Inside Image Of Cervix

meaning and emotion - ideas about documentary photography (Part 2)

by Armando Salazar

Larrea (cont)

"what matters is not how a
photographer sees the world, but how it relates to him "
(Antoine D'Agata - MAGNUM photographer)

case apart is the Pablo Corral Vega, Cuenca and high-flying photographer. His work for National Geographic, his book published in 2007 about twenty-five years of occupation and exposure at the Centro Cultural Metropolitano place it as the most important photojournalist of the country. For him the issue is not so much news so as for how to get involved with the person photographed. Clearly states: " Respect is more important than image." His further work today focuses on the tango culture of Buenos Aires, a project that goes well rid of images of a fall in tourism and makes us share lives and feelings in depth.

PHOTO Bar de Roberto "Pablo Corral

This approach is not new, as Sebastiao Salgado said , The Brazilian photographer: "An image is your integration with the person you photographed at the time we started working with it incredibly well and so the picture is just the relationship you have with your subject.." So to Salgado, the speed and haste are prejudicial to the creation of images: "... when you work hastily what you put in your photos is something that you brought with you: your own ideas and concepts . When you take more time to develop a project learn to understand your subject. There comes a time when it is not you who is taking photos. Something special happens between the photographer and the people being photographed. The photographer gives these people realize that you are giving away the pictures "

In his thesis" The contemporary documentary photography in Brazil ", Etelvina Vaz Dos Reis Borges Teresa Salgado said:" Although Salgado is defined as a photojournalist, his work has much that has ceased to belong to the world of photojournalism to join documentary photography. On his way to work, their criteria, their rhythm, the resources used to publicize his work and the way it presents the outcome of their projects, no doubt that Salgado belongs to the new contemporary documentary photography. Salgado's photographs serve as a reflection about our world today, global and yet so unbalanced. His images have no power to change or solve those problems addressed, but inwardly they make us think about our human condition. They make us think more before throwing a plate of food in the garbage, to see so many people hungry. They make us appreciate more the work we have, to see so many workers working in inhumane situations. Make us more united, if not to those that appear in his images, at least to people who are around us, on our streets. To this are your images. To communicate, inform, document, reflect, theorize, argue, withdraw ... "

PHOTO Sebastiao Salgado

From this point, we ask ourselves about the differences between the documentary and news coverage. Juan Antonio Serrano , Cuenca photojournalist says " the difference is in the time you spend on an item the truth are terms that confuse, because for me personally, almost no difference, I think only difference is in the position of one who takes photos .. " Gives a similar view Francois Laso, photographer and cinematographer for him "the difference could be found in etymology of words rather than the images themselves, the one is a document with all its connotations (historical, testimonial, experiential, etc.) and the other is a news . " Paula Parrini, a young photographer thinks "documentary photography goes beyond the fact as news to transmit, transmits the incident as a moment of life, which is not necessarily a news story itself." And Mary Agnes Armesto , who works in the File Blomberg, "photojournalism is responsible for photographing news events, taking as its starting point the agenda of a medium, does not decide what to photograph, decide how to shoot and how many times this is driven by expectations criteria editor and other media.. "

In another analysis, Francisco Mata Rosas , Mexican photographer says: "document is to interpret and communicate, document is to be able to see and report, document is to reflect and share, clarify questions, question by saying, refuse to show, support hiding, deploying combat, understand confronting. "

seems that the time given to work, the idea of \u200b\u200bdocument in the idea of \u200b\u200bnews, exploiting the ambiguity of the photographic act and the deepening of the theme are points of differentiation between these two areas.

But it also can be summed up in attitude. A documentary is attitude an attitude of constant questioning over the visible , search for clues about the functioning of life, want to understand what is between the people and discover ties with the camera and the unseen forces, a act where we created a summary of what that could mean potentially time a valid way to put life in perspective, to allow instant and feel it as essence and not just as continuity and change. It is an office through which it gives meaning to existence.

The documentary also may be searching for accessions, of solidarity, of entering the lives of others and live with them. Photojournalism hard sometimes takes us away from what he shows us his frontal seems to say " this happens to you no " so it does not generate empathy but relief. The documentary does not, what is ultimately trying to see also our life and rethink.

of long-term documentary projects in Ecuador have not been many: The collective TIF (Independent Photo Workshop) managed by Guillermo Echeverría, Geovanny Villegas, Tito and Guarderas Pablo Sanchez has done collective exhibitions, among which stands out waste "common? , work on the everyday life of psychiatric patients from a hospital in Quito. Francois Laso and Mateo Herrera presented a display on the Garcia Moreno prison inmates made over three months work running parallel to the documentary film "The Committee" and one of the most ambitious was surely rockers, deadly as any of Paco Salazar, conducted between 1995 and 2000 in the south of Quito and was contained in large format at the Cultural Center of the PUCE in an attempt to bring the disparate poles of the city.

PHOTO Paco Salazar "Alex"

Ten years of these rockers, now they are going through times of contemporary art, photojournalism is now firmly installed in their territory and now that digitization and photomontage beginning to take the spaces, we ask more strongly than before, what we Ecuadorian photographers?, what worlds we care?, what voices portray, how the pictures?, what is our vision?, now that everyone has a camera is important to rethink the role of photography, otherwise, taking the words of Pepe Aviles, we can fall fatally on the territory of "lightness" and lack of commitment. Faced with this danger, the documentary has a lot to say.

* This article was originally published in the journal CHASQUI 101, May 2008