Heather Faulkner / Photojournalist

It’s happened. The Washington Post published a HDR (high dynamic range) image on their front page on January, 13, 2012. The justification of posting such an image (and quite a stunning image), which was included in the caption, was that the composite was meant to, “transcend the visual limitations of standard photography.”
Digital photography has come a long way in the short time it’s been used in news reportage. ISOs and noise reduction have improved. Dynamic range has also expanded. Some digital cameras have amazing, film-like dynamic range capture abilities. And RAW processors have improved in the ability to properly process images to render all highlight information captured by the camera. But sometimes, with digital, and film, it is impossible, without introducing artificial light, to capture the full dynamic range of what we see. Hence the use of multiple exposures.
As a member of NPPA, and a university lecturer in news and magazine photography (ethics is a big component), my teaching is informed by the current NPPA code of ethics for digital journalists. If you read the code, it’s accurate to say that this image is a manipulation (a combination of images, shot at different times). News photography is a warts-and-all affair – we trade on trust – trust with our audience (reader), that the visual reportage we are providing is fair, accurate and…real. But what is real when what you see can’t all be captured in one frame? We agree to work within the boundaries of our equipment. If we can’t capture the entire dynamic range of a scene, too bad. News photographs become historical documents. Accept technical limitations and don’t tamper with the evidence.
Contextually, the image on the front page of the Washington Post may not be real, but it is successful in conjuring or fabricating a memory of the air disaster that occurred 30 years previously (I don’t recall the air crash, but on viewing the image, I feel some nostalgia for it – I create a memory). That the image is successful in affect, is good storytelling, but it isn’t news photography. The problem is that the image is an illustration – an illustration that looks real. When we shoot photo illustrations, we agree that there should be a visual clue, and a big one, that tells the reader, “this is an illustration, this isn’t real.” A caption is not enough to explain or justify the composite’s place as a news photograph.

Fujifilm X-Pro 1 – (Pre Production) from Michael Fletcher on Vimeo.

Coming from a sheepshed near you, photojournalist Michael Coyne and landscape photographer Christian Fletcher give the new Fujifilm X-Pro 1 a run-through. Looks like a step-up from the x100, addressing many of the issues discussed in my last blog (and discussed by every other blogger out there). You can check out the full resolution pics here at DPReview.com.

This above slide-show is in response to a challenge made to me by a colleague who shall remain nameless. We met up at an exhibition and I had the camera on my shoulder. “What on EARTH did you buy that thing for?” A series of expletives describing the camera followed. I smiled politely through the onslaught. Eventually, he tired. “Twenty photos with that thing,” he drawled. “I dare you.”
I purchased the Fuji X100 because I cannot afford a Leica M9. I wanted a quiet, small, manual camera that I could bomb around with on my adventures. And to be honest, my back and neck don’t like carting around the extra bodies and lenses unless it’s important assignment work. I try to move as lightly and efficiently a I can.
With those deep baritone words of my colleague ringing in my ears, I left my Canons in the locker and took the new camera out with me on a documentary study trip through Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam with 20 Australian photojournalism students from QCA, Griffith University. With all the workshops and planning, I wouldn’t have time to work on more than one or two stories. I already had a larger project I was planning to continue with a different film camera, so I thought I’d see what damage I could do in the little flits of free time I could grab with the Fuji.
My two-bits:
This camera is more difficult to use than the 5D MK2, I can’t just grab a shot on the fly. For one, if you put it up to your eye and press the shutter, there’s a terrible lag. Blech. So this isn’t an action/sports camera. I found I had to pre-visualise a lot more. And time my shots. Using the Auto Focus Lock on the back (when I remembered to), I was able to get a crucial second shot off without having to go through the re-focusing process all over again.
The other thing that bugs me is that if I want to shoot a portrait up close, I have to switch to macro. Remembering these two steps in 40 degree heat on malaria tablets is not my forte.
Manual focus – forget it. Too hard.
I had to get used to the 35mm field of view. I usually shoot 24mm. This took some getting used to.
I tried out the panoramic stitch function. The results were good enough for the fridge, but not for a magazine.

What the camera does best is not scream out, “photojournalist!” every time I take a picture.

It is not big and black and covered in dangerous red and grey stripes. It is small, I can still maintain eye contact with my subjects. The shutter is super quiet. The auto-focusing is great (except for in some low-light situations). The sensor performs wonderfully – at 1600 there’s noise, but I’m old school. I like it.
For the trip, it was a great fun camera with some idiosyncrasies that only got me down when I forgot what the camera wasn’t.
The camera forced me to slow down and look. Really look. Actually, the one thing I can say honestly is that I didn’t have enough time to shoot. Most of the time I was making a mental catalogue of places I’d like to come back to, alone.

Documentary photographer, Julie Denesha, has published a website, Guardians of the Tongass: On water and land with forest rangers in the Tongass National Forest, of the work she made while following the rangers of the Tongass National Forest during an artist residency in Alaska. Julie traveled alongside the rangers, patrolling the park on foot, in kayaks and motorized boats. She writes, “[the ranges] check camp sites, count seals and monitor the solitude in a wilderness that is becoming more accessible to cruise ships and tourists. The work is arduous and involves weeks of camping in remote areas.”
There is a transcendental quality to this work, something that evokes memories of my own wilderness experiences in Canada.

This slideshow is a collection of images made by my friend, documentary photographer, Iva Zimova, documenting the people of Prague over the course of the week following the announcement of the death of former Czech president, Vaclav Havel. Havel was a playwright and dissident, having served five years in jail for his criticism of the then-communist regime. A spokesperson for the Charter 77 (demanding human rights), Havel became the leader of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which saw the end of communism in Czechoslovakia. He was elected president soon after the revolution, and was president of Czechoslovakia, and then, after the split, was president of the Czech Republic until 2003. His motto, “truth and love will prevail over lies and hatred,” has often been spoken and shared since his death on December 18.
Iva Zimova grew up in northern Czechoslovakia. Frustrated with the regime, she defected from then-communist Czechoslovakia in the 80s, eventually winding up in Montreal, Canada. There she studied documentary photography at Dawson College. Her black and white work won much acclaim, and soon documentary photography offered her a passport around the world. Her mission is to always document the inside story, to see beyond the surface, the spectacle, and to find the humanity so often obscured by wars and conflicts around the world. Along with her editorial work, Iva works closely with the People In Need Foundation (PINF), a Czech NGO that operates in numerous war-torn and economically disadvantaged countries. As news broke about Havel’s death, she did what she does best. She took to the streets, to find the soul of the story. But this story is different for her. “I feel like half the country has died with him,” she said to me as we shared a Skype conversation across timezones and oceans. “Looking at my pictures I feel more miserable,” she wrote me. “I still refer to him as my president. Seriously.”

Seven years after his death, just shy of his 96th birthday in 2004, Henri Cartier-Bresson, the grandfather of 20th century photojournalism, debuted down under. The exhibition he co-curated in 2003 with friend and publisher Robert Delpire, entitled, “Henri Cartier-Bresson: the Man, the Image and the World,” is finally here, in Brisbane’s Queensland Art Gallery. This will be the only Australian institute to host this exhibition of some 260 of Cartier Bresson’s finest works.
For those who’s earliest exposure to the the world was via the pictorial pages of Life Magazine, Cartier-Bresson’s images have become interwoven into the fabric of our own memories. They are cherished, like pictures and memories of family. That is not to say that this exhibition is purely nostalgic – though nostalgia is encouraged by the display of a few dozen pictorial spreads of which Cartier-Bresson was the author. For aspiring and practicing photojournalists and documentists, these exhibited black and white images are the hallmark of excellence against which we measure our worth. There is an honesty in these images that transmits immediately. This is important to note, as (I think) in this day and age of photojournalism and documentary, overly academic text-planaitions and over-stylized aesthetic have distanced the audience from the subject. Some of today’s celebrated documentists are (in my opinion) clinical and impersonal, and thus, create a void in our quest for knowledge of what it is to be human. Cartier-Bresson’s work is both intimate and humanising. It is solid in its affect. For this reason, the works of the man who coined the term, “the decisive moment,” is still relevant and engaging in the 21st century.
Henri Cartier-Bresson: the Man, the Image and the World, runs from August 27—November 27, 2011 at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia.

War photographer Patrick Chauvel has just published a small video feature on the Libyan crisis via the new C1 app for the iPad. The app is the brain child of photojournalist, Danfung Dennis and is aimed at providing a “tactile,” and emotional experience for the viewer.

My Freedom Or Death – Condition ONE Beta from Danfung Dennis on Vimeo.

While Time christens it as “a new way to photograph war,” war reportage is only one genre that can benefit in re-engaging a weary and wary visual audience. Social Documentary Photography can benefit from this new methodology. This type of audience engagement could offer a deeper authentic engagement with the explored subject or theme. It could also move us closer to answering the bigger over-riding ontological question, “what is it to be human?”

Feminist epistemologist Alison M. Jaggar writes that the relation between emotions and values, “is so close, indeed, that some philosophical accounts of what it is to hold or express certain values reduce these phenomena to nothing more than holding or expressing certain emotional attitudes.” Emotional engagement can change attitudes and values. This brings us back to the muckraking social activism of the early 20th century. In today’s world, there is a lot of muckraking to be done.

Of course, this all still depends on who is behind the lens, and what their motivation is. This can easily be used as a tool for propaganda, as images and video can easily be edited into new contextual constructions. And the dimensions of the shooting rig could pose difficult in capturing intimate or candid moments. Obviously, this will be picked up by sports shooters, the entertainment industry and the likes. It may even find itself extended to fictional narratives. But in the hands of a documentist who strives for authenticity and emotional engagement, this could be a wonderful new storytelling device.

Keep your eyes out for the launch of the C1 app later this year.

And in the Books by Heather Faulkner section…

“In November 1989, the people of Prague staged a peaceful revolt against the communist regime which had ruled Czechoslovakia since 1948. Twenty years later, a group of Australian photographers, artists and designers set out to broaden their horizons by joining the countless international tourists and locals pouring through the twisting, interconnected cobbled streets of Prague. Comfortable Shoes Only is a catalogue of their investigations into the revolution, the city and the people of Prague.”

The title of our first book on Prague refers to my rather hegemonic edict to students about appropriate footwear for the cobbled streets of Prague. Of course, no-one listened, and someone did smash up their foot (on the first night). But really, it’s a great little conceptual book (not so little, actually – 142 pages) of photographs, art comics, typologies, typography, geo-tagues and historical collages around the theme of the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.

And it’s on sale now, at Blurb.

PS Check back soon for more images on this site from the series, “I Was Here,” featured in the book, Comfortable Shoes Only. To see more documentary stories on Prague from this trip, visit The ARGUS.

Shortly after 4 a.m. on Thursday, January 13, the Brisbane River hit its peak. Residents were braced for water higher than the 5.45m record set in 1974, the last time the river burst its banks and caused city-wide flooding. As luck would have it, the river didn’t rise much over 4.45 metres – but that was high enough to flood low-lying streets and neighbourhoods across the city.
As we stood on the Story Bridge, surveying the city, a battered yacht, still attached to its mooring, floated down and under the bridge. The city centre was flooded in low-lying streets. Basements of historic buildings and office towers were flooded. The financial sector would have to relocate for the time being.
Walking along the mostly deserted city streets was like walking through a movie set for a disaster movie. We heard birds singing and then realised just how quiet it was. We’ve never heard birds in the city centre before.
We walked around the city centre before heading to the West End, Brisbane’s arts and entertainment district. GOMA, the State Library, the Queensland Museum, the Queensland Art Gallery, Tafe, Queensland College of Art and other iconic landmarks dotted the riverbank. A swath of brown rolled down the streets and parkways. We then headed to Milton and Auchenflower – suburbs heavily hit by the flood. We watched as motorboats carrying camera crews and politicians sped up and down Milton Drive, a main artery for car traffic. It was surreal.
We talked with locals and were invited into backyards for better vantage points – one of my photojournalism students helped move a couch for two young women, and they showed us their backyard – the water had stopped just a metre short of the back step.
From experience having covered Prague’s 100 year flood in 2001, I know that the worst still lies ahead. The clean-up job is going to be tremendous – and many may not be able to return to their homes. The weeks and months ahead are going to be tough on those people affected by the floods.
I did a couple of telephone interviews with CBC Radio in Victoria and Vancouver on Wednesday. They wanted to know if we were expecting a wall of water like the one that hit Toowoomba and the Lockyer valley. I said no, our flood will be slow and steady. I told them that 75% of Queensland was flood-affected – that’s a state that’s twice the area of British Columbia. One of the major issues people are facing is a shortage of supplies. With major transport routes cut off, trucks can’t deliver goods to flood and non-flood affected towns and cities across the state and into neighbouring New South Wales. People are reliant on helicopter drops for food and supplies.
For myself and my partner, we’re safe, high and dry in a section of Brisbane with a good supply of food and services. I have to go back to my own research, but I will keep tabs on what’s developing during this state-wide crisis.

This is the beginning of the flood for Brisbane – today it’s stopped raining and people living in the low-lying flood areas are able to move their belongings to safety without the added stress of rain. The river is slowly rising and taking over flood-prone streets along its banks. It’s estimated now that 20,000 houses will be flooded. We live on a hill close to the city centre and many of the streets below us are beginning to slowly fill with water. Our neighbours are at our apartment, and we’re going to walk down to Northy Street, a beautiful street that faces a sloping park and the Enoggera creek, to see if anyone still needs help evacuating or sand-bagging.
The river is set to peak sometime after 4 a.m. tomorrow. We are already cut off from close friends and some family by floodwater. Our power is supposed to be shut off sometime today. We’re all well stocked with food and water just in case. I hope everyone in Brisbane is taking the warnings from the government, police and SES seriously. Stay safe, Brisbane.