I've been a subscriber of a Youtube Channel, RSA.org. It's an NGO that has talks and NGO stuff... what I really find interesting however, is what they do with Cognitive Media, a media company based in the United Kingdom.
What Cognitive Media does, is that it takes the talks and essentially animates it. They have ten minute clips of a lecture and draw an entire story that is connected to the talk. It is truly quiet amazing as I've found it allows listeners to not only be engaged visually, but mentally too!
There is so much I have learned from those 10 minute videos that I might have never learned in college or school. You don't know the lecturer, but all of them are passionate about their topic which sends the message even more effectively, than and the BRILLIANT art that is done.
This is one talk that I found rather interesting as a photography. A line that is often thrown at photographs of sadness and despair, of poverty and starvation is the seeming lack of empathy that the photographer seems to have.
To that, I feel that it is the empathy that the photographer has with those subjects that allows them to take such marvelous photos. You will never find a photographer who has not been moved by a subject they have photographed. They might not run around screaming it, but it touches them. It is what makes them take their job even more seriously. They are trying to allow you to empathize through space and time with that starving child, to empathize and help.
What do you do on the other hand? You dodge the question, you try and look at it from a perspective it wasn't supposed to be seen in, all to protect yourself from the chilling fact that you don't feel for the starving child in the photo, you'd much rather ignore them. They are at the end of a day, a face in a photo. Photographers who publish such photos on the other hand, have names, email addresses, fan pages, making your quest to criticize them much much easier.
The next time you see an photograph that depicts strong emotions; desperation, starvation, sadness, joy, happiness, or simply, indifference. Empathize! Try and see, try and feel for the person on the other side. You don't have to do it with a time limit, you don't have to do it with a bunch of friends. It's a personal connection you are forging. If you can do it with a photograph, you will be able to do it with a character in a movie, a person in a book and finally, you will be able to empathize with the people you know. With the people that surround you, and the people that have less than you.
Once you have done all of that, then try and criticize that photographer for taking that photograph.
What Cognitive Media does, is that it takes the talks and essentially animates it. They have ten minute clips of a lecture and draw an entire story that is connected to the talk. It is truly quiet amazing as I've found it allows listeners to not only be engaged visually, but mentally too!
There is so much I have learned from those 10 minute videos that I might have never learned in college or school. You don't know the lecturer, but all of them are passionate about their topic which sends the message even more effectively, than and the BRILLIANT art that is done.
This is one talk that I found rather interesting as a photography. A line that is often thrown at photographs of sadness and despair, of poverty and starvation is the seeming lack of empathy that the photographer seems to have.
To that, I feel that it is the empathy that the photographer has with those subjects that allows them to take such marvelous photos. You will never find a photographer who has not been moved by a subject they have photographed. They might not run around screaming it, but it touches them. It is what makes them take their job even more seriously. They are trying to allow you to empathize through space and time with that starving child, to empathize and help.
What do you do on the other hand? You dodge the question, you try and look at it from a perspective it wasn't supposed to be seen in, all to protect yourself from the chilling fact that you don't feel for the starving child in the photo, you'd much rather ignore them. They are at the end of a day, a face in a photo. Photographers who publish such photos on the other hand, have names, email addresses, fan pages, making your quest to criticize them much much easier.
The next time you see an photograph that depicts strong emotions; desperation, starvation, sadness, joy, happiness, or simply, indifference. Empathize! Try and see, try and feel for the person on the other side. You don't have to do it with a time limit, you don't have to do it with a bunch of friends. It's a personal connection you are forging. If you can do it with a photograph, you will be able to do it with a character in a movie, a person in a book and finally, you will be able to empathize with the people you know. With the people that surround you, and the people that have less than you.
Once you have done all of that, then try and criticize that photographer for taking that photograph.
Dear Virpratap,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you from the perspective that we the audience, readers, listeners, viewers glimpse the suffering and/or emotion, and rarely feel it or act upon it.
Those of us that do act on it, are better people amongst us, but for the majority, we have a small voice telling us to do something, but the life sans suffering is so much easier to deal with.
I am not certain I would agree with you on the empathy aspect of the photographer, because what we have seen, or been made to see is the callousness, the aggression, the "at any cost" scramble to take pictures. Putting themselves or anyone else at risk.
Perhaps this is the majority and there are still some sensitive people out there who look down the lens and feel the suffering from all their senses. But is that not a minority - a diminishing minority ?
Do they not De-sensitise like all other people do in any extreme situation ?
But as long as you stay true and keep your emotional quotient in balance and remain sensitive and have empathy, this discussion has my thumbs up.
Tchiao
Arjun