How do you think popular representations of photographers contribute to perceived social and cultural values of the profession?
I feel the response to this question definitely differs over time. The previously mentioned shift by news outlets from professional images to public sourced material means that photojournalists don’t have the same household familiarity of the predecessors of the past.
During my lifetime the representation of photographers has certainly dwindled within popular culture. Two particular examples, one public and one personal, are that of my own experience and of the events surrounding the death of Princess Diana in 1997.
It was felt very heavily that moped mounted paparazzi photographers had a possible contribution to the death of The Princess of Wales in Paris in the late 90’s. Their hounding of this very famous and controversy surrounded individual is felt to have been a contributing factor to the car crash which claimed her life.
My personal experience comes from my very early practice in what I would call my ‘hobby years’. Many nights spent out photographing with a close friend, honing our skills and experimenting with our cameras are a fond memory of mine. However the many occasions when often drunken individuals would approach us with words like ‘na you don’t wanna be photographing that mate! You wanna be photographing birds with big tits!’ These comments show that, in a certain corner of society, pornographic imagery is often a prominent representation of photographers.
Furthermore, and as already discussed, the rise of mobile video, live streaming and civilian journalists have meant the way people consume imagery has changed so greatly that more young individuals wish to be videographers or you tubers!
Do you have a favourite, or least favourite movie about a photographer?
My experience of movies about photographers or photography is surprisingly limited. I have studied Rear Window but only due to it being a Hitchcock film and as part of a film studies A Level. I would say that a less favourite depiction of photography in a film would be One Hour Photo. A greatly misunderstood Robin Williams plays a Walmart photo lab technician who creates strong, and sometimes creepy, bonds with his customers. This emerges to be more largely due to his own social and psychological development rather than sinister. However the image is tarnished and the writing supposes this character to be unsavoury.
What does this film say about the medium and its practitioners?
Why do you think directors and writers incorporate these characters and fantasies into their narratives?
The golden era of photojournalism grows from the advent of the roll film camera and grows exponentially through the Spanish Civil War and into the Second World War. From here the highly extensive documentation of the Vietnam War makes not only war glorified but war Photography also. The impending censorship of conflict photography during the late 20th century to now makes photographers less grand than they used to be.
The commercial marketing of the digital camera has made photography accessible to everyone and built an assumption of the ease of the skill.
I feel that the character of the photographer is adopted still by writers and directors because we live in an age where offence and edgy content is a daily topic of discussion. More recent depictions, such as those in this weeks lecture, seem to lead us towards the ills caused by the spread of digital photography and social media.
Andrews Masters Journey 