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Photography,
Development and Cultural Power
Culture glides through peoples' consciousness,
breaking along its banks, accumulating and
depositing silt, meandering through paths
of least resistance, changing route, drying
up, spilling its banks, forever flowing
like a great river. Islands form and are
washed away. Isolated pockets get left behind.
It nurtures, nourishes and destroys. Ideas
move with the wind and the currents and
the countercurrents. Trends change, flowing
mostly with the current of dominant culture.
A few swim against this current, while others
get trapped in ox-bow lakes, isolated from
the mainstream.
Photography, more than any other media
or art form has influenced culture. Photographs
in particular take on the dual responsibility
of being bearers of evidence and conveyers
of passion. The irrelevant discussion of
whether photography is art, has sidelined
the debate from the more crucial one of
its power to validate history and to create
a powerful emotional response, thereby influencing
public opinion. The more recent discussions,
and fears, have centred around the computer's
ability to manipulate images, subsuming
the more important realisation that photographs
largely are manufactured by the image industry.
One that is increasingly owned by a corporate
world. The implied veracity of the still
image and its perceived ability to represent
the truth, hides the ubiquitous, and less
perceptible manipulation enabled by photographic
and editorial viewpoint. Not only can we
no longer believe that the photograph cannot
lie, we now need to contend with the situation
that liars may own television channels and
newspapers and be the leaders of nations.
Given the enormous visual reach that the
new technology provides, the ability to
lie, is far greater than has ever been before.
Photography has become the most powerful
tool in the manufacturing of consent, and
it remains to be seen whether photographers
can rise above the role of being cogs in
this propaganda machine and become the voice
for the voiceless.
 The
birth of photography parallels a move by
colonizers to dominate the globe and the
colonisers used photography extensively
to reinforce this new world order. The colonisation
of our visual space has since become merged
with two words; Development and Civilization,
while a new word is pushing to join the
ranks, 'Globalisation'. Photography is particularly
relevant to this understanding, as globalisation's
reach allows photography to manifest itself.
As consumers of images, we become the human
carriers of culture, inevitably shaped by
those who control the world of images.
Wide angle b/w shots, grainy, high contrast
images characterize the typical majority
world helpless victim. Huge billboards with
a dying malnourished child in a corner with
outstretched arms. A clear message in polished
bold font in the top left corner cleverly
left blank. The message reads, "We
shall always be there." A reality constructed
for and by those who want us to forget the
implications. That "you (the majority
world) shall always be there."
 On
the other hand, the orient and its misery
has been romanticised. Typecasting in Algerian
postcards required little more than swapping
captions under the photographs of the same
model. She was after all, what you wanted
her to be. Voluptuous, exotic, demure, enticing,
above all she was there as a still life,
ready to be consumed. Much like the rest
of the 'orient'.
Photographers in the majority world, and
those in Drik and Pathshala in particular,
have used the same medium to try and turn
this process around. They have shown "The
Pleasure of Life" of people whom a
materialist world would consider to be incapable
of experiencing joy. They have looked at
water, not as a source of floods and disasters,
but as a source of life. They have celebrated
the craft of the artisan and rejoiced in
the music of the Bauls. Through photography,
they have re-appropriated their cultural
heritage.
By : Shahidul Alam, Drik, 18 July 2002
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