james nachtwey
i'm unsure of the actual title but the one on the website i got it from says, "punishment post on the chain gang." i know it's part of his series on the alabama chain gang from 1995, entitled "crime and punishment"
james nachtwey is a reknowned war photographer and photojournalist. i was looking through his work and find it very powerful. he shoots mostly in black and white and has covered famines in africa, war zones in afghanistan, bosnia, kosovo, and chechnya, aids in africa, survivors and victims of agent orange, and war vets, to name a few. as a photojournalist his goal is not for his work to be displayed in huge art galleries but in magazines and newspapers so that the "masses" can see them. an article written about him said that there are two kinds of war photographers, those who become cynical and those that become holy; it named him one of the latter. this article also said that unlike other photographers, he helps as wherever possible; he doesn't just take photos of human suffering and then leave. this same article raised a question: how should war be portrayed? this question made me think of more questions: how does a photographer navigate the power at work when taking photographs of people? for instance, nachtwey was an American photographer taking photographs of afghani people living day to day under the taliban, which the U.S. was instrumental in training and arming or the fact that he was a white man taking photographs of mostly black men on the alabama chain gang. do the the subjects of the photographs have agency? is it exploitative? are the photos "stolen"? there is so much power in photos because often times photos are interpreted as "truth" and can elicit transformative emotions. i guess that just like with writing, the motive or goal behind the photography is important. the article about nachtwey i referenced before said that war photographers were either cynical or holy, are those the only two options? come on now let's step outside binaries. if the goal is to save people or to shape that mentality in the minds of the viewers of the photography, then the agency of the subjects is lost, they become perpetual victims. and if a photographer is a cynic, doesn't life's passion get lost somewhere? is it possible then to be a documentary photographer or photojournalist and shoot a photo of someone where the photographer has more power than the subject and have it not be exploitive?

ref: http://klar999.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!7149D903D612B164!671.entry