The (In)Visible Crisis

THE (IN)VISIBLE CRISIS

Blurring the boundaries between aesthetic and journalistic photography in the portrayal of Madrid

Coral Pereda Serras Final Degree Project IE University Supervisor: Rafael Trobat Academic Year: 2012-2013

INDEX Prologue

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1. Introduction

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2. Critical Analysis of the Bibliography

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2.1. Susan Sontag 2.2. Roland Barthes and Joan Fontcuberta 2.3. Georges Didi-Huberman 2.4. Conclusion: World Press Photo 2013

3. Photographical Study 3.1. On Reading Demonstration Banners

3.2. Aesthetic Stories 3.3. Staged Realities 3.4. The Cynicism of Immunity 3.5. The Horror of Art

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4. Creative Work

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5. Conclusion

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6. Bibliography

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7. Acknolewdgements

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PROLOGUE This project was always intended to reflect what I have learned for the past years while still holding a personal meaning. By doing so I would have the motivation to keep fighting for it as hard as I could. That is how my initial ideacame from an extra-academic context.

I was on holidays with my family in Athens and one late night after reviewing everything that we had visited that day, I realised how fascinated I was by the city, its streets, its buildings and its people. Athens had come across to me as astonishingly beautiful but that simple thought saddened me. Unfortunately, these days when you hear the words Athens or Greece you most likely will picture scenes of violence, demonstrations, uneasiness and crisis. That puzzled me because I had just been there, I was there and that was not what I had seen with my naked eye. What I saw was beautiful and that concept clashed with what I had been told by the media for at least the past year. I knew there was more to the city than what had been shown through photographs.

I knew because I had just seen it but I also knew that my way of seeing was not everyone else’s. Was there a way to make others see that there was more to Athens than what we were inclined to believe lately? If there was could I convey that through my own pictures of my city? My initial concerns revolved around the risks that such a project could entail such as sounding naive, cold-hearted or even oblivious. I wondered whether simple awareness of the situation could relieve me of the burden of sounding ignorant. I then decided it was worth to further investigate these issues by applying them to my hometown Madrid.

At that stage I was convinced I knew what I wanted to demonstrate through my project. Photojournalism had its limitations. I was outraged by how the images shown by the media were decontextuallizing what (I believed) was really happening. Those pictures were not those cities in their entirety. There was more behind them. Therefore I firstly framed the project as an investigation of in how far photojournalism had been failing to portray a city in a crisis situation. Its ultimate goal would be to provide an alternative that challenged the approaches that had been taken so far. Then as the project progressed I started to question what I had previously assumed. The main goal of the project stayed the same but the way I framed the issue was constantly changing. I kept being faced with evidence showing that there was not a certain type of photography that was more truthful than the other, that the aesthetic component of a picture should not interfere with the story you were telling but rather endorse it. At the same time, in certain circumstances it stopped making sense to exclusively focus on the aesthetics of the picture. In that debate that questioned the very essence of photography, there were no black or white areas but only different tonalities of grey. What I had immediately identified as photojournalism’s had to be perceived rather as different functionalities. Photography no matter what its initially intended function might be is not absolute. Then I realised that the only way to raise these issues through pictures was to make the audiences reflect upon the contradictions of photography while making them see that an infinite number of portrayals of Madrid could coexist.

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The (In)visible Crisis

1. INTRODUCTION

This project was first thought out to be a way of examining the ways in which photography has been promoting a negative image of Madrid in relationship to the crisis. Therefore there had to be an alternative representation that if not more universal, it could offer a more whole or complete perspective. Photojournalism so far had been going for what would be considered to be newsworthy. I therefore sought out to challenge those elements that constituted the newsworthiness of the crisis by focusing on the component of photography that had always caught my attention on a first basis aesthetics. Such an investigation requires an analysis of the theory of photographical practice, its functions and the uses given by the audiences and the own photographers. Thus this project first analyzes the relationship between documentary and pictorial photography and how their representation of reality may vary by making reference to theorists and artists such as Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, Joan Fontcuberta and Georges Didi-Hubermann. These readings narrowed down the premise of the study to the following: While all forms of photography mislead, it is a medium that is contradictory in its essence.

Therefore this project underlines mainly creatively speaking

the paradoxes of photography’s representation of reality in order to contribute to the belief that there is no single and universal photographical practice that can offer an objectively balanced portrayal of a situation or city. Once the theoretical bases have been established, the main five arguments underlined in the second section will be applied to my experience photographing Madrid. Lastly after reaching the conclusion that sticking to strict labels of what photography should be limits its power, the creative work will be presented. This part of the project consists of 78 photographs taken throughout four months. The images are often classified in pairs and be gin by showing exclusively urban landscapes that often depict Madrid landmarks. Then little by little they start shifting to more daily life situations of people going by with their relative routines. Small elements that make reference to the crisis start gradually popping up in the photographs while still apparently leaving the walkers by unaffected. Then the images become more explicit and visually speaking more violent as the protests and demonstrations are covered. The end of the work gradually moves back into straight lines, abstraction and finally the most universal moments.

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The (In)visible Crisis

2. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BIBLIOGRAPHY While this project is exclusively a creative one, bibliographical material has been used in order to provide a clear theoretical framework to be applied to the fieldwork. The main works of reference used for this project are the following: On Photography (1977) And Regarding the Pain of Others (2003)

by Susan Sontag, Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes (1980), Images In Spite of All by George Didi-Huberman (2003) and El Beso de Judas by Joan Fontcuberta (1997). These books all discuss the main debates associated with what photography is, what it represents, the function it serves and its limitations. While this section does not aim to thoroughly contrast the different views of each author, it picks out the most relevant arguments that will be later applied to my experience photographing the events. These parts will be put together in order to show how different portrayals of the same place can coexist and make the viewers reflect upon how photography can be contradictory.

2.1. Susan Sontag On Photography (1977) is one of the most influential pieces of work analyzing photographical theory. Susan Sontag examines the relationship between photography and its representation of reality while making reference to key players in the history of photography. Firstly, she starts her argument by discussing the way in which photography serves as a tool to record experience and how in that same function lays its limitation. She thus introduces the debate of whether pho-

tography is a fabrication or reproduction of reality. She argues “A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it - by limiting experience to a search by the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir” (9). The picture taking process can be thus considered to be a way of reinforcing experience while at the same time denying it. While photography records what is happening in front of our eyes, one can also lose touch with the scene if looking for the most photogenic point of view. By doing so, it is implied that the search for perfect composition and aesthetics can reduce the value of what we understand as reality.

Thus “the camera’s ability to transform reality into something beautiful derives from its relative weakness as a means of conveying truth” (Sontag 111). That statement can be easily misunderstood and interpreted in the following way: what is beautiful is less true than what is not. While there is a clear tendency among image consumers to believe so, the relationship between beauty and truth is more complex than that and Sontag takes that into consideration. If someone takes a beautifully framed picture of a building, it does not imply that the fact that the object was there at that point in time and space is false. It might however imply that since the photographical frame aestheticizes, what the final photograph shows is something that might not be appreciated with the naked eye. In order words, photography renders beautiful something that might not be perceived to be so otherwise. Then assuming that what the naked eye sees is what is closest to truth,

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aesthetically pleasing photographs are less true than others because they show something different that what we can see as individual viewers. Yet in spite of or because of the gap between what the human eye sees and what a photograph sees, photographs have become our way contemporary way of defining reality. “Instead of just recording reality, photographs have become the norm for the way things appear to us, thereby changing the very idea of reality, and of realism” (Sontag, On Photography 86) Furthermore Susan Sontag argues that photography is a surreal medium. It fragments reality, decontextualizes it and reduces it to one single frame. It is a trait of modern society to reproduce reality, as a means to express discontent but that in itself is a surreal reaction because we have the need to look at reality through a static object in order to make sense of it.

The process of understanding what is happening around us through photographic news is surreal and audiences should be more aware of that.

Since photography transforms reality, in the field of photojournalism it is considered that taking a picture that focuses aesthetics is unethical. The goal of art is to transform reality but that shouldn’t be the one of photography. Thus documentary photography should not aim to art (Sontag, Regarding The Pain Of Others) . Sontag thus believes that the popular idea that the two powers of photography are incompatible is exaggerated. “One finds that there is beauty or at least inter-

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est in everything, seen with an acute enough eye. […] The other treats everything as the object of some present or future use, as matter for estimates, decisions and predictions.

According to one attitude, there is nothing that should not be seen; according to the other, there is nothing that should not be recorded” (Sontag, On Photography 176). In her view the instrumental and aesthetic functions of photography contradict each other and yet coexist which makes it sometimes hard to draw distinctions between both practices. One must thus not dismiss one in favor of the other without thinking twice about it. They are both complementary and one is not necessarily more valid than the other. Photography prepares us for life’s contradictions and if not as much as normalizes them, it exposes us to them more regularly.

In her later work Regarding The Pain of Others (2003), Susan Sontag refines some of her prior arguments. She talks about the way in which certain war images affect the viewer and how they understand them. Her main concerns revolve around the idea of authenticity of a photograph, the role of the photographer as a subjective individual and the degree of empathy of a viewer with the scene observed.

In her most recent work, the author largely discusses the way viewers perceive and are affected by the suffering of the subjects in pictures. She discusses the feelings of guilt, responsibility, frustration and helplessness that the public experiences.

Because of that, people might decide not to look at those pic-

The (In)visible Crisis

tures especially if there is nothing that could be done about the victims depicted. Guilt derives from powerlessness since when one is faced with a war photograph not only empathizes with the suffering subject but also realizes the state of ignorance in which they found themselves in before they were exposed to the picture. However fact that viewers cannot do anything about a certain conflict makes them all more anguished and thus involved. “It is felt that there is something morally wrong with the abstract of reality offered by photography [...] The standing back from the aggressiveness of the world which frees us for observation and for elective attention. But this is only to describe the function of the mind itself. There is nothing wrong with standing back and thinking” (Sontag, Regarding The Pain Of Others 106). In those situations of powerlessness, it is okay to just be aware of the situation in other places but most importantly it is key not forget about them. This explains why the thought of an aesthetic war photograph seems so unbearable. It is as if looking at a beautiful picture could rid the audiences of the responsibility to empathize for the suffering subjects. If one would have witnessed with their own eyes that violent situation in question then one might not even had the choice to whether consider that scenery beautiful or not. The photograph though makes the public doubt and think twice because a brutal landscape of people suffering could never be considered beautiful and yet there is a small detail in the picture that attracts their attention visually speaking.

When the photographer is on the field, he must be aware

of the separation between him and his subjects. At the same time, he might feel guilty and glad that that physical and non-physical distance exists. The same occurs with the viewer of an image. This is what makes the picture-taking process inherently subjective. With that argument, Sontag adds another contradiction about the essence of photography to the debate of art versus document. While photography has been always been considered the most objective evidence of a certain event happening, the resulting image will always have a point of view linked to the eye of the photographer.

In his essay Understanding A Photograph, John Berger argues that photography is inherently about a choice the photographer makes. The photographer chooses what to frame, what to include and what to leave out and also at which precise instant the shutter of the camera should be closed. Thus a photograph “by its nature refers to what is not seen”(Berger). By choosing what not to include in a frame, the photographer is inevitably making the viewers wonder what there is beyond the four borders of the image. This again reinforces the paradoxical nature of the medium. While the public can know (or think he knows) what is happening in front of their eyes, what can be found beyond that frame is left to his imagination. Theoretically speaking the author of the image is the one to know because there is no doubt of the fact that he had been there. However, he has taken the personal choice of remembering that scene in particular at that time and not the one to be found two meters to the left twenty seconds later.

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In On Photography Susan Sontag argues that reality in contemporary society is defined by images, which then become a spectacle. Then after our regular exposure to photographs, the impact they have is eroded. However, in her 2003 Regarding The Pain Of Others she second-guesses that argument by arguing that the issue is more complex than that. There is no real evidence showing that viewers become immune to atrocities. Thus multiple exposures to photographs do not erode reality itself but rather the way we perceive it. In addition she discusses that the idea of the transformation of reality into a spectacle is wrongly universalized. Not everyone has the privilege of choosing whether to be a spectator or not when faced with certain pictures. Thus assuming that violent photographs have a limited impact on audiences leads to a cynical response from viewers who are too aware of the distance between them and the scene they are second-handedly witnessing.

2.2. Roland Barthes and Joan Foncuberta In 1980 Roland Barthes published another important work of reference in the field of photographical theory: Camera Lucida. His reflections analyze what is about a photograph that catches the attention of viewers and moves them. Barthes defines to elements of the picture that help support his investigation. The studium is the part in a photograph that the public can recognize thanks to its culture and knowledge. It is the “a field, which I perceive quite familiarly as a conse-

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quence of my knowledge, my culture” (Barthes 26). There is however a small detail that catches the eye of the viewer for whatever personal reason: the punctum. “It is this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like and arrow, and pierces me” (Barthes 26). The punctum travels beyond the frame of the photograph and ensures that the memory of it endures. According to the author, a photograph is its referent which becomes its primary function. Since he establishes that photography does transform reality from the very beginning, how well photography represents reality is not as relevant to him as its power of authentication. “I call “photographic referent” not the optionally real thing to which an image or a sign refers but the necessarily real thing which has been placed before the lens, without which there would be no photography” (Barthes 76). Therefore to him, the role of a photograph is to serve as evidence that a certain object was there at a certain point in time. There is no possible doubt that that object in question was real. However, the date in which the book was published must be considered at all times and consequently the fact that it refers solely to analogue photography. With the development of digital photography and editing software, the universality of Barthes’ argument must be put into question.

The Spanish photographer Joan Fontcuberta is an absolute supporter of the idea that photography lies by definition.

Thus according to him whether we are talk about digital or analogue photography does not make a difference. In his

The (In)visible Crisis

1997 book, El Beso de Judas he argues that they can both equally misleading even without the intervention of technology: “Every photograph is a work of fiction that is presented as true” (Fontcuberta). On the subject of a photograph being mainly a form of evidence to which Barthes referred to, he argues that there lies one of the greatest paradoxes of photography. The fact that the photosensitive film of an analogue camera is the medium to record evidence in its purest form does not necessarily entail that the resulting photograph will be too. The author explains that convention is too deep-rooted in the current perception of photography.

Certain factors that come into play while the picture is taken such as our knowledge or our cultural background clearly diminish the evidential power of photography. In contrast to Barthes who acknowledges the existence of those factors but does not think they alter the referential essence of a photograph, Fontcuberta believes that its is more than a medium due to its extraordinary values in form and content. Photography not only transforms reality but reinvents it. What is believed to be realism in its purest form is also subjective. In order to illustrate that argument, he mentions how photographer George Davison used a pinhole camera in his most famous work of the late 1890s in order to maintain the blurred effect at the edges of the photograph. Davison argued that that was the only way to be faithful to the human eye since cameras were too precise and did not respect our visibility. Fontcuberta uses that case to show that even by thriving for the most realistic photograph, external elements

such as our taste, judgement or considerations will affect our understanding of realism and thus the way we reflect it in our photographs.

While Sontag does not explicitly draw a relationship between photography’s subjective and its function as art or as a document, Fontcuberta argues that these two are tightly interlinked. First, he distinguishes between “direct photography” and “manipulated photography” (ch. 6). The first it is commonly believed to be about spontaneity and unpredictability.

The latter was often about integrating other disciplines such as painting or drawing and thus control and planning. That explains why “manipulated photography” is often associated with aesthetics and “direct photography” with documenting.

He however questions the ambiguity of that terminology that does not allow for strict categorization. In fact, all the steps leading to the actual action of taking a photograph (i.e. focusing, framing, selecting the instant the shutter is to be opened and then closed again) are a manipulation. Therefore all creation is a manipulation (ch. 6) which again links back to the idea of photography equating aestheticization. It must be questioned though whether he means that all photography is art.

Both Sontag and Barthes acknowledge the idea that photography aestheticizes. However, that does not prevent them from acknowledging that there are different uses to be given to it.

Joan Fontcuberta obliterates completely the field of photojour-

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nalism by providing the example of the Libération newspaper.

During the Iran-Irak war Serge Daney and Chrisitan Caujolle published two pictures that were almost identical one from the battle of Verdun during the first World War and one from that same war. From that the author argues “We don’t need breaking news photojournalism; there is enough with graphic stereotypes that correspond to an index of new models” (ch.6). By making that statement, Joan Fontcuberta criticizes the media’s ambition and loss of perspective when it comes not only to individuality of victims but of pictures. In a sense, he seconds the position taken by Susan Sontag in On Photography by stating that viewers have become so used to images of war that are unable to tell the difference between a conflict and the other.

It seems that his criticism to photojournalism rather stems from the use that the media have given to photograph instead of the essence of photojournalism in itself. Afterall to him photojournalism is only photography and photography is a manipulation (and thus an art). Photography should not be trusted not only because it is the nature of photography to lie but also because of the use that the media give to it. The controversy surrounding the ultimate function of photography is that truth is incompatible with manipulation and thus a photograph could never reveal the truth. In addition to subjective act of photography, one must also consider the fact that a social photograph will be influenced by the photographer’s political and cultural beliefs. Therefore must always acknowledge the propagandistic nature of photography.

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2.3. Georges Didi-Huberman Joan Foncuberta’s arguments seem completely out of context when George’s Didi-Huberman’s are considered. The French author published in 2003 a collection of essays about four photographs of the Auschwitz extermination camp exhibited in Paris in 2001. Those pictures were taken by members of the Sonderkommando, the group of officers formed by other camps refugees who were in charge of leading their colleagues into the gas chambers. The author addresses the issue of whether those images should be published or not and in how far they are accurate in representing what is “unimaginable”. If the cruelty of the Holocaust goes beyond imagination, does it make sense for pictures to actually make reference to it? Is that type of information of any value to audiences specially considering that the photographs are not clear enough?

The type of photography that Didi-Huberman talks about is however completely different from that mentioned by other authors. The images Sontag, Barthes and Fontcuberta use in their texts are almost always professional even if they are considered art or documents. Those pictures were taken after a relatively premeditated process (either if the pictures were to be considered “direct” photography or “manipulated”). The four Auschwitz photographs were taken hiddenly once of the members managed to get a hang of a camera.

He talks about photography as a means of survival since taking those photographs was the only way for the members of

The (In)visible Crisis

the Sonderkommando to have the hope that something beyond that place must be happening and that maybe someone somewhere has now the chance to know what was going on.

These four photographs are photojournalism in their purest form that is why they are worth comparing to other forms of photography.

Georges Didi-Huberman questions the aesthetic value of the four Auschwitz photographs and whether given the circumstances it is ethical to even consider how good the pictures are. It seems that the context in which those pictures were taken takes over any other consideration. In fact the photographs themselves are not clear enough. “Do the two poor images framed by the door of the gas chamber, at crematorium V of Auschwitz in August 1944, not suffice to refute that negative aesthetic? Furthermore, how could an image act of that kind be prescribed or even interpreted by any thought, however just, on the exercise of art? “There is a limit at which the exercise of an art, whatever it be, becomes an insult to misfortune” writes Maurice Blanchot” (Didi-Huberman 27). In fact it does extremely unfair to consider those pictures as art. The need and desperation behind those pictures is so strong that it obliterates any other function that they might have accomplished. In his essay The Sonderkommando Photographs (2001) Dan Stone emphasizes the lack of aesthetics of those images, which makes it hard to agree with Susan Sontag when she argues that photography is a means of fixing the beautiful into eternity (Stone 137). What

catches our attention about those images is not a small detail as Barthes argued. It is the whole context that becomes the punctum. “What is so striking about the Sonderkommando photographs is that this dichotomy of studium and punctum cannot be maintained. Indeed, the studium is the punctum. What interests us is what pierces us” (Stone 138). How strong must the context in which the photograph is taken be in order for its documentary value to overtake other immediately without any second thought?

In spite of all, Didi-Huberman does argue that an aesthetic gaze to those images is necessary. He argues that that would enable us to understand the faith that the members of the Sonderkommando had in those photographs ethically and anthropologically speaking (162). As it has already been mentioned before aesthetics might distance the author from the seen. However Didi-Huberman argues that when it comes to the representation of the unimaginable the idea of “negative aesthetic” is trivial. “It characterizes radical evil by everything that it is not” (155). Thus the idea of the beautiful evil becomes more abstract. However when the evil is more imaginable and thus less beautiful we understand its possibility much easily.

Didi-Huberman’s essay on the New York exhibition was largely criticized. One of the main arguments against his appraisal of the documentary value of those four photographs was that there are no images of the Holocaust. This is not

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only due to the fact that all photographic evidence was destroyed but also because since images lie, none of them could ever do justice to the horrors. To this, the author replies that images do not lie all the time and not about everything. The solution he offers to this is to doubt everything about images instead of directly rejecting them.

In fact these four photographs are quite blurry and do not allow for much identification. That is why the author argues that audiences must use their imagination in order to pay justice to the victims. At all times the viewers of the photographs must be critical of them and acknowledge that what is seen is not everything there is to them. “To look at an image and to think one is directly perceiving the objects of reality that are represented there-or even, in the case of photography, recorded there - would be, for example, to try to walk around the cloud of smoke, in the first sequence, so as “to see what there is behind” (Didi-Huberman 113). In fact some of the images are not even clear enough in order to provide evidence of any sort. One of the photographs specially, only shows branches of the trees surrounding the gas chambers.

That however when contextualized transmits the haste, the urgency and the secrecy the inmates had to go through in order to take the picture. That is exactly were the value of the Auschwitz photographs lie in. They show what we cannot see. “The entire history of images can thus be told as an effort to visually transcend the trivial contrasts between the visible and the invisible” (Didi-Huberman 133).

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2.4. Conclusion: World Press Photo 2013 In order to illustrate the debate of how much it is acceptable to focus on the aesthetics of a scene depending on the degree of suffering of the victims, the case of the 2013 World Press Photo winner is worth mentioning. The image by Swedish Photojournalist Paul Hansen depicts two dead children in the Gaza strip being carried by their uncles to their funerals. The editing of that photograph has been the source of large controversy. While this photograph is part of what it is considered to be photojournalism these days, its essence is completely different from the documentary value of the four Auschwitz photographs. Firstly the circumstances of the photographers were completely different the one from the other. While Paul Hansen experienced the scene at first hand, he was still not part of it. He enjoyed the status of professional photographer, which distinguished him from the subjects of his pictures. The members of the Sonderkommando, however, were witnesses that became photographers for a few seconds. Secondly the photograph by Paul Hansen gives an importance to aesthetics that is understandably overlooked in the Auschwitz images. The Gaza photograph works as a stand-alone even when decontextualized whereas the Sonderkommando photographs are only of extreme value when linked to historical event. Thus Hansen’s image blurs the boundaries between documentary photography and art. This is where the main criticism surrounding the image stems from.

The (In)visible Crisis

World Press Photo First Prize Winner 2013

Paul Hansen’s photograph has an artificial lighting that was added in post-production. Additionally the buildings appearing on the last plane on background were blurred so that the attention of the viewer could be focused on the main characters at the front. The veracity of the photograph was thus put into question as the editing pushed the limits of what is acceptable in photojournalistic ethics. The image was said to deceive audiences. It would be interesting to examine in what sense they have been tricked. The photograph did not meet the expectations of the viewers. That however, does not necessarily have to be negative. The issue might be not how accurate the photograph is but rather what people expect that accuracy to be.

It has already been established photography does actually lie and that it transforms reality. Does that refer only to the photographical act or to the end-resulting object? It must always be considered that a photograph that has not gone through editing is an unfinished piece of work. That is why post-production can be considered one of the reasons why photography transforms reality but it is not the only one. Hansen’s image is not a hundred percent faithful to the scene represented since that light was not there at that point in time and space. If it turned out to be a montage, then there would be an ethical issue in hand. In this case the integrity of the image is open to debate. It must be firstly considered though that the perception of light and color varies from one individual to the other.

Secondly there is no doubt that those children and men were there and thus the story remains unaltered.

What is actually modified is the way in which the audiences are impacted by the scene. The lighting and white balance of the photograph add a hyperreal effect and thus makes the characters nearly pop out of the image. It seems so real and yet so sinister that it becomes hard for our brains to process it. We are not used to journalistic images having that kind of impact and that it is why it might seem unethical. Yet there is an interesting relationship between the use of those effects and the subject of the photograph. The problem with the image might be fact that we take for granted the fact that violent images are part of our reality. Thus the surreal effect of the image clash with what we expected. However is not

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something like the death of children in Gaza surreal enough?

It seems increasingly hard to catch the attention of viewers who are unfortunately constantly exposed to conflictive images. Wasn’t that touch of artificiality necessary to make that picture stand out among the others? Was it maybe the only way for people to finally focus on what was really happening?

Thus the attention should not be focused on what was ethically wrong about that picture in general but rather on what is wrong with the actual scene depicted. What is wrong is not the exaggerated editing of that image but rather the omission of what is really happening on the photograph. In a way the photographer is bringing to light (literally) that while focusing on strict categorizations of what the functions of the image should be or how it should represent reality, we miss what is really important about it. The editing of this image is not only about aesthetics for the sake of simply looking better but it is about the use of aesthetics to enhance the content and to reinforce the message.

This argument therefore puts into question the conflict between artistic and documentary photography. A new light needs to be shed to social conflicts and if what it takes to do so must be the use of Photoshop then let it be it. My photographic project aims to do that. It acknowledges that photography does lie and yet what is in front of the lens when the shot was taken is undeniably there. At the same time it aims to show different sides to the same story representing what the city of Madrid is at the moment.

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3. PHOTOGRAPHICAL STUDY This part of the project relates my personal experience to the arguments mentioned before. It includes some of the pictures that made the final photographical work but also some others that while sometimes repetitive, were interesting to support the theory from the readings. It focuses on a portrayal of the city of Madrid that goes beyond what has been shown so far.

It “depicts” an economic crisis is not always visible in ways we expect it to. Each short section connects a couple of photographs to a different topic.

The creative work of The Invisible Crisis is a collection of 78 photographs taken between the 22nd of December 2012 and the 17th of March 2013. The pictures welcome audiences to reflect not only upon the situation but also upon the visual story. The issues underlined in the previous section concerning photography’s representation of reality and its ultimate function will be applied. Categorizations and expectations of what photography should be and represent limit our understanding of it. That is why the photographs do not have captions but rather titles. Firstly the titles are used as a means to single out each individual picture from the rest. Each photograph acquires its own identity thus enabling the viewer to establish a different relationship with the picture. In contrast a caption tells the audience what to see instead of allowing them to reflect upon what they have just seen. A caption leaves no room for doubt on what is being portrayed and might seem like an imposition on the audience. Titles thus contribute to further blurring different photographical genres.

3.1. On Reading Demonstration Banners

18. Up And Down

The image above does not seem to tell any specific story at first. It could be anything, maybe the high-tech building of some big corporation because of the great presence of metal and glass structures. One of the few characters on the image is wearing a suit so it would make sense to argue that it is some business environment. However, when looking a bit more closely one can tell that on the very last plane of the image there are three people carrying luggage. And then if the viewer is slightly familiar with the old terminals it can be inferred that it takes place somewhere in the Madrid airport.

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However, what makes this the most interesting is not the fact that at first sight there is no trace of it being an airport. It is the fact that it was taken during one of the major cleaning strikes that took place at the end of January 2013. There is some trash on the floor and on the lower right-hand corner but the way it is placed on the image is not enough to let the viewer conclude that it is out of the ordinary.

At the moment in which I took picture 18 I had already taken so many that explicitly showed the strike that I let myself look for something different that in this case were the lines.

The lines of the escalators, how they intersected and those of the frames of the windows and own they met in some point beyond of the frame of the image. At that specific moment, I did allow myself to forget about the strike or at least let it go behind in the priority list. But what if by doing so, I was missing something else happening somewhere in the same building, something that would have been more explicitly related to the subject of this project? The same occurs with the set of pictures on the side On photograph 1 what mattered to me were the lines again, the geometry of the decaying colors and how they related with the marks on the road. I did not even know where I was when I took the picture partly because I did not know the area of the city that well and partly because it actually did not matter to me at that stage. It must be said though, that that was my initial intention that day, photographing without having to worry about anything else, photographing things that caught my attention without thinking about documenting anything

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in particular. My intentions in the first two pictures of this set can be compared to the following two. In the latter I was there to tell the story of these two different demonstrations (one on the 16th of February and another one one month later on the 17 of March) until I noticed something that made me partially forget about what was happening. This set of pictures does show that there was definitely something, some type of punctum that caught my attention in spite of what was happening in my surroundings in spite of what I was experiencing.

In fact Susan Sontag argues that while photography stresses what has been experience it can also deny it. At the same time, it can be said that that loss of perspective is not only related to the thrive for aesthetics. It is however not only the focus on aesthetics that might make a photographer forget about his surroundings. On a more general level the photographer might fail to experience not only because he is looking for the most beautiful shot but because he is looking for something different than the rest. No matter whether that future picture is intended to be beautiful or rather a document the photographer on the field has his mind set into something different.

When you are in a demonstration whether you are a photojournalist or an artist it does not actually matter because either way there is a camera separating you from the people on the streets. That camera is telling you to focus on it, on the right light settings, on the people walking into your frame and on the perfect instant. Even if the image was supposed to be merely a document there are inevitably aesthetic considerations to take into account but these are imposed by the mere existence of the camera between you and the subject.

The (In)visible Crisis

1. La Ronda

68. Us...Here Again

1B. La Ronda

68B. Us... Here Again

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Coral Pereda Serras

All these “interferences” affect the way photographers choose what to take pictures and what is happening around them.

One of the first things I experienced while taking pictures was that it was hard to concentrate on the scene in front of my eyes. One can easily forget what is happening since one focuses too much on going for the perfect picture (either aesthetically or documentary speaking). I was at a demonstration against evictions on the 16th of February when at some point I realized that I had not stopped to read what one of the signs of the person I was photographing said.

I was horrified as I noticed I was feeling way too foreign to my surrounding. I thus tried to find an explanation to that. Firstly, I believed it was because I had consciously wanting to detach myself from the situation at least politically speaking. Since the beginning of the project I was convinced there was no room for my opinion on the situation of the country. I had to focus on photography and only on my belief that there was more to Madrid than what had been shown. However, being so firm about it can be risky since that detachment can reach extreme levels. I was so focused on getting the right picture that I lost all sense of the context and felt from a different world than the one of the people surrounding me. We had such different goals! I had been so immersed in them that I realized I only knew what the banners said once I looked at the photograph on the LCD screen of my camera and took the time to read them. But then earlier back then on the field, it had made

22

sense to me not to read them because I absolutely did not have the time. I could not waste any single second. Or could I? In how far should I have stopped to read? In how far was my detachment from the scenery necessary?

60. Helios

Inevitably, there always is a separation between a photographer, subject and environment. The photographer moves within his own bubble. Maybe you don’t read the signs because you don’t have the time to do so. But does that mean you don’t feel anything? I felt focused and alert because I had a mission to accomplish. But I did feel inside a safety bubble which was made up of my own personal

The (In)visible Crisis

goals. That in itself is a paradox. On the one hand, you are inside the bubble because you are aware of the fact that your objectives and the ones of the demonstrators are different and that the bubble is the only to ensure you stay focused. On the other hand, in order to create the bubble you need to know about what the people claim. Therefore you are not fully immune to the exterior anymore. Because since you do know at least a little bit about the reason why the people are there demonstrating, it is inevitable for you to feel something. When people start making noise, screaming, chanting, beeping, it seems like the paradoxical bubble bursts. And because you are suddenly more aware than ever of the difference in circumstances between you and them you feel foreign and uneasy. You do not feel indifferent to their cause, to their “suffering” even if in that instant is not your own because at that moment in time and space you have still have different motives. Demonstrations are very audiovisually surcharged. It is scary. The difference between you and them is scary too. And then you try to ignore than and put back together the pieces of that burst bubble that is even more paradoxical than ever.

That is when protection bubbles stop making sense. Their existence/creation is motivated by the acknowledgement of an external factor and by leading the person inside it to indifference. In the meantime the person is more aware than ever of the exterior since in the first place you had to learn about that danger.

3.2. Aesthetic Stories Some images do attract the attention of the viewer solely for their aesthetics. Does that mean though that they are further from reality? The two images in this section all tell stories maybe completely different times while they were taken in the same city and within a limited time frame of three months. Can then the stories told by those images be considered fictional just because they were motivated by aesthetic principles and not documentary ones? It is clear that the objects and place that appear on those pictures are real and were there at that point time an space. When taking that into account it is hard to consider them as fictional images. If so, in what ways does aesthetic distance viewers from reality? How is aesthetic fiction?

Image 16 can at the same time reinforce and deny the idea that aesthetics separates the viewer from reality. On the one hand it is a very real image covering a very real topic. On the other the perspective does make the viewer focus exclusively on the building and prioritize it over other elements.

In fact what would make the image more “real” is hidden in between the building and the black wall on the first plane. If one looks closely, policemen and police cars can be noticed.

It can be therefore be deduced that what is happening on the image is more than just an aesthetic shot. There is a story of current news in there but that is not the primary focus of the image. Does that make it any less real? Is it any less

23

Coral Pereda Serras

truthful than an image that might be focusing exclusively on demonstrators and the signs they are carrying? It might be so if the viewers consider that the photographer was trying to trick them. But what if it was just a way of making the photograph more interesting?

to blend in with the background. The same occurs with the fact that it is parallel to the line dividing the different tones of grey on the wall. It thus becomes very hard for the viewers to identify it as something real (excluding the lamppost).

Additionally there are some elements contentwise that make it even harder to read. The figurative illustration of the Virgin on the ad contrasts with the informal graffiti below.

Therefore the photograph contrapositions spirituality with politics. Those contrasts are only reemphasized by the fact that the support of each message is not clearly identifiable.

These elements shock the human eye and are hard to make sense of. Thus the photograph might be positioned as closer to fiction and to reality.

16. Edificio Espa単a

The opposite occurs with photograph 71. The perspective is completely annihilated as everything is completely flattened out. The lines are so symmetrical that there seems to be no third dimension. The lamppost on the first plane might be the only indication of there being a first plane in contrast to a second plane. And yet as the colors match those of the grey way and of some of the details of the billboard above it seems

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71. Fish On A Spaceship

The (In)visible Crisis

But what if some more context was provided? What if the games with the lines were still there but some sides of the street showed on the first plane? What if a person had walked by? Would it then have become a more real and thus less aesthetic image?

3.3. Staged Realities These next two pictures show two different demonstrations that had different goals. The first picture was taken on the 16th of March 2013 in a demonstration against the impositions of the European markets when it comes to austerity measures. The second picture was taken the day after, Sunday the 17th in the now famous in Madrid “marea blancas” against the privatization of the capital’s hospitals. These two pictures were put together because both show the role the press plays in this type of protests. On Saturday the number of journalists and that of policemen almost surpassed that of demonstrators. At least it felt like it since they seemed to be especially eager. Once again I felt like my objectives while being there were completely different to the ones the other photographers might have had. There were three distinctive groups of people there: the police, the demonstrators and the press and I felt I did not belong to either. Once the protest arrived to plaza de Callao and it stopped there for a few minutes a huge line of journalists formed in front of the leading banner. In between the protesters and the media there was an empty space. It seemed that no one was daring to walk

into that part of the street: protesters because they were partly “posing” for the cameras and the press because they were basing upon what the other was doing to get the right picture or footage and maybe also so as not to walk into the other’s cameras. However, that physical space between ones and the others also showed the contextual distance. There was something almost surreal about it and the whole circumstance suddenly felt artificial, like it was an exaggerated set up. On the one hand protesters knew they were being photographed and they were glad that was happening since that would inevitably give visibility to their cause. On the other journalists would not stop silently taking pictures without interacting with each other. The fact that there was some space that could not be stepped on, only added to the feeling that the situation had been staged. Susan Sontag argued that “In modern society, a discontent with reality expresses itself forcefully and most hauntingly by the longing to reproduce this one. As if only by looking at reality in the form of an object -through the fix of the photograph- is it really real, that is, surreal” (80) . There is thus something inherently artificial to the picture taking process even if we are portraying something we saw with our naked eyes.

On picture 65, the reporter is trying to interview the small child of one of the demonstrators while she had been playing underneath the huge banner. After a while, she did feel intimidated and the people and parents surrounding her did tell the reporter to leave her alone.

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Coral Pereda Serras

Visually speaking, these two pictures have in common the fact that the road occupies a large part of the picture. The street signs drawn on the floor tell the audience in which direction to look. On picture 66 the arrows painted on the pavement point on the one hand towards the outside of the frame of the picture. On the other hand, they seem to be guiding the direction of the demonstrators and it seems to give them the energy to move forward. On photograph 65, the lines separating the lanes lead the eye of the audience towards the center of the scene enveloping the reporter and the little girl and continuing under the banner. Similarly image 67 shows a scene from her point of view.

65. Leave Her Alone

66. I See Julie!

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The pavement line does not play such a big role in here mostly because its starting point is blocked by the legs of a “giant�. It is however an important sign defining the path of the little girl. Aside from that, what all these pictures share in common is that they all show a landscape that is more or less iconic to the city of Madrid (the post building, the Madrid Tower and the less known bankinter building). These icons serve several functions. The most self-evident one is referential: from the moment the viewer is a bit familiar with the city, these landmarks can be easily identified with Madrid.

This relates back to one of the most basic functions of photography. Roland Barthes argued that its function is purely referential not documentary or aesthetic (thus rendering the controversial debate obsolete). Photography is neither a code nor an analogy of reality. It is a mere form of reference that that certain building and people were there at that point in time and space. In these pictures however, it is only the

The (In)visible Crisis

landmarks in the background (in the last plane of the image) that are purely referential. If the primary value of these pictures is considered to be documentary, then the photographs are media that attempt to transmit certain information to the audiences. Only if the viewer has the intention to disconnect the scene from its context , all the elements of the picture acquire the same importance.

natural than we usually believe. Because the ideals of the photographer will influence the image, there are new components of artificiality that shape the resulting photograph even before subjects pose.

67. That’s Better

21. T4

In contrast, Joan Fontcuberta firmly believes that photojournalism is always propagandistic and thus it should not claim to be faithful to reality. This is due to the fact that the photographic act is inherently subjective because inevitably the photographer will always take a political stand. That again underlines the idea that the photographical process is less

While Susan Sontag argues that it is questionable whether viewers become immune to images of suffering (Regarding The Pain Of Others) , in my personal experience the explicit images of the crisis are harder to process simply because they provide much more visual information than the less explicit ones. When two images of two different demonstrations

3.4. The Cynicism of Immunity

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are put together, they lose their individual power since at first sight they seem similar. Viewers then lose their attention and it becomes much harder for them to single out that picture from the rest. Then, those pictures become mere documents of a particular event with no other interest. Taking that effect for granted is what according to Sontag leads to cynicism that underestimates the power of images. That is why we as audiences cannot assume that the overdose of images makes us immune to the events they depict. Cynicism that originated from rather an opposite extreme than Susan Sontag’s was one of my main concerns when I started off this project. While trying to portray that there was more to the city of Madrid than the suffering of the crisis shown by the media until now, I risked sounding naïve and oblivious to the reality of the situation. However even if I was aware of that, I was convinced there was this other reality. I knew I wasn’t being cynical.

I wanted to show that still it could a beautiful place to be in spite of everything. However, the overexposure to images makes us unable to see the beauty of those images. Even if it was a picture of people screaming at a demonstration, could I make people notice that image among the others and consider still it beautiful? The concept of cynicism that Sontag is critical of is related to the immunity to the acknowledgement of the suffering in photographs. The cynicism I worried about referred to acknowledging too much the aesthetics of the image. Is there a middle ground between these two? When photographs lose their impact content wise (if they ever do), do they gain it aesthetically speaking? Do au-

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diences focus on the visual aspect of a photograph only after they have become completely immune to the event it is depicting? Does that mean that the only way for me to stick to my initial goal of the project would be to make pictures that respond to Sontag’s meaning of cynicism?

24. Just Checking-In As the project progressed though, I realized that actually making beautiful pictures could not simply counterbalance the negative portrayal of Madrid. I knew that would be easily misunderstood but also that it would be a reductionist approach. That did not mean that I ever stopped aiming for aesthetic pictures because inevitably that is the way I see things.

The (In)visible Crisis

It did mean though that I had to be more open to different circumstances in which I had to take into account other factors than just the perfect aesthetic. When it came to the way the audiences perceive the photographs, could I still make the right message get through without having them ignore completely the context? From my experience on the field I realized it only did to a certain extent. Even if I could feel the distance between I and the people photographed, the context was unavoidable to a certain extent. It would thus not have been fair to ask audiences to do something that I was not always able to do myself. At the same time ignoring the context of the photograph would somewhat contradict the goal of the project. A certain explicit portrayal of the crisis had to be given in order for the invisible one to make sense.

Both sides complement each other and when separated one did not make sense without the other. Similarly, the more explicit images need their context even if it is just for them to be put against something, even if then the aesthetics or a small detail are going matter more than the actual document.

3.5. The Horror of Art Along this project the following question has already arisen implicitly several times: Is it a horrible act to consider an image of suffering beautiful? This section explores the meaning of the horror of art on several levels. On the first, horror is what audiences feel when they are exposed to vio-

lent images of suffering. Horror is the name to the emotion viewers attribute to what has been frozen in time and space in front of their eyes. This feeling is the one we use to then to argue that it is not only the act that is horrible but also art in itself. This leads then to the second level of the horror of art. Can art be considered to be horrible in spite of its aesthetic value? Or rather can a photograph be horrible precisely because it is beautiful? The aesthetization of pain makes audiences cringe. This might be explained by the fact that it seems completely contradictory to be enjoying some views while that the same time the subjects of the photograph are suffering. Not only that but those feelings make the audiences feel extremely uncomfortable as they realize their own cruelty. But is it really cruel if you are not wishing upon the subjects of the photographs the pain? Powerlessness not only outrages us but it also blocks us. When we do not understand how we are feeling or feel “wrongly� it makes sense to blame the photograph and the photographer for his recklessness. To that Susan Sontag argues that there is nothing wrong with distancing ourselves from the image as long as we stay critical.

These pictures show people demonstrating against the negative effects that the merger between British Airways and the Spanish Airline Iberia is going to have on its employees.

Even if demonstrations are inherently pacific, there is still something violent about them audiovisually speaking. Visually the fact that masses of people gather together and walk

29

Coral Pereda Serras

an area that is usually reserved for cars is shocking. This sight is violent in as far as it clashes with what we usually accustomed to encountering on the street (even if demonstrations are becoming increasingly more common). Further violence is let out by the signs that the demonstrators carry as the ultimate form of their discontent. The signs and slogans are the most explicit representation of their suffering and the abundance of them is overwhelming. For the outsiders of a demonstration, that does not necessarily constitute an attack but what becomes violent is the way the realization of what those people are going through hits me.

47. We Didn’t Start The Fire

45. Stronger Together

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Another way in which demonstrations are extremely violent is auditively since they are extremely loud. This makes sense since people want to be seen and heard but again the implications might catch outsiders unprepared. The Iberia demonstration on the 20th of February was by far the loudest I have been to. In fact many people were wearing earplugs. In that situation it was the overdose of external stimuli that made me realize the importance of what the country was going through. Therefore there definitely is a certain violence about those pictures that provides the viewer with at least the slightest understanding of the suffering of the subjects. Thus it becomes hard to consider those pictures for more than their documentary value. Even if the lighting and

The (In)visible Crisis

the coloring turned out beautiful, it seems completely out of place to even consider it. To many, these pictures are informational and proof of relevant social movement and that is what makes them extremely valuable. It is believed that because there are people suffering on them, then under no circumstance they should be considered art. And yet some of the images might still have the characteristics for them to be so. In that case, how horrible must the suffering of the subjects of a photograph be in order for me to immediately dismissed it as a work of art?

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4. CREATIVE WORK

THE (IN)VISIBLE CRISIS

1. La Ronda

2. What Ocean?

3. Major Perspective

4. Cascorro

5. The Way To Opera

6. Facing Tourists

7. Just Sol

8. Retiro

9. Unburstable Bubble

10. Sunday Morning

11. Sol y Luna

12. Run

13. Walk

14. Leave

15. 28013 Madrid, Spain.

16. Edificio Espa単a

17. Come On In

18. Up And Down

19. Image And Reputation

20. Salidas - Departures

21. T4

22. Be Patient

23. Eye Bags

24. Just Checking-In

25. Meeting Point

26. Green Point

27. Welcome Home

28. Jorge

29. Visiting

30. Waving

31. Bees

32. Kiss

33. Antifascita Siempre

34. Austerity Kills

35. Screaming Against Stealing

36. Public Water

37. Health Sells

38. No Hay Pan...

39. ...Para Tanto Chorizo

40. Shady Feet

41. 1713

42. Stop Looking Here

43. Cristina

44. Tu Sobre, Mi Recorte

45. Stronger Together

46. White Tide

47. We Didn’t Start The Fire

48. British AirStays

49. The Miners

50. Who’s The Dog?

51. The Nap

52. We Are Legion

53. Blowing Away

54. Stop Them

55. 5F

56. Where Is Pepe?

57. Boredom

58. Libre

59. No Press

60. Helios

61. Passion Is Blue

62. Help Me Please

63. Dear EU...

64. She’s The Hero

65. Leave Her Alone

66. I See Julie!

67. That’s Better

68. Us...Here Again

69. The Noes

70. Follow The Signs

71. Fish On A Spaceship

72. Why Would You

73. End This?

74. War Is Over

75. If You Want It

76. Pull Him Closer

77. Don’t Walk Away...Yet

78. Adi贸s Mi Sol

The (In)visible Crisis

5. CONCLUSION

Photography is made up of contradictions that only give rise to innumerable controversies. Firstly it has been established that photography is evidence. There is no doubt that what is captured by a camera was in front of the lens at a particular point in time and space (as long as we speak of non-altered photographs). Parting from that base, one of the goals of this project has been to explore the relationship between that evidence and the way in which the whole photograph represents reality. How is photography going to construct upon that reality and how is it not?

The extent to which photography limits the experience of the photographer has been explored. It has often been argued that when an image attributes great importance to its artistic component the own photographer and the audience miss out on other key elements. However, even if photography limits the experience, it does not do so only if the photographer decides to focus on aesthetics. There is a key difference between the goals of a photographer in a protest and the people surrounding him. Because of those differences, the photographer moves in his own bubble. But in order to

first create the bubble he had to gain awareness, which do not make him as ignorant as before. Therefore photography limits experience in as far as the photographer is never going to be in exactly the same situation as the subjects of his photographs the instant the shutter closes. In that split second, the experience of the photographer will reach the inside mirror and that selective information will be ready to be transmitted to the viewers. What audiences make out of what they see, is then their own responsibility. But the message has already been filtered by the choice of time and space made by the photographer, the circumstances, and the way he made sense of the situation. That does not necessarily imply that photography is untruthful (since it has already been mentioned that photography is evidence), it simply means that it is an interpretation of reality as any other.

It has also been seen that aesthetics does not necessarily distance the viewers from the truth. Aesthetics might be a distraction from the central element of a news story but that does not necessarily mean it will be false or less accurate.

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The photographical process often leads to staged situations that reemphasize the surrealism of the medium. Demonstrations as well as Carnival celebrations seem to be theater sets specifically designed for the cameras. When people pose for photographers, they become someone else differently. Even the most natural gesture does not manage to capture the same thing the naked eye sees. All these points influence the way in which the photographic practice is constructed upon what we know as reality.

The (In)visible Crisis as its title shows welcomes viewers to reflect upon what the naked eye cannot see and about how that has been affecting the image we have been building in our minds after the exposure to photojournalistic images. That should not be interpreted as a criticism to the documentary practice but rather as a means of questioning. In fact, many of the shots I took could very well be labeled as photojournalistic even if that was not my initial intention. However, by qualifying one of those images as documentary we instantly dismiss any element that might be considered aesthetic. It has already been mentioned that

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having those aesthetic considerations prevail over the documentary ones is perceived as a sign of vanity and obliviousness. But does it really make sense to viewers to hold themselves to such ethical standards? The quintessential power of photography lies in its capability of freezing moments in time and space and thus in our memories. But at the same time should not its ability to document as well as to beautify the ordinary be considered precious? Is it really morally wrong to combine both its strengths? It should not be the case if the resulting photograph is so powerful that it can move audiences in a way that a photograph either exclusively pictorial or journalistic has never done.

The common belief that these two practices are incompatible limits what can be one of the biggest influences of an image: touching people. Reality is hard for a fact but that does not make it any less beautiful. Similarly horror is not any less real than beauty. There is no medium like photography able to convey that message. Times are hard but they will eventually get better. In the mean time there is no harm in enjoying the beauty of things that in spite of everything still exist.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc, 1980. Print.

—. Mythologies. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1957.

Print.

Berger, John. “Understanding A Photograph”. Trachtenberg, Alan. Classic Essays on Photography . New Haven: Leete’s Island Books, 1980.

Print.

Crane, Susan A. “The Special Case of Four Auschwitz Photographs”.

Postmodern Culture. 2008. Web. 28 April 2013 <http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.908/19.1crane.txt>.

DB, Lara. “World Press Photo 2013 Image Alteration Controversy”.

DesignBoom. 20 February 2013. Web. 27 April 2013 <http://www.designboom.com/art/world-press-photo-2013-image-alteration-controversy/>.

Didi-Huberman, Georges. Images In Spite Of All. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012. Print.

Durden, Mark. Fifty Key Writers On Photography. London: Routledge, 2013. Print.

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Fontcuberta, Joan. El Beso de Judas. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili S.L, 1997.

Web. Guillot, Claire. “Une Photo “cinématographique” Gagne Le Prix World Press”. Le Monde.15 February 2013. Web. 27 April 2013 <http://expo-photo.blog.lemonde.fr/2013/02/15/une-photo-cinematographique-gagne-le-prix-world-press/>.

Harrison, Graham. “2013 - The Year We Lost Sight Of What Photography Can Achieve”. EPUK.15 March 2013. Web. 27 April 2013 <http:// www.epuk.org/News/1021/2013-the-year-we-lost-sight-of-what-photography-can-achieve>.

Lane, Guy. “Images In Spite of All: Four Photographs From Auschwitz”.

The Art Book 17.1 (2010): 68-69. Web. Murabayashi, Allen. “Why Do Photo Contest Winners Look Like Movie Posters?” Petapixel. 19 February 2013. Web. 27 April 2013 <http:// petapixel.com/2013/02/19/why-do-photo-contest-winners-look-likemovie-posters/>.

Nehamas, Alexander. “The Eye of the Beholder”. The American Prospect 14.6 (2003): 62-63. Web.

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Peces, Juan. “El Periodismo como Arte”. El País. 26 April 2013. Web. 27 April 2013.<http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2013/04/26/actualidad/1367000432_626772.html>.

Roberts, John. The Art of Interruption: Realism, Photography and the Everyday. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998.Print.

Smargiassi, Michele. “Se Persino la Fotografia Più Bella è Ritoccata”.

La Repubblica. 19 February 2013. Web. 27 April 2013 <http://www.repubblica.it/spettacoli-e-cultura/2013/02/19/news/world_press_photo_ritocco-52942610/>.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography . New York: Strauss And Giroux, 1977.

Print

—. Regarding The Pain Of Others. London: Penguin Books , 2003. Print.

Stone, Dan. «The Sonderkommando Photographs.» Jewish Social Studies 7.3 (2001): 132-148. Web. Winslow, Donald R. “Photojournalism and Post-Processing: Should Contest Images Be the Actual Published Picture?”.NPPA. 20 February 2013. Web. 27 April 2013 <https://nppa.org/node/35533>.

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7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost I would like to thank my supervisor and photographer Rafael Trobat whose work I admire deeply. Working under your guidance has been a privilege.

I thank Dr. Vincent Doyle for his constant support throughout these four years.

To my family who put up with the worst of me with so very caring patience. To those who believed in me when I did not know who I was anymore.

Special thanks to all of those who more or less willingly became the subjects of my photographs. Without you this project would never had been possible. To those who have been affected by this situation in ways that we can never begin to imagine.

To my city, to my country.

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