Photographer takes photos of hungry Indians

It's exploitation and the photographs are boring and lacking imagination.

Reminds me to update my grocery list...

This type of photography and the equivalent in soundbites leaves me with a feeling that there is only one side of a story being told. India is a massive country and a population to match, but they do seem to have enough of their GDP left over to fund a nuclear (bomb) capability and to send satellites into orbit. Perhaps it is a time that they got their house in order instead of allowing (allegedly) millions of people to 'appear' to be homeless, starving or even just part of a set-up.

I'm okay with as long as the subjects are given some (real) food to eat after the shoot. Or at very least, some money to buy food.

Sirius Glass said:

Tasteless and exploitative. The information can be portrayed in much better ways. Yes, there is a moral responsibility.

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I agree completely.

World Press Photo has gone off the rails. First it was bullish!t ahhh-tisté passing itself off as photojournalism, then it was outright setup and staged photos....now this.

A lot of people need to be out of a job there.

bsdunek said:

It seems to me he is bringing awareness to their condition. You have to catch peoples attention somehow, and this was his way. There is no mention of it, but he may have helped them later.

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It seems to me you're missing some glaringly obvious problems, here.

Here is something better executed, and much much more interesting:

https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street/matrix

TheFlyingCamera said:

I think they're tasteless, they fail to communicate the photographers' stated goal for the images, and they reflect poorly because of that on WPP. They feel very much like a freshman photography student in art school's photos of homeless people in an effort to be "edgy". And just because someone is a willing participant in the photograph does not mean it cannot therefore be exploitative. It's poverty porn for rich white people.

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+1

Seems like hunting ducks in a downtown park.

Clearly it is not photojournalism but it is an interesting idea. We can debate the success or impact of the images. Yet I hardly think that "taste" or "morality" qualify the images except to marginalize them.

Personally, I did not like the images; they felt canned and formulaic. Much like a series of ads, the first image might have been interesting but that is lost on me in repetition. I do admire the effort, though.

Dishonest: I don't believe the photographer really did intend to address starvation. He just used/abused his subjects to create clickbait.

jtk said:

Dishonest: I don't believe the photographer really did intend to address starvation. He just used/abused his subjects to create clickbait.

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Finally we agree on something.

Berkeley Mike said:

Clearly it is not photojournalism but it is an interesting idea. We can debate the success or impact of the images. Yet I hardly think that "taste" or "morality" qualify the images except to marginalize them.

Personally, I did not like the images; they felt canned and formulaic. Much like a series of ads, the first image might have been interesting but that is lost on me in repetition. I do admire the effort, though.

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couldn't agree more, it does seem canned and formulaic
i took the time to go to his website and looked at some of his
other work
http://www.alessiomamo.com ( his flik page is via the link livelinked to his name or through his website )
maybe it is more of a series of advertisements instead of photojournalism and he and everyone in contact
with him and the ads is "labeling" it something else but only because for IDK 5-10 years he has been
doing freelance photojournalism ( unless those images are staged too ? ) and documentary ads are kind of now?
i mean people will pay some photographer $35,000 to do some "documentary style" wedding album ...
these photographs seem like the kind of stuff you might see on a billboard to raise awareness of hunger ... not the ap wire / photojournalism ..

but then again capa and margaret bourke white and weegee and brady and countless other photographers paid to do documentary work
created their own staged documents to photograph .. weegee moved bodies around to make them look "better", brady the same, margaret borque's "migrant mother" well known STAGED
cappa IDK ive read him being called a coward amongst other things and there is endless controversy about the flag raising photograph ... and im not even mentioning the photographers for the NYT &c
who over the years have gotten nailed for photoshopping images to look different, like reporters creating a faux ( composite ) person they "interviewd" to spew their POV ... reality and reality TV have blurred
" ive been told by lots of people, everyone knows this" is even stuff said by heads of state these days ... and ...
most of it is untrue or just like 1 person ( theperson saying "everyone" said it )

where does one draw the line, not about taste but photojournalism, and documentary work co-opted by image-makers ( ad people, directors ( ad/creative ) and others who want to make some sort of a point ?
abe lincoln did it ( calhoon trade off ) ..

Great photojournalism is a function of capturing a great moment at the right place/right time. Staging or photo-manipulation (and I do not mean darkroom or digital processing), are a sort of short-cut to the appearance of great photojournalism.

anybody contribute to feed the hungry today?