Perpignan Saturday: David Douglas Duncan, Brenda Ann Kenneally, and a heated photoj debate

Saturday, the last official day of professional week at Visa pour l'Image, started out with a press conference by David Douglas Duncan, the grandfather of modern conflict photography. At 92 years old, Duncan dodders a bit, with a rough combination for a press conference: achingly slow speech with an unrelenting memory for every minutiae. Those who sat it out, though, were rewarded with moments of inspiring passion. While remembering a young soldier sitting in the unimaginable cold of one Christmas in Korea, Duncan had to stop as tears welled up in his eyes. "I'm getting choked up, and it happened 50 years ago. Can you imagine?" he said, going on to reveal the source of the story's pathos. Asked what he wanted for Christmas, the soldier replied simply, "Give me tomorrow." Obviously Duncan's award-winning images from the conflict came from a place of extreme sympathy. "I don’t understand how doctors can go home at night and see this kind of tragedy and not be shattered as I am now," he said. Duncan also railed against censorship by "the creeps in Washington," which he called "criminal," and recognized that most of the work he'd done in Korea would simply be impossible in today's conflict zones. "I’d like to go to Iraq or Afghanistan and be told I can’t photographed something," he said, with a touch of mischievousness and anger. "Who says? I’d say, you’re talking to the oldest guy in the business you bastard, so shoot me." In his eyes it was unconscionable not to recognize the ultimate price paid by soldiers by publicizing images of their struggles and death. "To hell with it," he grumbled finally as he abruptly left the stage -- only to be pinned into a corner by a mob of admirers, all with flashes blazing. It was strange to see Duncan in a blaze of flash light, his arms raised, half in a celebrity's, "Yes, thank you" embrace and half in an eye-protecting squint, but I can't say I don't understand the admiration. (The image above, by Duncan, was one I mentioned from his exhibition as one of the best -- and most unsettling.)

Next up was a conference with Brenda Annn Kenneally, winner of the 2008 Canon Female Photojournalist award, as well as the 2007 recipient, Axelle de Russé. I had obviously heard Kenneally's name before, but I'd never really seen her work on poverty in the United States. I was simply blown away. The work has been an ongoing personal project for Kenneally, so it hasn't been published and isn't available on the Web. When she found out about the Canon prize, which includes a hefty grant, Kenneally started crying, saying she would have had to quit the project if she hadn't gotten funding just then. "It's more than money, it’s the emotional support," Kenneally clarified. "It’s solitary work; you may be with other people but you’re only observing their lives, so there’s no place for you to receive that [emotional] nourishment." Obviously an incredibly personal story for Kenneally, much of her work has been in Troy, New York, where her father lives and near where she grew up. "The rooms and smells and behavior of kids was unchanged from my own childhood in the '70s," she recalled. Yet the project has such power (and a special fascination for people outside the U.S.) because it shows a side of the superpower that is rarely seen. Images of the U.S., Kenneally points out, are usually about it's power, its tourism, or its wars. So maybe it's not surprising that everyone wanted to characterize her poverty work as "a personal war." "I think maybe if you have a war you have an acknowledgment it's going on," Kenneally corrected. "I think it’s even more serious than that because it’s under the guise of promise. There’s the assumption that nothing needs to be changed. At least when there’s a war, you expect an ending to the war." When asked if she considered herself an activist, Kenneally replied that she aspired to be one, especially now that the internet has made dissemination so much easier. "For me a book is without the other part, without the activism, it’s just an artifact," she said. "Fifty percent of the work is bringing it to the right places," including a community college in Troy with a program for first generation college students. Kenneally says the project, which she sees as an exploration of the United States' history as an industrialized nation, "trying to show where we went off that," already includes more than 300 black-and-white and color images. I cannot wait to see the project finished. (Image above by Kenneally from her POYi first-place winning project Upstate Girls, also made in Troy, New York.)

The final conference Saturday was probably the most interesting (and inflammatory) of the week. It focused on a photo that was made in South Africa by photographer Kim Ludbrook, who sent it to his agency, European Pressphoto Agency, which in turned pushed it to the wires. Jean-Francois Leroy explained that the photo had made it into one of the "year in pictures" slide shows for Visa before he found it and removed it. He reacted strongly against the image because of its content: first, a pack of photographers vying for a shot of a badly wounded man in Johannesburg; second, one of the photographers, Jerôme Delay, a photojournalist well known to Visa and Jean-Francois. (Image above, sorry for the watermarks.) Taking advantage of the opportunity Visa presented, Jean-Francois mediated a debate between both photographers and Maria Mann, the EPA editor who actually sent the image out. Ludbrook and Delay, who both cover South Africa, had already had conversations about the image over coffee in Johannesburg, they said. Still, they refused to concede the other's point: Ludbrook that he was only showing what was really going on and Delay that the image perpetuated unfair ideas about photojournalists and made their work harder to do. Mann, especially, was utterly unapologetic, saying she didn't hesitate for even a moment when sending the image out. Below is a bit of their dialogue.

Ludbrook: I felt that we really were behaving as a pack of war paparazzi. It’s my country, and I was very upset about seeing what I had seen. This debate started with Jerôme in Johannesburg. As a viewer one would start to ask questions. But I’m saying it’s a good debate to start. That day I was embarrassed to be a photojournalist. In this picture of a wounded man, we’re all standing to one side; we are creating a reality.
Leroy: As EPA head [Maria], why did you publish it?
Mann: We do our job, let’s not kid ourselves about our jobs and how we do it. I didn’t have to decide about this picture, it came in and it was sent out. I said yes, that's us at work. Anything we saw last night in the projection...I don’t know how you think you can get [those] images [without being there]. We’re there. If we’re not there, you’re not going to see it. But if we are there, things happen that wouldn’t happen if we weren’t there. We do parachute journalism, but we also serve a purpose. Let’s not forget the reality of what we do. for me this picture is not even an issue. If you are embarrassed by it, why are you embarrassed by it? I don’t understand it. For me we have to be realistic: Yes the press is taken to be pilloried, but also we do serve a purpose. We are all under pressure to be convergent; let’s not think we have a unique image. I wouldn’t even use the word defend, because there is nothing to defend. Kim was doing his job. Photojournalists are not objects, if a photojournalist has an emotion behind something he has taken, well then god bless him.
Delay: I personally think we are not the subject of what’s happening. It’s true when we take pictures we look silly; that’s the essence of taking pictures. They’re vultures, I don’t think we are.
Ludbrook: I totally agree with Jerôme, but I think if we remember that day, not one person went over and asked this gentleman if he was OK. As much as I agree with Jerôme on the impact of the picture...on that day no one helped that guy. It's a good situation to ask ourselves as photographers, when are we going to make the decision about shooting someone or putting my camera down? For me it stems from the pressure to produce pictures, to keep up with friends like Jerôme. It’s a good opportunity for us to be introspective. A lot of these young photographers are from local South African newspapers and there was definitely a sense that they were there to take THE World Press Photo.
Leroy: If Jerôme took such a picture of you, would you be happy?
Ludbrook: I’d initially be unhappy, but I would also understand why he shot the picture. It’s like looking at yourself in a mirror: We will take a moment to admit we don’t look that good. At the end of the day, I didn’t change reality, I just took a different view point.
Delay: I didn’t see the news value of a picture like that. The picture that I saw with photographers in it that day, police had shot rubber bullets and tear gas, everyone was running, there was a guy running into [the photographer], also two press photographers running. There, yes, we become part of the story; one of our colleagues had the impact of 12 bullets on his body. I’m questioning validity of, why do we feel compelled to become part of the story?
Mann: Because we are part of the story. We can accelerate actions with our presence. We can help people with our presence. I still don’t understand why. Why are we embarrassed?
Leroy: OK Marion, but …the thing is, between professionals you can say that, but when such a picture is shown, it’s a disaster.
Delay: I think we already have a hard enough time doing our job. Often we are the enemy, and the message that is sent when people see Kim’s picture...my feeling is, it’s sending the wrong message. We are shooting ourselves in the foot.
Leroy: When I got this picture, Laurent [Langlois] was shocked and really embarrassed. He decided to include it in the chronology [slide show] without my approval. I don’t want this picture on screen without giving Jerôme a chance to explain. I removed the picture but made this debate. To me, we are working to promote photojournalism and to me I think this is a disaster. To me it was really important to get your reaction. I understand all your reactions but I don’t know, if I was a photographer, if I would have put this picture online.
Ludbrook: It’s another day at the office for us. I’m embarrassed to be up here. I think it’s a bit of a storm in a teacup. I think it’s good to be introspective, but…this was a moment to turn the camera on ourselves, not in a negative way.

~Miki Johnson