J. Sybylla Smith, In Conversation with Michelle Bogre
Episode #16 Summary:
Author, documentary photographer, academic and copyright lawyer Michelle Bogre provides an expansive definition of the boundary-defying work of contemporary documentary image-makers framed with respect and a deep knowledge of its often-times prejudicial history.
Episode Notes
Bogre honors the foundations of evidential aspects of photography to forge human connection and activate advocacy. She wrestles with the elasticity of the medium as digital capture and distribution impact and change everything. Accountability and authenticity remain essential while construction, portraiture, and installation are broadening the tool kit for visual storytellers.
In this book group, Michelle Bogre discusses, among other things:
Photojournalism as a subset of documentary photography with its own rules
How documentary is in its essence connected to the truth or fact of a story
The power of an image based in evidence, witness and narrative
How images tell a truth not the truth
Documentary as “the canary in the minefield”
Content over technique
Visual lyricism in stories revealing hidden histories
Responsibility to visual literacy
The absence of women photographers work being distributed and known and consequently all but absent in the canon of photo history
Decolonizing the camera
Resources
From Memory to Experience: The Smartphone, A Digital Bridge - Stephen Mayes
The Four Corners Project - International Center of Photography
A Photograph Never Stands Alone - Teju Cole for New York Times
iSee - exhibition review J Sybylla Smith
On Abortion - book review J Sybylla Smith for ZEKE Magazine
The Most Important Picture - non profit organization to continue collaborative work in marginalized communities worldwide
Companion Website for the book
Decolonizing the Camera: Photography in Racial Times - Mark Sealy
VII Photo - Anarchy in the U.S. and IN feed by Chrisopher Morris using 3D scanner app for iPhone with Lidar