Journal Entry #1

March 13, 2001

As I begin this project I find myself questioning my motivations. My admiration for individual photojournalists is sincere, but at the same time I often think about how photographs have been used since the beginning of the medium to manipulate public opinion. Photographs have the look of reality and yet are so subjectively created and can be interpreted so differently. I wonder where the truth is in a photograph, is it in the intentions of the photographer, in the context in which the photo is presented, in the individual mind of the viewer?

 

My own experiences in photojournalism have also contributed to this questioning. As a stringer (a freelance photographer paid per photo rather than by salary) for Agence France Presse (AFP) in Amman, Jordan, I had the opportunity to see firsthand how working for a news agency dictates the kinds of photos one can make. Learning how to be a stringer entails learning what news photos need to look like, learning the visual conventions that make them look realistic. I don't mean that news photos necessarily lie, just that they are as consciously constructed as a written text. We need to be able to look at photographs critically just as we should be critical consumers of the written word - we certainly don't believe everything we read, so we also have to know how to carefully "read" photographs.