Interesting post!!!

Jess's photo is amazing (does it need a caption at all?).

Interesting timing of post too ... for over on Jez Coulson's blog -- Jezblog (http://www.Jezblog.com) --- he posted a photo of rapper Side Street Ked (http://www.jezblog.com/index.php?showimage=1054).

In Side Street Ked, Jez saw a cool artist with whom he had the privilege to "hang" while another person only saw a guy who oppresses women.

Weirdly enough, all that banter made me curious, so I popped over to Side Street Keds blog and discovered that poet Queen Yonasda -- a young, disenfranchised woman -- credits Side Street Ked himself as the person who helped her to find her voice and as the person who supported her poetry and her art when no one else would.

It's a shame when people's prejudices and/or ideologies get in the way of their actually SEEING people and SEEING humanity (as Jez Coulson says, it's important to look for humanity in all circumstances!!).

Anyway, a long way of getting to why I popped by your blog today ... I popped over to tell you that I sent you an e-mail with some information and a huge, hi-res photo attached. Please make sure it comes through. It is the stuff that earlier in the week I promised I would send you :-) ... but only just now got to it.

Cheers,
Lynda

Hi Lynda,

Yes, some interesting comment taking place on Jezblog as a result of those images... It's great, I think, whatever our preferences to enable others to find a sense of 'voice'.
This is the key to my dialogue work; to facilitate consideration of the 'undiscussables' . Often we realise that the ability to resolve conflict is within our own gift - if only we can admit it....

Steve

My husband and I were looking at the Haiti photo and the caption comparisons thinking you hit the point spot on. We were both reminded of a similiar type question. Although the photos were different in the aftermath of Katrina, what appeared to be like behaviors depicted in some of the shots were described <A HREF="http://www.snopes.com/katrina/photos/looters.asp">quite differently.</A>

The photo-dialogue that emerged led people into discussions about the possibilities of subtle and overt racism.

It certainly was a worthy conversation for our communities to consider.

Wrong code mark up.:) but there is always tried and true cut and paste. Or if you can repair the link for me, that would be good too.

Tried the code mark up hints below post but the link is still not showing in preview. Maybe I can figure it one day. ;-)

Marena,

Thanks for the link. Yes... looting v. finding... Isn't it incredible how we attach our own truths to the image. When these juxtapositions make our process apparent we reach a different sense of knowing - that WE made the image 'true' - WE chose one narrative rather than another.

I'm not sure the law (in the UK) anyway makes the distinction that is implied - if you 'find' something you are supposed to give it back - if not, you're 'stealing'...

Btw - I've never figured out the html either....

Steve

Steve, the cover of the magazine looks really cool all blown up like that ... love those flower taxis ... can't wait until you see it in person. It's all glossy and awesome!! Let me know when it FINALLY gets to Britain.

Thanks, mate :-)

Cheers,
Lynda

Exactly Steve. A different sense of knowing bears on what we see in photos.

For instance one person may look at a picture of a rapper producing songs that sexually objectify women but primarily see the aspects of the lifestyle that they feel represent a cool artist. The impact on women may be marginalized in their thoughts. Another person may marginalize aspects of the artistry or see nothing cool in at all because they have a sense of knowing that they are the targets of the oppression represented in the sexual objectification.

http://www.saidit.org/archives/jan06/article4.html

[Rapper's sexism] "the ghetto blues, urban folk art, a cry out for help." My question then is: Whose blues? Whose art? Why won’t anybody help the women who are raped in endless rotation by the gaze of the hip-hop camera?"

"To hip-hop's apologists: You were given this world and you glorify it. You were given this world and you protect it. You were given this world and you benefit from it. You were given this world and even in your wildest dreams you refuse to imagine anything else but this world. And anyone who attacks your misogynistic fantasy and offers an alternative vision is a hater, or worse, an enemy who just doesn't get it. What is there to get? There is nothing deep or new about misogyny, materialism, violence and homophobia. The hardest part isn't recognizing it, but ending it. Calling it unacceptable and an enemy of us all. Refusing to be mesmerized, seduced or confused by what hip-hop has come to signify: a betrayal of our imagination as a people."

It depends on the sense of knowing and what it is that one person knows versus someone else's experiences that can result in differences as to what we see.

I believe I understand what you are saying. Well put point that that dynamic is quite well, thank you very much, in our decision making processes.

I think we all have our areas of pathological absence in our thinking. I'm progressing on recycling for instance. Big grin. Also, when we truly realize that we have been blind on an issue, how far do we go, should we go to see again? Silent in one situation, outspoken in another. Figuring out when and where to be either or how to mix both as the situation reveals itself. The degree to which we integrate that others are hurt by our blind spots as are we, impacts on our choices of response. We have to remind ourselves to be patient with each other in the journey, if not with the blindness, as we all experience sight differently.

Some do chose to turn a blind eye willingly or make excuses. I'm downstairs. The recycling bin is upstairs. But that trashcan is right beside me. It was a campaign of photo-dialogue amusingly enough that helped me understand that each person has to commit to climbing the stairs to reach critical mass to progress.

But some truly have not integrated to the same degrees as others the consequences of innocent purchase dynamics. They see a different picture or a different part of the picture that is equally important to them.

But back to what do you do, what should you do as an individual citizen of the world? ;-) A question we all determine the response to in internal dialogue in the midst of external forces pulling us here/there. If I don't buy that music but I give it download hits or list it on my Favorites wall ...

Sustainability is finally a hot ticket! A friend is the Director of a large program covering several counties, municipalities. His responsibilities cover interior and exterior residential. I think he is being pulled into commercial as well. When he is not playing his banjo ...

Go get 'em Steve.

Hey Steve,

I continue to find this discussion of interest both for the discussion itself and for the implied subtext in certain posts.

Anyone who has taken the time to get to know Jez Coulson will know that he does not support violence against women. Anyone who has taken the time to truly get to know me will know my views on this subject as well.

But your post brings up a good question about art itself and the vision necessary to create authentic works of art (be they songs, photos, or other mediums).

Take Jez Coulson, for example. He is an artist and a photojournalist. Throughout his over 20 year career he has hung out with (in order to photograph) drug dealers, folks who steal cars, members of Hamas, etc ... He's also photographed in genocide, concentration camps, conflicts in South Africa, and the list goes on ...

For another example, look at Jim Nachtwey (certainly in that link I posted the other day some folks claim he is a self-absorbed jerk and oppressive to people!!). But if you look at his work, particularly this stunning video on YouTube (Jim first photographs the situation, then risks his life to plead for the man's life, but when the man is tortured and executed anyway, Jim pulls out his camera and shoots that too):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4f30ah3ss8

I suppose if you simply looked at Jez's photos, or of some of Jim's photos --- if you simply read that very negative thread on Jim and jumped to conclusions and didn't take the time to take a second and third look, and to carefully listen, you could make the snap judgement that Jez supports drug dealers or people who steal cars and that Jim ultimately supports the horrific torture and execution of an innocent man (or, at least, that Jim used it as an opportunity to get the shot and sell it to magazine in order to further his career).

But I'm not sure that that's the best approach to art (or to people, for that matter). In terms of art --- there is a school of thought that says that the goal of art is to capture life and to show life in all of its beauty, complexity, and even horror.

The band U2 sang "Sunday Bloody Sunday" in order to tell a story. Bruce Springsteen, The Sex Pistols, Jim Morrison, and ZZ Top ("she's got legs, and she knows how to use them") are trying to capture something ... to say something ... to shine a light on some aspect of our world. Sometimes the agenda is to say, "Look, look here ... this is what's going on in my neighborhood, in my reality ... or this is what's going on someplace in the world." (Also I'm thinking of the movie 8 Mile and Eminem).

In fact, I once spent a whole evening with some very rough rappers, Street Poets from the South Side of Chicago. All of them were black. All of them were poor. Most of them were gang members. They scared the crap out of me. But I stayed and engaged them and listened because I wanted to know something about their reality in order to not only learn something about them, but in order to learn something about me. I learned quite a bit about all of us --- the hard lessons that I learned about me that night have stayed with me.

Isn't that the point of art?

If I only looked and listed to the folks that agree with me, that share my same view or lifestyle, then I'm not really listening or learning anything.

I don't know if you've read Hemingway's "Death in the Afternoon" --- and I don't think his approach to vision is as developed as it could be --- but the point he makes is moving in the right direction: To see beyond our particular agendas, to look at things that make us uncomfortable or with which we disagree, and to look not to find something wrong with what we see ... but to look, simply look, and look and look and look until we can see what is there, all of it, all shades of black and white and gray and red: to see both the larger picture, as you suggest, and the tiniest detail, as Hemingway suggests, is the only way an artist, or anyone else, can begin to develop his or her vision.

For example, I don't know the truth of Jim Nachtwey yet. I certainly was drawn in by his photos ... was stunned by the comments some folks made on that thread ... was in awe of the courage he displayed in the YouTube video ... I have read some of the interviews he's given and some articles written about him (some positive and some negative) ... and, well, I'm still looking ...

Thought provoking initial post on your part :-)

Cheers,
Lynda Ward
www.AnEnchantedForest.com

Figured you were on the run. Welcome back. Catch your breath to get caught up but looking forward to your next photo-dialogue.

Hey Steve,

Thought this might be of interest. It expounds upon your original post about Jess's photos, and it's also another article (illustrated with Jess's photos) addressing the issue of folks who are too quick to judge and / or refuse to see the world through any lens other than their own ideology / agenda, and thus are remain blind to possibilities (and in many cases, blind to reality itself) :

http://www.coldtype.net/Assets.10/Pdfs/0210.Haiti.pdf

Truly interesting angle and reveals a side of "the story" that is rarely, if ever, examined.

Cheers,
Lynda