When Does Photojournalism Become Exploitative?

Jake Gyllenhaal as Louis Bloom in Nightcrawler, 2014
(Source: huffingtonpost.com)

A few weeks ago I went to see Nightcrawler, Jake Gyllenhaal’s latest movie. The plot revolves around Louis Bloom, a petty thief who stumbles into a new career as a ‘nightcrawler’ – a nocturnal cameraman who, along with his assistant Rick (played by Riz Ahmed), scours the streets of LA in search of shocking and grisly crimes to photograph and film before the mainstream media. Gyllenhaal’s character catches people at their worst: dead, dying, mutilated, and all to satisfy the public’s morbid curiosity. Like Bloom says, “I like to think that if you see me, you're having the worst day of your life.” When Louis realises he can make some serious money ‘nightcrawling’ by selling his best and bloodiest footage to a failing news station, his hell-bent obsession with getting the ‘money shot’ has dire consequences. As someone who would like to work in journalism in the future, the film got me thinking: when does photojournalism become exploitation?

Kevin Carter's 'Vulture Stalking Child' - exploitative or
raising awareness?
(Source: iconicphotos.wordpress.com)

Arguably, many of the most famous photographs ever that have won Pulitzer Prizes and graced the pages of National Geographic were taken in exploitative situations. Everyone knows Kevin Carter’s iconic ‘Vulture Stalking Child’ photograph, taken during the Sudanese famine of the 1980s. Carter used Nuremberg defence in alleging that he took the photograph because “it was his job”, and several eye witness accounts claim that he approached the little girl, starving and struggling on her way to a food bank, slowly and carefully so as not to scare away the vulture which had just landed nearby. Although the photo went on to raise awareness of the famine in Sudan when sold to the New York Times in 1993, Carter has been criticised for capturing such an tragic moment and not intervening for the sake of taking a good shot; the photo is often deemed as exploitative. However, the moment had a profound effect on Carter, as he committed suicide three months before winning the Pulitzer Prize for Feature and Photography, and his part of his suicide note read that, “I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain ... of starving or wounded children”. Similarly, photojournalist Michael Wells’ famed ‘Hands’ photograph, taken in Uganda in 1980, depicts the hand of a small Ugandan child, thin and wasting away, in the hold of a white missionary’s. Wells’ was also awarded for his rather exploitative photograph, and it was even considered shocking enough to feature on the cover of punk rockers The Dead Kennedies’ 1982 album Plastic Surgery Disasters.

Source: worldsfamousphotos.com

Another famous photo depicting suffering is Frank Fournier's shot of Omayra Sánchez, a thirteen year old girl who was trapped beneath the debris of her house following the volcanic eruption of Nevado del Ruiz. Sánchez spent 55 hours in agony before dying of hypothermia and gangrene, and her struggle became the centre of media attention after the publication of Fournier’s photo, which won him the World Press Photo of the Year for 1985. Does it show a lack of empathy to photograph a dying young girl and be rewarded for it?

Photographing people from around the world in vulnerable situations seems to be a recurring theme. Take, for example, the unforgettable photo of Buddhist monk Thích Quàng Đức setting himself on fire at a busy junction in Saigon in 1963 to protest the persecution of Buddhists in South Vietnam, captured by Malcolm Browne. Also taken in Vietnam, was Eddie Adams’ frightful ‘Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing Nguyễn Văn Lém’, as ell as Pulitzer Prize- winning photographer Huynh Cong Ut’s symbolic snapshot shows a group of naked children, most famously Kim Phuc, running away after a napalm attack. There is an ethical dilemma of capturing a moment as a photographer or exploiting people in real life-or-death situations to publish the snaps and earn credit for yourself. When exactly does bringing an issue to public attention become downright exploitation?

'Afghan Girl' by Steve McCurry
(Souce: wikipedia.org)

It’s also interesting to consider that many of the subjects of these famous photographs receive nothing whilst the photographer enjoys global acclaim. Probably one of the most famous shots ever, Afghan Girl by Steve McCurry, is likened to the Mona Lisa and even made the cover of National Geographic in 1985. Sharbat Gula with her striking green eyes, then twelve, was photographed as a refugee in Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. However, while McCurry benefited from the success of his photograph, Gula’s identity was not uncovered until 2002, when she was still living in poverty.

The photograph ‘Lynching’ by Lawrence Beitler, a disturbing image showing the lynching of two black men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, in Indiana in August 1930 (the last recorded lynching in the Northern United States) was widely distributed at the time. Are photographers and photojournalists driven to snap ghastly situations for money or to satisfy people’s desire for the sinister? Perhaps lesser known but equally gruesome, and of particular interest to me as it was taken not far from where I live, is the shot taken by an anonymous bystander of Father Alec Reid administering the last rites to the bloodied Corporal David Howes, following an IRA attack on the Milltown Road in Andersonstown, Northern Ireland. The harrowing image is one of the most synonymous with The Troubles. Was this bystander right to photograph the final moments of a dying man or was the situation exploited? It’s a divisive topic, and with disasters occurring all around us in the world, it might take a few more equally horrible and iconic shots to find out.

Belfast's infamous Milltown priest photograph
(Source: wikipedia.org)