Category Mistake at World Press Photo Awards ~ Top Prize Given Not for Photojournalism But for Propaganda

'This could become one of those pictures - and we have maybe just ten in our lifetime - where if somebody says "you know, that picture of a girl...", you know exactly which one they're talking about.' ~ Jury chair David Burnett

'It's an incredibly strong image. It sends out an enormously powerful message to the world, about the 50% of the population that are women, so many of whom still live in miserable conditions, suffering violence. It is strong because the woman looks so dignified, iconic.' ~ Juror Ruth Eichhorn

'It's a terrific picture, a different picture, a frightening picture. It's so much about not just this particular woman, but the state of women in the world.'~ Juror Vince Aletti

'Part of what the World Press Photo contest does is to take pictures to a wider audience, an audience that is going to ask why? And this photo makes people ask "What on earth...?" "What's going on...?" "What has happened...?" For me, this was the picture that asked the most important questions.'~ Juror Aidan Sullivan

The jury decision is in and this picture by Jodi Bieber won the main prize - the World Press Photo of the Year, 2010 - at the World Press Photo awards. You can find the jury member's rationalizations I have lifted above here. The category mistake is that, perhaps despite the photographer's intention*, this image was an integral part of a TIME Magazine propaganda piece last summer. I have defended that claim here repeatedly and will not reiterate my view. What I find especially disturbing here is that the jurors are aiding and abetting the propaganda campaign by de-contextualizing Bieber's photo, presenting it as an iconic representation of the plight of women across the globe. In fact, it was deployed to much different ends, namely in an attempt to shore up support for a brutal decade old war. None of the jurors quoted on the World Press Photo page so much as mention the war or its costs. Shame.

Among the observations that animate my preoccupation with photography is this one from David Levi Strauss: "The first question must always be: Who is using this photograph, and to what end?" That is a question the World Press Photo jury either neglected to ask or asked and then set aside. I am unsure which possibility is worse.
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* Here I am being generous. On the front page Bieber's web site this evening you will find not the simple image but the TIME cover.

A Question Prompted by The World Press Photo Awards

A man throwing the body of a dead child at the morgue of the
general hospital, Port-au-Prince, Jan. 15, 2010.
(AP Photo/Olivier Laban-Mattei/AFP)

I came across this photograph at "In Focus" over at The Atlantic where it was part of this post showing some of the 2011 World Press Photo winners in various categories. I generally take a pretty permissive stance on what is a justifiable subject for photography - whether art or documentary or photojournalism. There are lots of things that are a waste of time, or simply not to my taste, but so what. I am not too patient with the squeamish.

There are a lot of things about the world that it is hard to imagine. And photography is, as philosopher Patrick Maynard points out, a technology that usefully amplifies our capacity to imagine. Generally, I think this is a necessary task. And it identifies the intersection of politics and photography understood (regardless of genre) as an art. This image takes me right up to - maybe across - the bounds of possibility. I find it excruciating. And, no, I cannot imagine being this child's sibling or parent or neighbor. And I cannot imagine, either, being the worker at the morgue.

On the other hand, this is the reality of an epidemic. I have just shown my undergraduate students films on James Nachtwey and Sebastião Salgado, both of whom photographed the mass deaths from cholera in the refugee camps housing Hutus who had fled following the genocide in Rwanda. Their images depict earth moving equipment being used to scoop up piles of corpses and dumping them in mass graves. Gruesome, but important in keeping the epidemic from getting worse. This photograph nevertheless seems worse - meaning more brutal - to me.

So, my question is whether this image crosses the line. I am undecided. It seems as though various editors are undecided too. You will not find it reproduced among the images in the report of the WPF awards at The Guardian [1] or the BBC [2]; but it is included without comment in the reports at The National Geographic [3] and The New York Times [4]. At The Atlantic you have to click through this message - Warning: This image may contain graphic or objectionable content. Click to view image - before viewing the image.

WORLD PRESS PHOTO 2009

Photograph © AP Photo/Pietro Masturzo.

This image by Italian photographer Pietro Masturzo was selected as the World Press Photo of the year 2009. It depicts a women shouting on a rooftop in protest at the presidential election results in Tehran, Iran, June 24, 2009. You can find the winners in various other categories here.