Using Photography to Transform Lives

[Arthurwg]

It's a great idea, but unfortunately there is little proof that photography has ever changed anything. I believe it was Don McCullin, master of concerned photography, who sadly said he didn't think his war photography ever had any real effect.

True, Jacob Riis was credited with calling attention to New York's slum dwellers in 1888, and Eddie Adams' Pulitzer Prize winning picture, "Saigon Election" of 1968 was thought to have helped to end the Vietnam war. Perhaps, but the war didn't end until 1975.

 

[chuckroast]

I would suggest that agendas are fine. The critical question is whether they are public and transparent - and a title that reads:
"Using Photography to Transform Lives" goes a long way toward that.
If one rejects the photography and the information depicted therein because one disagrees with the agenda, than that says more about the viewer than the material itself.

I reject agenda not because of its content. I reject it when - as is too often the case - the message being preached isn't balanced by a wider context.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Thank you for posting.

 

[MattKing]

\based on discussion within the moderator group, we have deleted the previous post as being so little to do with photography, and so much to do with agendas and politics, as being against the "no politics" rule.
And yes, mea culpa, some earlier posts, including at least one of mine, were at least trending that way.
So we need to reign this back in - centred on the role of photography please.
Because that is the Photrio agenda.

 

[chuckroast]

\based on discussion within the moderator group, we have deleted the previous post as being so little to do with photography, and so much to do with agendas and politics, as being against the "no politics" rule.
And yes, mea culpa, some earlier posts, including at least one of mine, were at least trending that way.
So we need to reign this back in - centred on the role of photography please.
Because that is the Photrio agenda.

It's your show and - as always - I respect the findings of the mods. I would be remiss, however, if I did not point out that the original article that launched this thread is itself replete with political agenda.