Taking difficult pictures: Photography as activism

Some road trips are best recorded in your heart and in your head. When there is no photographic evidence, first impressions remain intact and the craft of storytelling is renewed.

For those with a penchant for taking pictures, it is best to indulge artfully and intentionally, as photography can range from insultingly simple to deliciously complex. With the accessibility and abundance of digital cameras and phones with built-in cameras, our collective photography skills have generally improved. This can be attributed to more opportunities for affordable trial and error shots and cameras that automatically do what previously could only be done manually. Photos are also surfacing from previously obscure places due to the portability of cameras.

This can be perceived as a sort of artistic leap in time, however, this is sadly not often the case. We are now inundated with low quality, superfluous images from average people doing average things. In a time when reputations and personas are managed online via social networking sites like Facebook.com, photographic evidence of coolness carry a lot of weight, but make for very uncreative photography.

It seemed excessive when people would keep dozens of dusty photo albums on their shelves or in their attics, but now, the situation is worse. People store thousands of images on their computers, and post photo albums online that consist of hundreds of pictures that were taken in the same room with the same people over the span of a few hours. Editing skills are clearly needed when it comes to these types of virtual photo albums.

Breaking away from this realm of mundane photography, people do take difficult pictures. When I say difficult, I mean photos that are hard to look at. Cameras tend to be used for two main reasons -- to capture images of what they consider to be beautiful, as well as to document daily life. Departing from human-centered photography, lingering on scenes that highlight human impacts on animals and the environment can be very powerful. There are no humans in the following pictures, but evidence of our largely arrogant presence cannot be ignored.

In this way, such shots can be considered a form of witness, as well as a form of voice for animals and the environment. Each image insinuates a story that lead to the scene in the photograph, and also brings to light a larger narrative between humans, animals and the environment. Through this relationship, photography becomes activism.

In the above photo of the seagulls feasting at a landfill, this is a situation and place that most people will never see with their own eyes. We leave our garbage neatly lined up in bags at the curb, and that’s where our concern about garbage stops. Our waste is trucked outside of city limits where it is not a pressing concern. In a sense, this is a very sanitized experience with waste, not realizing the filthiness and excess that characterizes dumps, not to mention the animals that now frequent landfill sites for food, as well as the toxins that leak into the ground at these places. In essence, human garbage has become a part of these animals’ habitats as human consumption continues at a frantic pace.

 In the above photo of the fox, it is a scene that any highway driver has likely passed by many times before. Road-kill -- if you aren’t the one who hit it, you are likely to drive by the death scene so quickly that you don’t even feel a hint of emotion. Yet, the larger story implicit in this scene speaks volumes. Questions as to why someone didn’t move this animal out of the middle of the road and the issue of human encroachment on animal territory are poignant.

In the above photo of the bison bones, the line between tradition and modernization becomes blurred. In a traditional context, the entire bison was used by First Nation peoples as a source of food, shelter, clothing and tools. With the near extinction and recent revival of bison herds, seeing a pile of bison bones is both foreign and startling to most people. This scene juxtaposes the old and the new, illuminating the passage of time and the necessary fluidity of tradition.

 In the above photo of the pelican, the size of such a bird becomes astounding, as does the beautiful symmetry of its structure. Washed up on the shore of Lake Winnipeg and in an advanced state of decomposition, the cause of this bird’s death is not known. Yet, given the rarity of such birds and the recent pollution concerns surrounding the lake, it makes it harder not to wonder about the human implications in this death.

Standing somewhere between art and responsibility, these photos reveal that a clear line cannot be drawn between the two realms. Photo activism is one of the clearest examples of this ambiguity. Yet this kind of photo activism also demonstrates that there is a tangible responsibility to keep the artful aspects of photography alive and moving, thus avoiding photography’s decline into a mere form of documentation, a casualty of technological advancement. 

This article was originally published in the University of Manitoba Gradzette. All photos by N. Mae.