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Look3: Photographers on Honesty and Objectivity  

Last week, I attended the Look3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, VA, and was struck by the conflicting opinions on the role of photographic images.  Ashley Gilbertson delivered an impassioned talk about why he photographs the empty bedrooms of young soldiers killed in conflict. “I don’t believe in objectivity,” he explained, “I believe in honesty.” Spending weeks telephoning families of deceased soldiers and traveling around the world to photograph empty bedrooms is not a neutral endeavor. That evening, Massimo Vitale, famous for his large wall-size prints of crowds on beaches, provided a directly opposing view: “I’m all for objectivity,” he […]

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Look3  

Look3: The Festival of the Photograph was great fun — three days of browsing photography exhibits, seeing presentations from luminaries in the field, and hanging out with lots of photographer friends. However, the photography on display I found less than inspiring. The exhibits and shows were heavily weighted towards serious photojournalism. The implication here was that photography needs to communicate a very direct social or political message. Indeed, the Saturday morning breakfast session, where James Nachtway discussed his body of work on highly drug resistant tuberculosis, was titled “How Can Photography Improve the World’s Health?” But my favorite body of […]

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