Month: November 2017

For this blog review I want to focus on a section from the book ‘Photography as activism’ by Michelle Bogre. I want to start with a quote by W.Euene Smith, who is a social documentary photographer of the 20^th century “Photo is a small voice, at best, but sometimes… just sometimes… one photograph or a group of them can lure our senses into awareness” This quote to me defines a photo activist, stating the power of photography, but expresses that one photo alone isn’t as good as a group, a group of photographs together can exaggerate great power of awareness to the public in relation to documentary photography or just photography in general.

The chapter focuses on the history of photo activism and how it retained its activist status throughout the 1930s to the 1940s because the photograph had no competition. Meaning the only reason why photo activists could keep their position strong was because they weren’t up against anything else that could set out for social and political change.

Michelle Bogre moves on to discuss how in 1950/60 the power of photography decreased somewhat, but around the same time, TV Journalism amplified the still photograph but it was seen that moving image and sound was more intriguing to viewers. I find this understandable as these days creating awareness as an activist works just as well through the use of radio and TV news, but I still find the art of documentary really powerful to create a rare moment when documenting something such as the war.

Following from this, the text mentions how activist documentary photography rose again in the 1960s/70s as photographers imaged the great social movements and issues such as civil rights and drug addiction in America. I find this movement very effective as issues such as drug addiction will always receive help from the public through more awareness by using documentary.

A point that stood out to me more in this chapter is the discussion on the 1990s when web platforms came around and this resulted in thousands of activist photographers testifying to the dedication of photographs. This emphasises to use the power that photo activism had an how it fought to stick around, despite the competition in media, photography will always hold its own special platform within activism.

In the text written by Derek Murray, he actively discusses his interest with social media and the selfie; particularly the use of selfies by young women on sites such as Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram. Derek begins to talk about how young women characterize the selfie as a political empowerment in an act to resist the male-dominated media culture and their obsession with women’s lives and bodies.

I agree and disagree with this discussion as in the 21^st Century, women often contradict themselves, some post explicit selfies to gain male attention, some post them to regain female power, it’s a 50/50 split between the intentions of women’s selfies and can be perceived very differently by men in social media.  Derek backs this opinion up with this statement “The gesture itself has been popularly characterised as something rather pitiful… as an expression of narcissism and self-loathing” and also further into his text discusses how social media is inundated with blogs by young women who upload explicit images then contradict themselves with a followed post about rape and abuse to women.

Throughout the text, Derek moves onto the relation between the selfie and post-feminism. He discusses post-feminism in a theory of representation and how young women seek to redefine the parameters of feminism that grants them recognition.  My interpretation of this is that I believe women do strategically use the selfie to regain female power and to push for more equality between the sexes, but the question is, how does the selfie actually do that, other than to draw in male attention.

A point in the text that I would like to be able to understand further is Derek’s discussion on the female gaze and how it relates to inequality and female disempowerment as this is something I’m struggling to take apart.

The article by Ruxandra Looft challenges the male-dominated photography industry. The text discusses the website #GirlGaze founded by Amanda De Cadenet in 2016. This was created as a way to attract female photographers to promote their work as photography was seen traditionally as a male profession.

GirlGaze went viral after Amanda introduced the project to the Teen Vogue website, thousands of people were joining the trend. I personally feel that this is a great success already in engaging people into looking at your views and goals. The text also discusses the project goals and how they went on to addressing how women learn to understand themselves as part of a cultural discourse on womanhood.

“If we don’t have women telling their stories through all mediums, how are we supposed to see ourselves honestly reflected in the world” (Amanda De Cadenet, 2016) I support this statement by Amanda as I find it’s important that women have a voice and speak out honestly on their views as they will be heard, as the project GirlGaze shows, social media is a huge platform in the 21^st century to voice opinions.

The text has helped me understand feminism in more depth when the author discusses the first to fourth wave of feminism from the year 1840 onwards. The discussion on the fourth wave and the usage of technology and social media has helped me to understand that these methods are even more powerful than we’ve ever thought. GirlGaze is a great example in relation to the fourth wave of feminism, using social media platforms such as twitter to promote and gain followers for Amanda’s project. Looft Discusses social media activism and mentions how twitter is a more political, volatile and scrutinized platform, this is because of the power that the use of the ‘Hashtag’ holds, one use of it and your post is worldwide.