A2S%20v5%20updated%202.jpg)
a photograph of what appears to be bullet holes in a window;
I came upon this scene accidentally, while walking with a friend
we were in no danger and I don't know the reason someone apparently shot at the window
or when they did so, but I took the picture because it was symbolic
Essay of the Day
Essay of the Day features selected essays from my separate, non-public online journals.
This essay is from the journal ObserSpections.
____________
Why I Don't Photograph Violence and Tragedy
Photographs and videos have enormous power. They can be essential in revealing the truth of crime and police brutality. Pictures streamed to hundreds or thousands of people and watched afterward by millions of people bring a literal and visceral scrutiny and an immediate emotional objection, if not fury, to anything that is clearly wrong. No longer does injustice and justice become solely a matter of who has money and political advantage at the expense of people who are assaulted and killed. We can all see as never before what happened as well as when, where and why it happened.
Beyond individual cases, images can generate a major, often historic, expanding visual energy that is a crucial catalyst, a push for the larger society's faster evolution and possibly even for the next revolution. When people have taken it upon themselves to record what is occurring right before their eyes, the result creates and fuels movements for change. What would otherwise be hidden and kept secret is suddenly burned into light and knowledge because of the now ubiquitous presence of cameras and cell phones. We can no longer ignore reality and we must confront it.
Despite this undeniable good, I generally I do not seek to take pictures of violent or tragic events. This does not mean I avoid these topics in my photographs and writings, or that I will not take pictures of subjects that may be controversial or difficult. I also completely support and commend photographers who voluntarily put themselves in danger to capture essential images that prevent stories from being told inaccurately.
Instead, I try to express in a different way the negatives in life and my sometimes acute awareness of conflict. I do not go looking for it, for the purpose of photographing it, and if I were confronted with it, my first impulse would be to try and provide aid. Only afterward would I try to capture the perpetrator or the victim of a horrific scene, and then only for the purpose of evidence. It would not be for coldly posting someone's injury or death on social media, as if to say to everyone: look at what I saw and took a picture of. It would not be solely to enhance my own photographic reputation.
Nevertheless, I do not avoid controversy. I have photographed protests and demonstrations. I have taken portraits of young men using drugs. I have photographed politicians. Especially, I have written a large number of explicit essays and poems that deal with life and death, race and love and sexuality, all illustrated with pictures.
But if I have a cell phone or camera with me and I see someone harming another person, stealing something or in a car accident, my first instinct is not to take out a device and start filming. Maybe I will do so if I think a picture of a criminal or a license plate would be helpful to the police and victims, but that hasn't happened yet. Instead, I would first call the police, which is what I would want someone to do if I was the victim of a crime or in a health emergency. That there are people who just watch and record an event, in the hopes of making a viral video, rather than get help for someone, is appalling to me.
However, two specific events occurred that resulted in my decision to not pursue capturing violence and tragedy. One quickly became known worldwide. The other was known by only a handful of people.
World Trade Center and Brooklyn Bridge
view from Brooklyn
1988
1: September 11, 2001
Despite having my camera with me while I witnessed the destruction of the original World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, from the street two and a half miles away, I didn't take a single picture of the Twin Towers in flames or falling, nor of the huge amount of smoke that engulfed Lower Manhattan on a day I consider the most violent I have ever seen and could never have imagined. In addition to other people around me who were recording the stunning event, I knew that newspaper photographers, network TV cameras and police helicopters were filming it. It was being broadcast vividly around the planet on television and on the Internet. I didn't think I could add anything visually to the avalanche of images. Especially, I couldn't find a reason to keep forever any photographs I took of it and revisit them in the future. Some would say that as a photojournalist, I should have captured the scene and reactions to it, even if I didn't have a purpose or a planned use of the photographs. And it is true that in some situations involving horrific events, I might have taken pictures for historical purposes.
But there was another reason that I did not take pictures. I knew that there were people dying right before my eyes. I couldn't justify photographing for myself the end of their lives. This wasn't a Hollywood production where afterward everyone gets up and goes back to their trailers. This was real life. I was aware that my destiny could easily have been to work or visit the World Trade Center on that day.
Others can disagree with me, but I wouldn't want my life's end to be captured in such a way, with the images forever defining and overwhelming my whole previous existence. I view the efforts, experiences and achievements in my life as far more telling of who I really am than the moment of my death could be. It almost seemed disrespectful to those who were killed because the people in those buildings did not volunteer to become subjects for my camera on the most excruciating and unforgettable day of all for them and their families. My pictures were not needed as evidence of what was happening to them. The whole world was already watching.
The final factor in my choice not to raise my camera was my awareness that I had been photographing the World Trade Center since I first saw it in 1973. I had many images of it, taken throughout the years. As time passed and I obtained a certain perspective, I wanted to remember it and portray it as it was before. In the following months and years, I treated the tragic end of real people's lives as if my life had ended that day. When I die, I want people to remember me with photographs that captured my younger, more positive times.
A3S.jpg)
hallway on a residence floor
Hyde Park YMCA
South Side
Chicago
August 1975
2: Thomas
The one time I photographed of a scene involving death was in the 1970s, a few years before I moved to New York City. I have rarely shown the most significant image to anyone (it's not posted on this page) and I have been protective of the subject in the picture, even decades later.
In August 1975, I took a picture of a young white man, who was almost exactly my age, a short time after he leapt from a fire escape to his death. It was and remains perhaps the most intense image of my career.
At the time, he and I both lived in a YMCA on the South Side of Chicago. I was 22 years old, working full time during the day and studying photography at Columbia College Chicago at night.
Late one cool afternoon, I heard commotion on the residence floor where my room was located, along with more than a couple dozen other rooms and a communal bathroom. At one end of the hall, a door led to the fire escape. I left my room on the fifth floor to see what was going on. Policemen and other residents of the Y were standing around and talking. I had my camera and began to take pictures. Somehow I was able to walk right up to the spot on the fire escape where my fellow resident jumped to accomplish suicide.
I looked down at the scene where he landed. Below, there were cops next to him, preparing to cover up his body. He laid face up on the ground. I could not see any injuries. His eyes were closed as though he was sleeping. The expression on his face was extraordinarily calm and peaceful.
I shot a few frames on black and white film from directly above where he fell. I don't exactly know why I took the pictures. The opportunity presented itself but it was not something I ever sought out in my photography and I have no other pictures of actual, similar tragedies in my photo files.
I didn't have a purpose for the picture and there was no appeal it had for me. Later I understood a certain truth, that I was able to relate to him because I had repeatedly dealt with depression and considered suicide when I was in my twenties. I even made an attempt at one point in my life (chronicled in my essay "Before New York"), just two years prior to the time I took the picture of the young man whose name I soon learned was Thomas.
I had survived and recovered from my own effort to end my life, but upon reflection, my sense of connection to Thomas, by age and the location where we lived as well as having contemplated my own end more than once, gave me an innate understanding of his choice and what brought him to that point.
I suddenly had a picture with great impact if I ever revealed the context, but I couldn't be a dispassionate observer who showed off the photo to others merely for the sake of proving my photographic credentials. I was never going to allow the image to be entertainment for anyone who might not understand it or take it seriously. It seemed too uncaring to offer the picture of the aftermath of Thomas's suicide as if, since I didn't really know him, it was okay. It wasn't.
Thomas had deep troubles and I knew what that felt like. He also had family members who presumably loved him. It seemed incorrect for me to think of Thomas and the photo I took of him as in any way casual and consumable by other residents and later strangers. What would be the point?
I also took several pictures of the surroundings, the police, the residents and the fire escape. But I never showed the uncensored photo of Thomas to anyone, for decades. Nevertheless, whenever I looked at the picture, it took me immediately back to the moment I pressed the shutter button, an unforgettable time that preserved a profoundly sad event.
Many years later, I did include the photo of Thomas along with the context of his story in a larger article I wrote about the YMCA where I had lived. I described the other male residents I encountered there and I included many other pictures of scenes that gave a fuller picture not only of life in the Y but also my life during that time period. Part of that experience was the death of Thomas and the image I took of him. Although the article about the Y did not focus solely on Thomas at all, his tragedy could be legitimately included in my recollections because I had strong empathy and sympathy involving him and his fateful decision to take his own life.
The photo of Thomas remains in the article about my time in the YMCA and it is also in a separate essay specifically about him. Both essays are available in different online, non-public journals I have created although I later made a decision to censor (softly blur) his face. The photo of Thomas, in any form, has never been isolated and shown without being accompanied by strong, written background information.
* * * * * *
In the end, the choices I made on that fateful day of September 11, 2001, along with the difficult aspects of the photo of Thomas, helped me realize that I did not have a need to pursue such images as part of my work. Those moments are among the reasons why I do not seek to capture violence and tragedy in my photographs.
I have written about these specific events, accompanied by photographs, in separate (non-public) online journals that contain several of my photojournalism essays. For additional information and access, contact me via email.