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from a photography standpoint, Jacob Riis is one of the most interesting characters in the field. He committed one of the cardinal sins of photojournalism: man
by Green_man 7y ago
from a photography standpoint, Jacob Riis is one of the most interesting characters in the field. He committed one of the cardinal sins of photojournalism: many of his photographs were lies, with staged subjects. He spent effort to make the conditions look worse than they were- for his own gain, and also likely because he really believed in showing the conditions of urban life.
many outside of photography will overlook fussy criticism of Riis- his work helped pass laws that positively affected the lives of millions, who cares if he directed street urchins where to sit and made situations seem more desperate than they actually were? after all, the conditions were often extremely desperate.
but his job as a photojournalist was to portray things as they were- especially since he portrayed his photos as journalism. arguably, his photos also flattened the immigrant experiance to poor, crime ridden, and full of disease, rather than poor, crime ridden, full of disease, full of opportunity, and often with a great sense of community that made up immigrant life at that time. He also directly profited from simplifying and lying about urban life.
to me, Jacob Riis symbolizes how positive change isn't always done by the most scrupulous of actors, and the complicated relationship of truth and nuance with social change and politics. in order to pass a law, society often needs to have an uncompromisingly negative opinion of whatever status quo will be overthrown.
https://research.steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/media/users/grp224/downloads/hasiariis.pdf https://research.steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/media/users/gr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Riis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Riis
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoAnd if you condone doing this, because you agree with the cause, what will you say when someone does this kind of deception to promote a cause you vehemently disagree with?
- Green_man 7y agoThat's exactly it! because of the impact of his work- I don't know if I could condemn him- sanitation and child labor laws are huge. but we can't justify his methods, or justify people like him in a modern context. Jacob Riis was also arguably racist- what if it was his racism that got codified into the legal system instead of child labor laws and sanitation? then he'd be viewed as evil, without any philosophical nuance. We can only start the conversation about justifying his methods as worth it after knowing how it all turned out- we shouldn't assume any contemporaries can justify lying today. so we're left with a profiteering liar, who had a larger positive impact on the world than I can likely hope to have, and that's what makes his case so fascinating.
- yibg 7y agoIt’s a hard question. Ultimately it’s a does the end justify the means type of question. I suppose if you agree with the result then yes maybe, if not then probably not. I don’t know in this particular case how far the truth was stretched but we see this every day in for example advertisement and I think kind of expect it. I do wonder though if there is a version of the world where we can all present the objective truth, or as close to it as possible and have the “right” outcomes. I suspect not, since then you’ll be at a disadvantage to those who stretches the truth a little.
- nelgaard 7y agoI wonder how his audiences back then perceived this issue. The indoor pictures he made by just entering and firing a pistol with magnesium (later a frying pan). The outdoor ones he had to stage to some extent because of the long exposure times. Of course he took advantage of this, and the immigrants also wanted to pose for the camera. For anyone back then knowing anything about photography (which in his audience might have been quite a few) it should have been obvious that e.g. the photo of three boys stealing from a drunk man was staged, you could not make snapshots of quick actions.