"Getting the Click": Producing and Practicing Documentary Photography
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"GETTING THE CLICK": PRODUCING AND PRACTICING DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY KAILA E. SIMONEAU A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS. GRADUATE PROGRAM IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO JUNE 2012 © Kaila Simoneau 2012 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-90030-7 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-90030-7 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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Canada ABSTRACT This thesis is an anthropological study of the production of photographing, and the various forces, variables and influences that direct and shape this process. Drawing on an ethnography based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews I conducted with four Toronto-based documentary photographers between 2009-2011, this study approaches photographing from the perspective of a group of individuals who place themselves behind—and maintain creative control of—the camera apparatus. In so doing, I attend to the ways in which photographers actively attempt to make-sense of and conceptualize their practices and work and the embodied sensations, forces and energies they feel and exert. The processual approach I take in this study serves as an explicit critique of scholarly approaches to the social-visual that often treat photographing as "freeze-framing" or capturing a moment of life by holding it still. Rather, photographing takes place through the interplay of different actions that encompass a range of bodily experiences and engage a range of human senses within a dynamic context. In sum, it is produced. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank various people for their contributions to this project: First, to the numerous documentary photographers, gallery owners and curators who enthusiastically and graciously dedicated their time throughout my fieldwork, especially to Carole, Steve, Nunzio and Mitchell, whose words and stories are featured in the following pages. To Dr. Zulfikar Hiiji, Dr. Teresa Holmes and Dr. Ken Little for their academic support and guidance, and to Karen Rumley and Dr. Daphne Winland for their unending help in navigating the entire process. To my wonderful friends, colleagues and cohort, whose suggestions, comments and ideas not only aided in the completion of this project, but also made it a whole lot more fun along the way. A very special thanks to Robert Ferguson, Lynette Fischer, Heather Cruickshank and Maxime Levy-Tessier. And last, but certainly not least, to my parents, Barb Ringer and Bernard Simoneau, for their endless love, support and encouragement in this and all other facets of my life. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgments iii Table of Contents iv Table of Figures v Introduction 2 Documentary photography as a discourse 4 Analytical framework 10 Conclusion 16 Chapter One Anthropological Engagements with Photography: Methodological Considerations 19 Positionality: the Ins and Outs of the Toronto Photography Community 19 Narrative-based Interviewing as Methodology 22 Interviewing in the presence/absence of photographs 28 Chapter Two Cameras and the Technical Side Of Photographing 42 Historical sketch of the modern-day camera 43 Learning to control and manipulate the camera 46 From technical know-how to a acquired way of seeing 49 Considerations for photographing in the digital age 54 Photographing in 'real' social environments 58 Chapter Three Photographing Others 70 Objectivity and Subjectivity in the Study and Practice of Documentary Photography 71 Enacting and Disrupting Power in the Process of Photographing Others 77 Speaking Through Photographs 86 Chapter Four Becoming Attuned and Responsive to the Decisive Moment 97 Pursuing "the Decisive Moment" 98 Habit, habitus and photographing 101 Missing the moment/getting the shot 107 Filtering Intensity: Photographing by taking two steps back 114 Conclusion 120 Works Cited 125 iv TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1 Romania, 1975 Henri Cartier-Bresson 1 Figure 2 View from the Window at Le Gras, 1826 Nicephore Niecpe 37 Figure 3 Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 1838 Louis Daguerre 38 Figure 4 Ruins of central Grozny, Chechnya, 1996 James Nachtwey 39 Figure 5 From Brooklyn Gang, New York, United States, 1959 Bruce Davidson.... 40 Figure 6 From Democratic Republic of Congo, North Kivu, Kibati, 2008 Dominic Nahr 41 Figure 7 Migrant Mother, 1936 Dorothea Lange 65 Figure 8 Alberta Oil Sands #8,2007 Edward Burtynsky 66 Figure 9 Famine Stricken Area, State of Bihar, India, 1951 Werner Bischof 67 Figure 10 From War is Personal, 2006 Eugene Richards 68 Figure 11 Refugees in Korem Camp, Ethiopia, 1984 Sebastiao Salgado 69 Figure 12 Behind the Saint-Lazare Station, Paris, 1932 Henri Cartier Bresson 93 Figure 13 Inhlazane, Soweto South Arica, 1990 Greg Marinovich 94 Figure 14 Protestor loading sling, Bethlehem West Bank 2000 Larry Towell 95 Figure 15 From Where do we go from here? Louisiana, United States, 2008 Joseph Rodriguez 96 Figure 16 Motorcyclists at Lake Balaton, 1954 Gabor Szilasi 119 Figure 17 Portrait of Henri Cartier-Bresson Jane Brown 124 V Figure 1 Romania, 1975 Henri Cartier-Bresson l INTRODUCTION "Anybody can do this stuff," he says to me, sitting on a cramped cement back-step, his gaze fixed on something down by his feet. Beside him, sits a hefty, well-used, professional grade DSLR camera. "I really strongly believe that. Anybody can do it. It's just," he pauses contemplatively, looking over his shoulder to where I sit on his right, "do you want to? And I think that's what any profession boils down to. "I mean, and then you have the un-teachables," he continues, excitement building in his voice. "Those are the things that make, I don't know, an artist great or makes your bones. There's nothing more satisfying than that... Just getting that click. I mean you don't even see what happened—you don't! You loose the moment because you have the mirror come down in front of your eye. And that little black obfuscation, that little, that split little second, that 1/250th, that 17500th, that one—at the most minimal that 1/2500th of a second... you've missed the moment." A wide smile grows across his face. "You've missed the moment," he repeats as though for effect, "but you know you fucking got it." Throughout the course of my field research with documentary photographers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), I often heard comments similar to the one articulated above. As a photographer myself, with several years of informal and amateur experience, I recognized many moments in which approaching the world with a camera in hand is paradoxical experience, shaped by the interplay of seemingly irreconcilable and competing interests, forces and social influences. In the course of this research project, I heard the stories of other photographers and recognized that my own experiences and sensations were not unique. Documentary photographers, like my informant above, frequently describe a space of photographing in which they float and shift indefinitely between irreconcilable positions; a space where photographing is a learned, technical skill and intuitive, creative aptitude; where it is a grounded, objective documentation of a 2 world already out-there and a form of subjective, artistic self-expression; where it is about being present to see a moment, only to miss it so that another may ultimately see it in a photograph. Such accounts suggest that the act of photographing is not just a matter of looking through a camera lens and pushing a button. Rather, photographing takes place through the interplay of different actions that encompass a range of bodily experiences and engage a range of human senses within a dynamic context. In sum, photographing is produced. This thesis is an anthropological study of the production of photographing and the various forces, variables and influences that direct and shape this process. Drawing on an ethnography based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews I conducted with four Toronto-based documentary photographers between 2009-2011, this study approaches photographing from the perspective of a group of individuals who place themselves behind—and maintain technical and creative control of—the camera apparatus. In so doing, I attend to the ways in which photographers actively attempt to make-sense of and conceptualize their practices and work and the embodied sensations, forces and energies they feel and exert.