Dover, Coffins, Censorship and Citizens

The U.S. military had a ban on photographing coffins since President George H.W. Bush (W's father) put the rule in place. One of the chief reasons sited for this was when a spilt-screen of Bush shown joking with reporters as coffin of a soldier killed during the U.S. war in Panama got the former president in a bit of hot water. It was kept in place through the latter Bush years and pushed onto the plate of Barack Obama which he put up for review in February.

There has been a lot written about the issue since the ban's recent lift and photographs of an American soldier's coffin were permitted for the first time in 18 years. Photographs are allowed by the military if the family consents, and in this case the wife of Phillip Myers, a soldier killed in Afghanistan, gave permission. One of the basic points raised during the debate was the "if a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there, does it make a sound?" argument.

Poynter
Opinion column

"If a soldier is killed and there is no coffin to see, is he really dead?" was the comparison. Although its slightly off-topic or much broader, one of the aspects of dying newspapers in the U.S. is the fact that so much will not be covered. It is estimated that corruption will skyrocket without less watchdogs around to monitor wrongdoing. Citizen journalists are limited in what they can do. Still, having more press freedom is key.

Photo by Tami Silicio

Maytag Aircraft fired military contractor Tami Silicio for violating the military ban on photographing coffins in 2004 along with the newly wed's husband David Landry. Silicio, a non-professional photographer, was previously the last to have a photograph of American coffins published. She did it without compensation.

Thinking Adam and Olly

I've found Olly and Adam very intense. I had my first tutorial last week with Adam, and it was incredibly useful. I was mostly interested in talking about my final project and wanted to get a bit of guidance and feedback. It's definitely out of my comfort zone and their work, way of thinking and methods are far from anything I've every done. They're on that line of art and documentary photography that is appealing and powerful, but still difficult for me to embrace entirely, but it is affecting the way I think these days.

Newspapers Dying

Photo: Gulker.comL.A. Examiner Staff reunion
For years now, the debate about whether or not newspapers would survive has been raging, but it has gradually gone from theory to leaning toward fact that they indeed may tank. As tough as it was for me to leave my career in the newsroom, being away has allowed me the detachment to look at it differently. For the past several years, more and more of my friends and ex-colleagues from American newspapers have been shown the door.

That nagging long-running story predicting the death of photojournalism seems to have quieted a bit now that thousands of former newspaper employees are hunting for jobs. Within my time working at newspapers, I had a unique opportunity be part of the good old days. I didn't realize it at the time, but when I began working in a real newsroom those days were the good times. It's more than just reminiscing about assignment adventures and good friends, the companies that I worked for had money to invest and hire despite being notoriously cheap.

I did photo internships at the Pasadena Star-News and then at it's sister paper, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. A good portion of the staffs at the papers were former Los Angeles Examiner photographers, the extinct Hearst-owned competition to the L.A. Times. I loved working with these guys. They were from the golden era of newspapers when there was still a lot of world travel, national and international bureaus, and big budgets. For me a fan of All the President's Men, Fear and Loathing in LasVegas, and that genre, it was all a bit exotic and larger than life. Besides the invaluable practical photography and newspaper photojournalism that they taught me (remember, I was a writer that wanted to be a photographer and switched near the end of college), the had great stories about covering Charles Manson, the night shift at the Examiner, a historic plane crash in Los Angeles and travels.

They were all sort of larger than life to me when I was starting out, and still are to some degree. A number of newspapers have disappeared, merged or transformed into skeletons for their former selves over my career: The Houston Post, San Antonio Light, the San Francisco Examiner, The Rocky Mountain News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer–and it looks like its only snowballing. Knight-Ridder has gone and its former stars like the Miami Herald are in deep trouble. In Florida we were always a bit hopeful because of the older population there who tended to read newspapers. It seems as they die off, the newspapers are going along with them.

When I was on a news staff, I had the hopeful opinion that newspaper would never die off despite the buzz raising the opposing position. Now, I'm not so sure. Like the rest of the news media, people just are not interested anymore. I was always annoyed that many of the young staff didn't read newspapers, a reflection of the populations. I find it interesting now that some of those people are now my friend on Facebook and have been joining a group called something like Save Newspapers. In symbolic terms, it's a sign that despite hugging that tree, the developer is ultimately going to cut it down and build his development. I'm not sure a movement by newspaper employees probably more interested in saving their jobs is enough to stop newspapers from tanking.

Keeping on the Facebook theme, I've gotten notes and pictures from old colleagues and friends both in and out of newspapers who remind me of a time when we were sort of high on the hog. One of the driving factors motivating me was repeated often by one of my best friends who I started off with in L.A. and has since left newspapers. He would say, 'more and more photographers are graduating every year from better schools than we went to, they're better and younger than us willing to work for less money.' I think that's still true, but with less newspaper jobs and newspapers themselves, I wonder where they'll turn. I've already been in the position several times telling younger aspiring newspaper photographers what it was like in the old days, and I don't even think I'm that old. With more an more newspapers dying and the never-ending tightening of the company belts, I'm sure those stories will be more fascinating to future photographers.

Final Project Exhibition Preparation: Looking Ahead

This afternoon I met with the artistic director at the Franco-Mozambican Center in the baixa, downtown, which is the best location in Maputo for exhibitions. They have art exhibitions, concerts, and dance performances there, so the space is somewhat big and popular. I knew that the major spaces here fill up quickly (they’re already booked for the next six months), so I had wanted to book something as soon as I could.

I prepared an iView slide presentation and made the same pitch I made when I first talked to her over the telephone and went into detail about what I planned to do: exhibit 60 pictures, have ambient sound recorded loop through in one room, and show a short multi-media piece to introduce the issue. As promising as it looks, I’m still not fully in the door and must prepare a press package with a short biography, a synopsis describing the project I’ll be exhibiting, and 5 sample photographs.

Considering the reality of a looming exhibition, my first, I suddenly feel a bit overwhelmed although the date is somewhat far off—I requested 10 days at the end of November. This gives me deadlines to look forward to. Incidentally, when we were first getting under way in the course, I expressed interest in doing an exhibition, and Antrim encouraged me to look into the French cultural center where she once exhibited (not here). Good suggestion.

I met with John Easterby and Lizzie in our group tutorial this afternoon. He had some interesting suggestions about the ways I could print my photographs, pointing out that you can print high quality photographs on almost anything today. He also made me think about framing, matting and actually hanging my pictures. John also suggested a former student's book business called Bob's Books for a self-publishing book printer as an alternative to Blurb. He mentioned that they gave LCC students a discount last year that he would look into getting for us again. There will be a lot of work and thinking to do.

Religious Groups

I've been spending a lot of time hanging out with the Mazione, one of the religious groups that worships and performs many of their rituals here. In getting access to them, I've had to explain often to different groups of people what I'm doing and what I'm photographing for. Doing so repeatedly has helped me in my own mind focus more on what I'm doing and what I need to do in this ongoing project. People that will most affected by the beach eroding are the religious groups: the Mazione, Zion and Universal; the fishermen and people using the beaches recreationally which would tie into the tourism draw aspect of it. Ed's criticism/advice still sticks with me though and I would like to find, although it's a bit tough, someone who might be suffering the effects now. I'm looking.