I&P Part 3 Exercise 3.3

Reflecting

Write a reflection in your learning log about some of the ways in which marginalised or under-represented people or groups could be badly or unhelpfully portrayed.
How might being an insider help combat this? I&P p.80

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Factories - Suffragists - Warfare - Others - Conclusion

[11Jan21] This essay looks at the way the Establishment, sometimes aided by the established media, has used photography in what it might be considered the interests of society and how this can have a disproportionately negative effect on disadvantaged members and groups within that society. How these negative uses have been practically countered and overcome, often by individuals, movements and fringe media, is considered.

The original version of this essay ran to 4,000 words and included photography in times of war, from Crimea to Afghanistan. The sections on factory conditions and the suffragists formed part of the I&P Final Assessment submission. The passages on warfare will be refined for use elsewhere.

Orphans and Factories

Box A
Huntingdon County Gaol Records, 1872.
img. source Tagg, 1988, p.86

Tagg (1988) shows that the records maintained by various arms of the state apparatus (hospitals, workhouses and, of course, the police) began to use photographic records as soon as this became technically possible: ostensibly for the good of the populace in terms of efficiency and security at the broader level, but this can work disadvantageously at an individual level. Tagg provides examples of an 1872 record from Huntingdon County Gaol (fig. A1), Wandsworth Prison from 1873 and describes one use of photography in Barnardo's children's homes, to 'make the recognition easy of boys and girls guilty of criminal acts such as theft, burglary or arson'. Barnardo's also took before (unkempt) and after ('scrubbed and clean') images of their charges, used for publicity and fundraising purposes, which Rev.d George Reynolds criticised at the time as 'not only dishonest, but has a tendency to destroy the better feelings of the children' and Reynolds went on to describe how photographers '[tear] their clothes to make them appear worse than they really are' (Tagg, p.85).

Because the technology of photography was not yet available to the general public, the poor had no means of 'fighting back ' in this way until their cause was taken up by individuals. As will be shown in other examples, the increasing availability of affordable equipment subsequently gave agency to struggling sectors of society.

Box B
Jacob Riis
Police Station Lodgers c. 1898
… and the plank on which she slept
img. source MoMA

At the turn of the century, two individuals in particular were using photography to publicise poor working and living conditions, especially for children, Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine.

Box C
Lewis Hine
Cotton Mill Girl, 1908
source Time magazine

Riis used his magnesium flash photographs of slums and slum dwellers to illustrate his articles and talks on which he described in one of those articles as the 'other half' (Marien, 2002, p.204). Bate (2016, p.61) describes Riis' work as 'sensationalist journalism' and Marien criticises his 'intrusion on the lives of the poor' and his 'lack of sympathy', nevertheless, his work did raise awareness of slum conditions, albeit with questionable motives.

Hine's work is credited as more altruistically motivated than Riis. Bate (p.62) describes it as 'more exemplary of modern campaigning social work', although Tagg (1988, p.192) suggests that Hine was rejected from working on the FSA project because of his negative representation of workers.

Suffragists

The second example to consider is in the early C20th, by which time photography was more generally accessible and so the oppressed group had more opportunity to intervene on their own behalf and to make use of the media more generally. The women's suffrage movement in the UK became particularly vociferous after the turn of C20th, leading to their initial victory in 1918 (votes for property-owning women over 30) and then in 1928 (votes for all women over 21, equality with men). While the battles for recognition were being fought, the police, acting for the State used (and misused) photography to undermine and oppose their cause.

Surveillance photographs were used by the police to identify activists and Phillips (ed., 2010, p.142) suggests this might have been 'the very first use of this type of photograph'. In 2003, research in the National Archives in Kew showed evidence of manipulation of these images. Brown (2003) reports that imprisoned activists 'refused to have their pictures taken' pulled faces and refused to keep still so that the resulting images could not be used for identification. Figs. D2 and D3 show one prisoner, Evelyn Manesta, detained for damaging paintings in Manchester Art Gallery, being held in position by a prison guard, the latter being removed from the image before it was distributed for use (fig. D4).
The suffragists were active themselves in promoting their image as reasonable people with a just cause and publicising mistreatment. Marien (2014, p.197) shows both sides of this propaganda, 'ridicul[ing] women as mannish brutes' and 'suffragists portray[ing] themselves as tender mothers and caring homemakers' in figs D5 and D6.
One of the most prolific photographers of the suffragists was Christina Broom who photographed many of the London demonstrations and other events. Fig D7 shows Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Sylvia Pankhurst and Emily Wiling Davison leading a march in Hyde Park in 1910. In 1913, Davison staged the most dramatic event of the suffragists' campaign when she was fatally injured by the King's horse running in the Epsom Derby. The incident was recorded on film, shown in cinemas around the world and stills appeared on newspaper front pages (figs. D8-D9).

Conclusion

I have sought to show:
1. That nation states, their Establishments, and organisations and media supporting those states have, almost since its invention, used photography to maintain themselves and that this can work to the detriment of some sectors within society.
2. That, from the outset, images have been manipulated for effect.
3. That when suitable cameras and film became available to the general public, this gradually gave agency to those disadvantaged groups to redress the balance of information.

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I&P Exc 3.3 References

Boothroyd, S. and Roberts, K. (2019) Identity and place. Barnsley: Open College of the Arts. [I&P]

Brown, B. (2003) Evelyn Manesta and the Resistance to "Modern" Photographic Surveillance [online]. notbored.org. Available from http://www.notbored.org/suffragettes.html [Accessed 6 February 2020].

Brugioni, D.A. (1999) PhotoFakery. Dullus, VA.: Brassey's.

Bull, S. (2010) Photography. Abingdon,Oxon: Routledge

Heiferman, M (2012) Photography changes everything. NY: Aperture.

Marien, M.W. (2002) Photography: a cultural history. (4th edn.) London: Laurence King.

Phillips, S (2010) Exposed: voyeurism, surveillance, and the camera. London: Tate Publishing.

Tagg, John (1988) The burden of representation. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

The first section above was part of the I&P FinAss Submission. The section on warfare below will be refined for another day.

Warfare

Note: this is an enormous subject and this treatment only scratches its surface, nevertheless, this exercise provides an interesting approach to the matter and the initial research might prove useful for future work.

In this context, the examples of photography used to the detriment of some individuals tend not to be portraits: their scale diminishes or renders entirely invisible the human component, reflecting, perhaps, the attitudes of those in charge who are careless of the loss of life. By contrast, the images which have been used to counteract the harm, by stressing the individual humanity of those being harmed, are often portraits. This is a case of 'the portrait against the machines of war'.

Aerial reconnaissance

Phillips (ed., 2010, p.141) notes the development of surveillance photography for military intelligence purposes, starting with observation balloons, then aerial reconnaissance in WW1 (fig. E1) and by WW2 this had been developed to be 'so efficient and widespread that the beaches of Normandy were photographed only hours before D-Day'. The essay in Phillips traces this development through to the essential evidence it provided during the Cuban Missile Crisis, then the role of aircraft being subsequently taken over by satellite technology. While the use of photography in international conflicts may sometimes be to societies' benefit, not all wars are 'good' or popular and, of course, it is used by both 'sides'. Individual and journalistic photography has certainly played roles in subverting military efforts and alerting the public to the detail of wars .

C19th

Some of the earliest war photographs were taken at Crimea by Roger Fenton (figs. E4, E5) † who attended the conflict with a horse-drawn darkroom, an indication of the demands of the technology available at the time. Controversy has arisen relatively recently over the authenticity of Fenton's Valley of the Shadow of Death(Public Domain Review , n.d.) as there are two versions of the photograph, with differently arranged cannonballs and the location is not where the Charge of the Light Brigade took place.

In the following decade, in the American Civil War, Alexander Gardner, Mathew Brady and Timothy O'Sullivan (fig. E5) were active. O'Sullivan's The Harvest of Death (fig. E6) was one of the most famous images of that conflict and emphasised to those who saw it at the time the brutal nature of the war, but it is also subject to accusations of manipulation, through the rearrangement of bodies for dramatic effect (Meltzer, 2012). Gardner and Brady have also been accused of routinely choreographing their photographs (Military History Now, 2015).

† Whenever Fenton is considered, at is also worth mentioning two pieces derived from his Valley of the Shadow of Death, Paul Seawright's, Afghanistan, 2002 and Terry Towery's View of Crimean Battle Scene, 2006.

First World War

As was seen with the Suffragists, it was only when photographic equipment became more affordable and more portable that the actual participants gained the opportunity to photograph and publicise their own circumstances. Before WW1, Kodak released the Vest Pocket Camera or VPK (fig. F1) that became popular with the troops: when Kodak advertised it as 'The Soldiers' Kodak', UK sales rose from 5,500 in 1914 to 28,000 in 1915 (Harding, 2014) .

Cooksey (2017) describes how cameras such as the VPK transformed the nature, availability and appeal of photography, with the result that many of those serving in WW1, particularly officers, were already experienced with their use when they joined up. In addition to this, newspapers offered substantial payments for published photographs (CITE). Although the Defence of the Realm Act was passed at the beginning of the war, and newspaper reporters sent home after negative reports were published, 'the government relented by allowing five 'accredited reporters' access to the front', however their stories were severely censored (Greenslade, 2014).
No thought, it would seem, was given at first to personal photography, but in December 1914 a General Routine Order (GRO) was issued, instructing,

The taking of photographs is not permitted and the sending of films through the post is prohibited, Any officers or soldiers (or other persons subject to military law) found in possession of a camera will be placed in arrest, and the case reported to the General Headquarters as to disposal Cooksey, pp. 40-41

As with reporting, photography was allowed under strictly enforced censorship and Ernest Brooks (fig. F2) was the first official photographer to be appointed. The New York Times reports that,

Brooks had no reservations about recreating scenes he had witnessed earlier or even posing photographs outright. After being exposed by other journalists for faking photographs, he would not stage photographs again. Allen, 2014

Despite the restrictions, the troops continued to take personal photographs and many survive. Cooksey provides some notable examples, of the 9th Battalion, the Rifle Brigade, September 1915 (fig. F3), 1/18th Battalion, London Regiment going 'over the top' (fig. F4), an execution (probably of a spy) (fig. F5). Incidentally, Christina Broom, who we met photographing suffragists had by now became the self-styled 'Official Photographer to the Guards' and is shown in fig. F6 displaying her products at the Women's War Work Exhibition, Prince's Skating Rink, Knightsbridge, London, May 1916.

Although, as stated, most of the material explored here relates to the UK and US, an exhibition that includes French WW1 photography, Memorial '14-18', has (or would have sans Covid) opened at Notre Dame de Lorette, the French military cemetery as this being written. Fig. F7, from 1916, shows French troops opening newly-delivered mail.

In WW1, then, the military authorities used aerial reconnaissance for intelligence purposes, appointed official photographers to take carefully controlled photographs and sought to suppress personal photographs.

Second World War

The principal persecuted minority during WW2 was, of course, the Jewish community throughout Europe, although other groups were interred and killed by the Nazi authorities, as shown by a guide to identification badges (fig. G1) that I photographed at Dachau, the camp located surprisingly (perhaps naively on my part) in a suburb of Munich. Prisoners were colour-coded as : red - political; green - criminal; blue - foreign; purple - Jehovah's Witnesses; pink - homosexual; black - antisocial (Sander's 'outsiders'); brown - Romany: all these had coloured inverted triangles. Jews had upright yellow triangles so that they could be identified in two categories when appropriate (Historyplace.com).

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Within Germany, Marien (2002, p. 299) notes, 'Goebbels determined that there should be no independent media in Germany. Journalists, photographers, writers, film and radio producers, publishers, printers, painters, and poets were conscripted into the Propaganda Division of the army.'

While Nazi propaganda imagery celebrating the physical qualities of its Aryan ideals were commonplace, notably in Riefenstahl's work (fig. G2), representations of the minorities were often graphical caricatures rather than photographs because the traits they sought to display were imaginary (fig. G3). The scope for depicting and publicising Nazi activities was limited by suppression, forcing opponents to rely on creative depictions such of collage, at which John Heartfield excelled (fig. G4). The Jews and other minorities lacked the opportunity to fight back with photographs but as the war came to and end, press photographers documented the results of the Holocaust that was instrumental in securing convictions at the Nuremberg Trials, albeit this was of no use the the 8 million victims and little consolation to the survivors.

While the war was being fought, as far as the Allies were concerned, while censorship remained in place as regards negative news, reporting restrictions were relatively relaxed, especially towards the end, compared to those for WW1 and there are numerous well known examples of images showing troops in action, for example Capa's from the D-Day landings (fig. G6) and Joe Rosenthal Flag Raising (fig. G7) (there are no suggestions of inauthenticity regarding Capa's D-Day, but there are over Rosenthal's Flag Raising).

Vietnam and after

US involvement in the Vietnam War began in the 1950s but escalated in 1961 under Kennedy and lasted until 1973. In this case, a combination of technical advances and relative press freedom made it the most widely photographed conflict and the most publicised and this resulted in a profound effect on the American public in turning opinions against US involvement. As touched on in C&N Part 1, Nick Ut's image of the effect of a napalm strike on a Vietnam village and Eddie Adams' of a street execution remain two of the most shocking photographs ever taken and both reverberated around the world. Brugioni in PhotoFakery (1999) comments that General William C. Westmoreland stated of Ut's picture that the naked girl had been burned on a cooking fire and that 'had she been hit by napalm she would not have survived': the General was seemingly oblivious to the fact that the callousness of this conclusion, also a tacit admission that the US military napalmed villages made matters considerably worse.

In order to avoid such exposure in subsequent conflicts, the US has used the practice of 'embedding' journalists and photographers within military units, thus gaining some control over where they go, what they see, and what they can send to their parent media. Bull (2010, p.116) also notes 'a tendency to self-censor horrific images of death and suffering' although this is not always applied to 'foreign bodies … in distant countries'. This approach has been used in both Gulf War (1990-91), the Iran War (2003-2011) and in Afghanistan (1999-2020). Another trend in recent times is the use of unmanned and automated armaments such as missiles and drones which transmit video footage of their strikes, often shown in news broadcasts and shown as stills in other media.

While the freedom of the working press has been curtailed, new technologies, namely digital imaging, mobile telephones and social media have allowed the rise of the citizen journalist in all spheres of endeavour and all parts of the world, including conflicts. perhaps the prime recent example is the Arab Spring of 2011 - details.
This technology can also have other effects, such as the revelations concerning prisoner treatment in Abu Ghraib prison camp.

Other

Some additional lines that might be worth looking at:

Representation of the gay community before and after legalisation; during and after AIDS;  Mapplethorpe and Hujar - revelatory shows and funding controversy.

Poverty Porn - Medium.com Why Poverty Porn Needs to Stop.

Conclusion

I have sought to show:
1. That nation states, their Establishments, the status quo, plus plus organisations and media supporting those states have, almost since its invention, used photography to maintain themselves and that this can work to the detriment of some sectors within society.
2. That, from the outset, images have been manipulated for effect.
3. That when suitable cameras and film became available to the general public, this gradually gave agency to those disadvantaged groups to redress the balance of information.

I&P Exc 3.3 References

Allen, C. (2014) Photographers on the Front Lines of the Great War [online]. nytimes.com. Available from https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/photos-world-war-i-images-museums-battle-great-war/ [Accessed 10 February 2020].

Boothroyd, S. and Roberts, K. (2019) Identity and place. Barnsley: Open College of the Arts. [I&P]

Brown, B. (2003) Evelyn Manesta and the Resistance to "Modern" Photographic Surveillance [online]. notbored.org. Available from http://www.notbored.org/suffragettes.html [Accessed 6 February 2020].

Brugioni, D.A. (1999) PhotoFakery. Dullus, VA.: Brassey's.

Bull, S. (2010) Photography. Abingdon,Oxon: Routledge

Cooksey, J. (2017) VPK: The Vest Pocket Kodak and the First World War. Lewes: Ammonite Press.

Greenslade, R. (2014) First world war: how state and press kept truth off the front page [online]. theguardian.com. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jul/27/first-world-war-state-press-reporting [Accessed 10 February 2020].

Harding, C. (2014) THE VEST POCKET KODAK WAS THE SOLDIER'S CAMERA [online]. scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk. Available from https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/the-vest-pocket-kodak-was-the-soldiers-camera/ [Accessed 8 February 2020].

Heiferman, M (2012) Photography changes everything. NY: Aperture.

Historyplace.com (n.d.) Holocaust Timeline [online]. historyplace.com. Available from http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-dach-early.htm [Accessed 12 February 2020].

Marien, M.W. (2002) Photography: a cultural history. (4th edn.) London: Laurence King.

Meltzer, S (2012) How the American West was won with the help of photographer Timothy O'Sullivan [online]. website. Available from https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2012/11/14/how-the-american-west-was-won-with-the-help-of-photographer-timothy-osulliv [Accessed 8 February 2020].

Military History Now (2015) Famous Fakes – 10 Celebrated Wartime Photos That Were Staged, Altered or Fabricated [online]. militaryhistorynow.com. Available from https://militaryhistorynow.com/2015/09/25/famous-fakes-10-celebrated-wartime-photos-that-were-staged-edited-or-fabricated/ [Accessed 8 February 2020].

Phillips, S (2010) Exposed: voyeurism, surveillance, and the camera. London: Tate Publishing.

Public Domain Review (n.d.) Of Chickens, Eggs, and Cannonballs: Roger Fenton's Valley of the Shadow of Death (1855) [online]. publicdomainreview.org. Available from https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/roger-fenton-valley-of-the-shadow-of-death [Accessed 7 February 2020].

Tagg, John (1988) The burden of representation. Basingstoke: Macmillan.