Am I violating you?
I’ve always felt some anxiety photographing people. Even if they paid me to do so or volunteered. You are taking up some-else’s time, for me the most valuable thing in the world. In return they receive a photo, which was or was not worth their time. It is not about doubting my abilities as a photographer, but it is just that I can never make a picture of YOU as one perceives themselves. So as I am wondering what the value is for those people who want to be photographed, ask and even pay for it. It seems a bigger puzzle to me how it feels for people who didn’t asked to have their photo taken, who might be in the worst moment of their lives or might even be dead (to them you certainly can’t ask them for consent) to see themselves being used “for the greater good” to show the world how awful their situation is.
There are enough essays written on journalistic photography and it’s worth of it’s violence. But what I do wonder is why the photography of the pain of others is so being framed so beautifully and why they even hand out prices for those who capture the most beautiful moment of this pain…
In my work ‘For Sontag’ I isolate the images by deleting all context, this emphasizes the beauty of the horrific pain of the subject. Below two imaged that inspired me to make this work.
https://susanlucida.com/work/for-sontag/
Susan Lucida 