilst the group portraits are mainly outdoors, giving some context. Watching a video on his website, his intentions seem well motivated, to record these peoples’ ways of life before the pressures from the outside world destroys their culture, however, his images, whilst arresting, do appear somewhat superficial.
Adam Koziol is a Polish photographer from Poznan whose work is in some ways similar to that of Jimmy Nelson. Working in colour, Koziol’s interest is not only in dying tribal cultures, but more specifically their appearance, including tattoos, scarifications, and ornaments which identifies a given tribe. Because Koziol’s motivation is to capture the markings that identify certain tribes, I think his approach of close-up portraits and controlled lighting which he brings with him can be justified. His interest is not in trying to document the functioning of the societies of these remote tribes, but rather how they adorn themselves to respresent their identity. I think his images are photographed in a similar way personalities or celebrites would be photographed in western culture and in that way I think they avoid some pitfalls of western photographers photographing non-white subjects. Having said that, I think there is still a case to be made that the images exhibit romanticism and that the decontexutalisation approach is one that is primarily meeting Koziol’s needs rather than the subjects’.
Sources
David Bruce – the man who hears – speaks out! (2018) Directed by Maison, G. At: https://vimeo.com/273361556 (Accessed 30/05/2021).
Galería Inout Viajes – Himba – Himba (s.d.) At: https://www.inoutviajes.com/album/822/himba/5/himba.html#galeriaWrap (Accessed 01/06/2021).
Grande Maison | David Bruce (s.d.) At: http://www.grandemaison.de/articles/davidbruce (Accessed 30/05/2021).
JUAN ECHEVERRIA Travel Photography (s.d.) At: http://juanecheverria.com/ (Accessed 01/06/2021).
Koziol (s.d.) At: http://www.koziol.gallery (Accessed 02/06/2021).
Mauritania_Superfoto (s.d.) At: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juan_echeverria_reportajes/sets/72157629671718321 (Accessed 01/06/2021).
Nelson, J. (s.d.) Peoples & Place – JIMMY NELSON. At: https://www.jimmynelson.com (Accessed 02/06/2021).
Of Humankind (s.d.) At: https://www.handheldimage.com/of-humankind (Accessed 30/05/2021).
Primitivism (2021) In: Wikipedia. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Primitivism&oldid=1023525088 (Accessed 30/05/2021).
Stewart, J. (2018) Incredible Portraits of Indigenous Tribes Around the World. At: https://mymodernmet.com/adam-koziol-indigenous-tribe-photography/ (Accessed 02/06/2021).
Documentary, Fact & Fiction 