Both academic and public discussion of photojournalism is fraught with anxiety about the danger of images displacing realty. Writers such as Daniel Boorstin and Susan Sontag have issued dire warnings about the moral and political decline that is sure to occur as visual media create a world of pseudo-events, manufactured experiences, and the cult of celebrity. When you look at a photograph like the one below, you might think the critics have a point.

As the Prime Ministers of Great Britain and Brazil walk toward the camera, their mirror images are captured alongside them. The photograph depicts its own ability to create an image out of reality, while also hiding the slight of hand by which it appears to us as the real thing. Thus, we look at the photograph and see the figures on the right as the real Prime Ministers–in contrast to their images on the left–but, of course, the figures on the right are images, not the PMs themselves who now probably are continents apart. In short, the photo makes one think that it is the equivalent of the real, when it is actually is an illusion taking the place of reality.

Not that this bothers the ministers. They are having a fine time together; indeed, they look like two seasoned troupers hitting the stage for an encore. A politics of photo-ops for stage-managed pseudo-events (like the G20 meeting that was the pretext for this picture) doesn’t bother them. Their attention to political performance is captured by every aspect of the photo, including the elocutionary behavior (bodies entrained in conventional costumes, postures, smiles, and gestures directed toward an audience), the stage created by the raised walkway, red carpet, and supernumeraries, and the mirror’s duplication of the actors, which throws them into an aesthetic space for depicting social reality.

But wait a minute. If the mirror highlights performance to reveal social habits, it might be exposing illusions rather than creating them. Isn’t the primary illusion in the political performance itself, not in the photograph? Or could it be that real Prime Ministers still have to act like Prime Ministers, and that this photograph captures that relatively complex relationship between image and reality. Likewise, featuring the mirror might be one way that the photograph is encouraging reflexive consideration of the transformations between image and reality in the public media, including photojournalism, rather than suppressing such awareness.

If you want to see reality in a world of images, sometimes it might be enough to hold up a mirror.

Photograph by Evaristo Sa/AFP-Getty Images.

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The recent G-20 meetings were the occasion for thousands of anarchists, and anti-capitalist, anti-war, and pro-environmentalist protestors to converge upon London, as has become something of a ritual for such international events.  No one seems to know exactly how many protesters there really were, though various media reports range from 20,000 to 35,000.  The Guardian reported that 5,000 police were deployed for the event, most of them in the financial district.  By conservative estimates, then, the ratio of police to protesters was somewhere between 1:4 and 1:7.  Protesters, of course, are meant to be seen, why else show up!  And most of the pictures reported by the mainstream media obliged by toggling back and forth between images of the carnivalesque and the clash between protesters and police, often resulting in dramatic images of bloody violence.

We can find all of this at the Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” website, but we find there as well an additional set of photographs that points to a different and more interesting phenomenon: images that accent what Ariella Azoullay refers to as the “civil contract of photography.” The citizenship of photography that she calls attention to is animated by the logic of photography—an agreement as to the relationship between the photograph and “what has been” or what might be in the image—and the ways in which it functions as a mechanism of social interaction (and control).

The scene above is a wall of CCTV screens in a command and control center in London from which the police can monitor live security feeds of “prominent areas” of the city.  It has an Orwellian quality to it, to be sure—Big Brother is watching—not least because the heads viewing the scene are back lit and thus cast in dark and foreboding shadows that provide a stark contrast with the daylight of the screens. As such, the image directs attention to its own technology, and thus the visual grammar that animates it; in short, what we are looking at is itself a photograph—a visual representation of the command and control center once removed—that relies upon the logic of photography as it displays a site for interpretive resistance to the mechanism of surveillance that is being exacted by the state precisely by making it transparent.

Nor are the broader implications of the civil contract of photography lost on the protesters themselves, who were armed not with guns or nightsticks or other riot gear (like the police) but with cameras.

There are numerous photographs that make the point (see photos 11, 12, 19 and 20 at the Big Picture), but I like this image the most, in large measure because of how the police appear to react. Their purpose is to protect the bank from the protesters, and of course they are doing that, but it all seems so out of proportion: they are larger in number and size, and in any case they are girded for battle; the protesters sit and squat awkwardly on the ground as they take pictures or stand about nonchalantly with their hands in their pockets.  On the face of things they certainly don’t seem to be much of a threat.  Change the context just a bit and we might imagine them as tourists out for a day in the city.  And that is precisely the problem for the police who seem literally stopped in their tracks, as if they don’t quite know what to do.  Indeed, it could be a scene out of a Monty Python skit.  Should they pose for the camera or charge? Caught in the gaze of the lens—and thus the implied civic contract of the photograph—their power seems mitigated, if only for a moment.  But that moment is enough to shift the ground of agency and control, if not for the people in the image itself, then at least for those who see the photograph, i.e., those cast in the role of spectators who, by the virtue of the civic contract, are nevertheless called upon to render judgment.

*The fragment here is from Heidegger and reads in full, “The fundamental event of the modern age is the conquest of the world as picture.”  It appears in “The Age of World Pictures” published in Electronic Culture, ed. by T. Druckery. New York: Aperture, 1969.  I came across it in Ariella Azoulay’s “The Ethic of the Spectator: The Citizenry of Photography,” Afterimage, September/October 2005, 39. For a more detailed discussion of her ideas see The Civil Contract of Photography, MIT Press, 2008.

Photo Credits: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP, Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

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3D glasses are making a comeback–again. The investment history of that little device must be a trail of broken dreams, but they probably said that about the lint rollers. Before looking ahead, however, let’s not forget our glorious past:

This is one version of the classic Life Magazine photograph of the audience watching the first 3D color motion picture. It’s been a while since people dressed up to go to the movie theater. The date was 1952, and since then this image has become emblematic of all that was odd, dispensable, or dangerous about the 1950s. We see the American middle class lined up in rows, willingly clouding their vision to be transfixed by the mass media on behalf of civic conformity. Serious, silent, formal, and numbingly uniform–what’s not to like?

It’s easy now to look at the 1952 photo and imagine the audience is auditioning for “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” And unfair, of course. They will have been a diverse mix of individuals having a good time going to the movies, much as people do today. And the glasses disturb in part because they remind us that the cinematic experience is always an illusion created by equipment. That said, the image does provide a window into the culture of the time, and thus a basis for comparison with more recent attempts to use 3D technologies. So, let’s take a look at this year’s model:

Cool, huh? This happy camper is watching a college football game in 3D in Las Vegas. Obviously the glasses have gotten a fashion upgrade. The photo suggests other changes as well. Now we see not the mass audience of 1950s popular culture, but instead a single individual relatively isolated from those in the soft focus background. Now the photographer zeros in on the individual’s experience, and his happiness clearly is his own and not related to those around him. He is illuminated, as if the spectacle is being produced just for him. Or at least for those like him–the niche audience able to afford the trip to Vegas and whatever else went into this show.

This inversion from the mass audience to the isolated spectator can be read as a shift from a culture of collective solidarity to one focused on individual autonomy. Conformity is not a problem, and as for the rest, well, let the market take care of that. As with better eyewear and improved projection, this is supposed to be progress: whereas the eyepieces in the first photo are dark, his lenses are shining with enlightenment.

And it may be progress. The audience in 1952 was watching “Bwana Devil,” which is all one need say about that. At the same time, one can’t help but think that this is a case of the same thing coming around again. What people need from their media today is not more “life-like” film and video projection but an upgrade in content.

And perhaps now more than ever, we don’t need glasses that make it easier to not see those around us.

Photographs by J. R. Eyerman/LIFE and Jae C Hong/AP.

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Earlier this week Hariman commented on how the camera aids our fundamental desire to anthropomorphize animals, to see them “as being like us,” by directing our attention to their eyes—the windows to the soul—which allow a special point of identification and contact between humans.  And the evidence is pretty compelling, made all the more so when we consider the obverse, i.e., photographs that underscore the zoomorphic representation of humans as if they were animals.

The photograph here is of “Michael Lantzy, 55, and some pigeons kept warm by spending the night on a steam grate in Denver.” According to the caption Lantzy has been homeless for four years, and identifying him by name would seem to distinguish his humanity from the pigeons with which he shares the limited space of public warmth, as does the very physical separation between the lone individual and the clustering flock of birds.  But there is a strong sense in which the image resists the humanizing impulse of the caption, making it hard to see Lantzy as a distinct individual, or quite possibly even as human.

Pigeons are an urban nuisance.  They are believed to carry communicable diseases and their nesting habits are squalid. Cleaning up after the mess they leave behind can be both costly and dangerous.  The homeless are often characterized in similar terms and the photograph here accents the point of identity.  Shot from a  slightly elevated angle, it directs the viewers attention downward to the ground where homeless and pigeons alike are obtrusively roosting at the intersection of a public thoroughfare.  The oblique angle from which the viewer observes the scene diminishes the difference in size between man and flock, while his gun-metal grey coat blends in almost perfectly with the colors of the birds’ plumage.  The overall effect is to accent sameness and to undermine difference, even as it denaturalizes the landscape.  This last point is important, for it is unlikely that the average pedestrian would view the scene portrayed here from this vantage as they walk by on their way from one place to the next.  The photograph thus frames a somewhat exotic view (as if in a zoo) of the urban landscape.

One might be inclined to view the photograph as an ironic comment on a public and communal immorality—treating humans as vermin—but to do so requires us to recognize and acknowledge a clear difference between human and non-human in the picture.  To this end, one might point to the lime-green blanket on which the man rests as a sign of a primitive, human instinct, but pigeons (like the homeless) are also notorious scavengers, and so what might function otherwise as a humanizing distinction is weighted down in this photograph by the more pronounced points of animalistic similarity. What is needed to disrupt the zoological analogy is something that gives direct and pronounced access to the man’s soul, a sense of his inner-being, his humanity, that would make it difficult or even impossible for another human to ignore his plight or presence. It is to my own shame that when I encounter a homeless person on the street I will often avert my gaze so as to avoid eye contact—the demand for human recognition—as if to make the “problem” before me disappear.  And in this photograph it is notable that we have no access to the man’s eyes (as we have no access to the birds’ eyes) and thus nothing that would demand that we recognize his unique humanity. Just as we anthropomorphize animals by accenting the human quality of their eyes, so we animalize (dehumanize) strangers by erasing (or otherwise “veiling”) the windows to their soul.

But there may yet be an important and productive irony animated by the photograph.  For while the man is identified with the pigeons he is also quite clearly separate from them.  Indeed, the pigeons seem to treat him with the same kind of benign and nonchalant neglect that tends to animate our public response to the homeless (when it doesn’t devolve into out-and-out violence). Like most of us, they choose not to see him, even as they hold him at some distance.  It gives new meaning to  the phrase “a bird’s eyes view.”

 Photo Credit: George Kochaniec Jr./AP

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Animals are conventional photographic subject and a minor but persistent topic of photojournalism. They are quite prominent in Britain–for example, The Guardian photo page includes “This Week in Wildlife” as a regular feature, and the daily slide show often contains additional images as well. In the U.S. there probably is regional variation reflecting geographic and economic differences, but cute pets and tranquil wildlife are standard fare. Images of pets and zoo animals often contain anthropomorphic appeal, which is exactly why I find this photograph of a white lion in the Belgrade zoo so disturbing.

Penguins splashing in a concrete pool might be happy as clams, but large mammals always appear to be somewhere on a well-worn path to madness. This poor beast could be placed right into one of those paintings of animals playing poker, but for the fact that he looks so sad, at once perplexed and aware of what is happening to him. His intelligence–or emotional intelligence, if you wish–is captured in the brightly lit eye on the left, while the deep shadow on the right side of the photograph suggests that his mind is sliding into darkness. This effect is heightened by how the face appears to twist as it elongates to the nose and mouth. Perhaps but a trick of light, it also is another example of how the photo turns the anthropomorphic impulse against itself. We want to see animals as being like us–curiously, we do this as we make them captive–yet now we are confronted with the thought that they may be sentient and complex and emotional enough to suffer from being confined for our viewing pleasure.

I could quit there, but this was a rich week for animal photography. The next shot provides another angle on looking at animals looking at us.

This black rhinoceros is kept in the Frankfurt zoo. Again, the photo features the animal’s eye, now one that seems to reflect a duller intelligence, one trapped in a perpetual state of trying to comprehend what he sees. What strikes me is that he seems confined and burdened not by the zoo but by his own body. That eye looks out from amidst a huge head weighted with a great mass of horn, part of a massive carcass encased in thick skin, so thick it can become encrusted with mud or mold. That’s a lot to manage, and he seems consumed by the task, so much so that looking at us is almost too much to handle, one more burden for him to carry along with the rest of his bulk.

It could be worse, however.

This rodeo steer is the animal eye taken down to its elemental condition of dumb, uncomprehending fear. He did not evolve for steer wrestling, and he looks out in terror as he lies there on his back, throat exposed. The image still has a strange anthropomorphic element to it, however, because of the way the two bodies converge. We see only the head of the steer while the wrangler’s body is rendered headless by the angle of the camera. The result is a minotaur. In the Greek myth, he had a man’s body with the head of a bull and lived within a maze. He was fearsome but trapped, confined to the maze like an animal in a zoo. The rodeo minotaur also is a figure of captivity. Steer and cowboy alike are trapped in their roles and in their bodies. Thrown together in order to survive, they may have more in common, and more need of one another, than we like to admit.

Photographs by Srdjan Ilic/AP Guardian, Frank May/EPA, and Isaac Brekken/AP Guardian. For an earlier post that ends on the animal eye, go here. If you appreciated the reference to the Greek myth, you might enjoy The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break.

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