Representation

There was some discussion, at the last Lacket Video meeting, back in April, around issues concerning ‘representation’ of subjects by our images.

It does matter greatly, since the way people are represented, frequently has an effect on the depicted subjects’ lives…

It is with this in mind, that the Save the Children Fund, had produced a set of guidlines for image-makers, who supply them with work. I discussed some of this in my Paper for My Photography Degree in Nottingham. I thought it helpful, if I offer the chapter, dealing with this.

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Presenting a Positive Image

I don’t suppose that I can consider my work as `objective’. It is the product of a view on the world that not many outsiders get to see.

When they do, it is sometimes through the pages of the tabloid press, in a less than complimentary way. Hardly objective either. Positive stories could be covered more frequently, but this would often conflict with a publications `house style’, which sells it.

There is plenty to say at other times, even when there isn’t fighting with the police. If there was a genuine interest in portraying this community, then features could be included say on how children are successfully bought up “on the road”. How three unemployed youths repaired, renovated and made a mobile home from a 1947 vintage London double-decker bus. Or how a number of new travellers had formed travelling shows and circuses that now do fayres all over Britain, Europe and beyond. Supporting themselves and not being on the dole any more.

These are positive stories. They are true; perhaps interesting. Negative aspects of life can include for example, poor access to health care provision for thousands, being “vigied” (beaten-up and vehicles damaged by local – vigilantes). Having your home wrecked during evictions. These are serious matters that if applied to house dwellers, I think would make a `splash’. There is however, only the odd feature in the `qualities’.

Because of this then, a few of us got together and started a magazine called Festival Eye to promote alternative ideas. Something I still get in trouble for now! More of this latter.

Shelter, the housing aid agency recently produced an issue of their magazine `Roof’ devoted largely to travelling issues, homelessness and access to land.

I helped research some of the material and supplied a number of pictures.

In a project for college earlier this year, I produced a leaflet designed to promote the Travellers Aid Trust, when I have tried to put into practice, some of the principles learnt.

It is obvious then that some thought be given to representation and analysis of what can be considered as `good practice’.

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Save the Children Fund: Guidelines

The Save the Children Fund have a Gypsy Liaison office, that is concerned with provision of help and services to travellers in this country.

A representative of the S.C.F. sits as an advisor on the committees of Festival Welfare Services, the Travellers Aid Trust and the Travellers School. Their work is concerned with New-Age Travellers as well as more traditional gypsies. They also feel that children can very often best be helped by enabling their parents.

For some time now, I have been taking pictures that these charities have found useful in their promotion.

It is an easy trap to fall in, when taking photographs of people at disadvantage, to reinforce stereotypes. With poverty, race or disability, images which reinforce dependency contribute to discrimination that can deprive people of their rights and identity.

The main thrust of their work is to be involved with projects that help people to help themselves, rather than to be dependent on continual hand-outs.

Because of a shift in attitudes, it is now felt to be `good practice’ to be positive in approach when dealing with their promotion. To show what can be done by people for themselves with assistance, rather than negative images of doom that are supposed the `pluck the heart-strings’.

The S.C.F. then, have recently published a set of guidelines, intended for use throughout the organisation and by contributing freelances. I summarise them briefly here:

(1) The dignity of the people with whom Save the Children works, should be preserved. People SCF work with may be seen as helpless recipients of hand-outs. Poverty and dependence are not characteristic of communities.

(2) Images and text used must be accurate and should avoid stereotypes and cliches. Material selected for its shock value, can trivialise, distort and misrepresent its work.

(3) People should be represented as active partners in development. Not just recipients of aid.

(4) Disability takes many forms. Disabled people are an integral part of the community and should be seen this way.

(5) Ethnic groups, women and disabled people should not be excluded from photos and text that involve them.

(6) Patronising, sentimental or demeaning material should not be used. Not only factual accuracy is important, but also tone.

(7) People should be identified as individuals wherever possible. Except if they wish to remain anonymous.

(8) Elements within text and images should strengthen each other in the proper context.

(9) Images which caricature or diminish the subject through bad photographic process can cause offence. Images should not be cropped or edited in a way that distorts an accurate situation.

(10) Where possible, material should accurately convey the diversity of S.C.F’s work. Elements of self-help and long-term development should be emphasised.

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My own, and other examples

I show you a few examples of my attempts at creating a positive image of some of the travelling people and their children. Bearing in mind the Save the Children guidelines, and other advice, I have been able to place some of these images in articles, information packs, and Annual Reports. Many different types of applications (slides 18 – 53).

I believe on the whole that they do present a positive image but I know that some can find it quite threatening. Care, should of course, be exercised in making pictures, in having a regard for the intended audience. For we all bring a certain amount of “intellectual baggage” to any interpretation of an image or some writing.

In his paper, “Questioning Documentary” in Aperture, Brian Wallis points out that:

“Although documentary photographs insist on their direct relationship to material forms in the real world,they are in fact cultural constructions that “create” reality according to a conventionalized language. Further, that this creation of meaning and reality does not stop with the taking of a photograph, but continues as it cropped, captioned, ordered, classified, categorized or filed. Each new context reframes its meaning”.
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