civilized ku # 285-86 ~ street photography, pt. 2
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 10:47AM 
Dog and Man ~ Thanksgiving Day • click to embiggenA little while back, in an entry titled civilized ku # 208-11 ~ see people walk, eat, ride .... or, crazy niggers doing crazy shit, I referenced a piece, White People Are Looking At You (link in ku # 208-11) by Sebastien Boncy.
That piece was a critique of Pieter Hugo's pictures from his book/exhibit THE HYENA & OTHER MEN. To make a long story short, that critique was centered around the idea of the "racial context that the work travels in" - a "context" that is basically summed up rather neatly by the critique's title of White People Are Looking At You.
Boncy does not ascribe to the idea / infer that Pieter Hugo is a racist or that the making of his pictures are motivated by racism. In fact, he "gives Hugo the benefit of the doubt ..." taking "...it for granted that Pieter Hugo is a talented and conscientious photographer and assumes he has not a racist bone in his body." Nevertheless, Boncy states:
Somehow, that isn’t enough and I’m still disturbed ... [M]aybe it has something to do with the way Hugo and his defenders are so quick to dismiss or minimize concerns about the racial context that this work travels in.
All of that said, 'long about now, you might be wondering why I am mentioning all of this again.
Well, long story short once again, this past Thanksgiving holiday I was confronted with a rather sticky / ticklish dilemma .... while at my inlaw's home for Thanksgiving dinner, I was introduced - by means of a glowing endorsement (from those same inlaws) - to a book of pictures, Tumperbee ~ PHOTOGRAPHS OF ANTIGUA by Melchior DiGiacomo.
Mel is a close personal friend of my inlaws and, to a certain extent through their relationship with Mel, a friend of mine. To be perfectly clear, our relationship is based almost exclusively around the medium of photography - I have known Mel and have had the all too infrequent pleasure of his company and his pictures for about 12 years or so.
So it was, with that background in mind and with the White People Are Looking At You piece coming immediately to mind, that when asked to express my opinion about the book, all I could muster up was that I would get back to them (the inlaws) in a week or so. That was because even though I could state without reservation that Mel was, like Pieter Hugo, a talented and conscientious photographer without a racist bone in his body, I could also state that, like Sebastien Boncy, that wasn't enough and I was still disturbed.
Mel's pictures of Antigua are first and foremost pictures of the people of Antigua (see a few HERE - IMO, a not very representative sample of those in the book*), specifically those to be found in an area known as the Old Road Village - an area, if Mel's pictures are to viewed as representative of "reality" and "truth" (I am certain that they are), of poverty, relative squalor, and deprivation.
Mel's familiarity with the area / village and its people has been acquired over 3 decades of annual visits to a nearby resort, Curtain Bluff, where he was first invited to photograph tennis events held at the resort. Over the years he became familiar with and greatly accepted by the people of the Old Road Village and, as is his wont and obsession, he began to picture them with regularity. The result is the 192 page book.
The pictures in the book are "pure" documentary / street photography at its absolute best, even if most of the streets in evidence are little more than well-worn animal paths. Mel paves no new ground here, genre-wise, but there can be no question that Mel is a much better than a first-rate picture maker.
So, where's the (my) beef?
Despite ample testimony in the book's various introductions and preface of Mel's acceptance (one might even say "loving" acceptance) by the people of the Old Road Village together with his affiliation with the Old Road Fund - a fund set up by the Curtain Bluff Resort for the benefit of Old Road Village people "to be able to realize their dreams", I can't help feeling that the entire enterprise - the Old Road Fund and, to a lesser extent, the book itself (funded and published by a group of Curtain Bluff people) - has a distinct whiff of rich whites guys trying their best - in classic White People Are Looking At You fashion - to make themselves feel good.
To be specific, the fact that Curtain Bluff Resort - accommodations (in season) ranging from $1,200-3,900US a night - exists in such close proximity to the squalor and poverty of the Old Road Village and its people is more than a little bit of a shining example of race/culture/economic disparity / discrimination at its worst (or is it, "best"?).
The fact that the OR Fund has enabled over 200 children from the area attend tennis camp - tennis camp?????? - in the US does little or nothing to dispel my feelings of the voyeuristic and condescending White People Are Looking At You variety. I mean, come on, after viewing Mel's pictures, I am suppose to believe that sending kids to tennis camp is enabling them "to realize their dreams"?
The Fund boasts that "Over the last ten years alone, the Fund has sent to the US ... 15 to universities and six for medical help." That's a "stunning" .6 children per year for medical help and 1.5 children per year to university - how very very white of them.
With a little word substitution, Sebastien Boncy's comment about "The people sipping wine and spending money at most Hugo openings (substitute, "while looking at Mel's pictures") are highly unlikely to have any significant knowledge of Nigeria (substitute, "the Old Road Village") or even first-hand knowledge of being part of the black-beans-for-dinner-three-nights-in-a-row club ...' seems to be highly appropriate here. I must also state that I am getting more than a little weary of hearing rich white guys and other people of privilege tell me, as is stated in one of the book's introductory pieces, about the "dignity" and "pride" they see in people who live in poverty and squalor as the result of discrimination of one kind or another.
Pictures that evidence the lives of people who live in poverty and squalor as the result of discrimination of one kind or another can present a powerful indictment of those conditions when the pictures are made with care, sensitivity, and a sense of compassion and for the most part Mel's pictures appear to be convincingly so conceived. For that I applaud both his pictures and his efforts.
Unfortunately, I can not say the same for the Old Road Fund. Indeed, some good works is better than no good works, but, as evidenced by Mel's pictures, it seems that very few of the people of the Old Road Village are on the road to being able to realizing their dreams as the result of the OR Fund efforts.
In closing, let me again borrow, with a little word substitution (underlined), from Sebastien Boncy:
This is not about Mel Digiacomo or his book/pictures really. It’s about the necessity for dialogue about issues of race/culture/economic disparity / discrimination. It’s about remembering that systematic race/culture/economic disparity / discrimination is hidden in every aspect of our contemporary lives and it is very disturbing for any concerned marginalized out there when people are too quick to close down that avenue of discussion.
Nowhere in this book, is there a hint of dialogue / discussion about issues of race/culture/economic disparity / discrimination. Unless, of course, you assume - and assume you must since there is not a statement of intent / artist statement nor a single caption in the book - that Mel's pictures constitute that dialogue - a point on which he does not enlighten us (other than perhaps letting the pictures speak for themselves) which only serves to support Boncy's contention about ....
... the unpredictable lives of images and how good intentions are often the least of all factors ...
... in how pictures are perceived and understood.
*the picture of the young girl in the white dress/hat (communion / confirmation dress?) is perhaps a perfect visual metaphor for the voyeuristic and condescending notion of White People Are Looking At You - the main and secondary subjects are black and lurking there in the white glare of the tv screen is the picture maker (Mel's a "white people", albeit of Sicilian descent).
That said, of all the pictures in the book, this is the one I would most like to have on my wall. It is a tremendously powerful picture on many levels, not the least of which is the manner in which it makes one contemplate the aforementioned White People Are Looking At You conundrum.
Reader Comments (4)
Ouch! My brain hurts. These thoughts are too complex for me to think about. How 'bout that Tiger Woods… Huh?
definately, he is one c.n.d.s. that gravitas likes to watch
Wife has a very good sense of humor :)
I dig what you say. Every photographer should think about the potential connotations a photograph holds before publishing it. It’s about being aware both of what you want to say and what others might think you’re saying.
Is this a situation when you photographer types should title or write a paragraph about the pictures that you have taken?