In this episode, we talk with Tanya Habjouqa about reevaluation and responsibility. Tanya shares how her Circassian background motivates her work as she feels the diasporic community’s story was never told.  She reflects on how the process of printmaking has allowed her to forge a deeper physical connection with her art which can be healing. Tanya explains the countless ethical considerations involved in photographing Palestine including the topic of embedding as well as the targeting of journalists. She also discusses the different levels of involvement and responsibility involved in photographing a community and the impact of parachute journalism.

What you’ll find inside: 

“I need to care about the community that I’m photographing, there needs to be a stake a personal stake.” (13.17)

On printmaking: “There was something healing about that process but it was also just wow I can take a faint archival picture I can utilise images that I could not in our traditional photography realm.” (14.29)

On art books: “It was this moment where I understood I was in a position where I could bring my documentary work and ethics but find new ways of layering bringing in history and overlaying texts.” (15.16)

“The community who’s story you’re telling they should recognise themselves. You should invest time before picking up your camera, I really see photography as an intellectual practice.” (19.24)

“You have the power and the responsibility of that archive, I don’t think you shouldn’t take the picture. Sometimes if there is something happening take it and then carefully carry that close to you and unpack where that should go or if it should go.” (21.02)

“I think we have a responsibility to try to innovate in our image making and to be as layered and nuanced as possible.” (39.22)

What does photography ethics mean to Tanya? 

“It’s a process of being thoughtful, evolved emotionally intelligent human beings and understanding that this is not a right, you worked very hard to get access.  You can tell there’s a difference between a parachute journo drop in snapshot, you can tell when you’ve been invited into the house and that there’s a degree of trust it’s very clear in the image and what’s reflected. It’s just a constant evaluation checking in with stake holders. There’s no key formula you also end up developing an intuition and trusting your intuition.” (40.33)

Links:

The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America by Sarah Lewis

Darcy Padilla

Maureen Cummins

Sean Hillen

The Book as the Trojan Horse of Art: Walter Hamady

Betty Brink

These macaques are used for entertaining. They’re also endangered.

Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots

In this episode, we talk with Tiffany Fairey about visualising peace. Tiffany warns of the dangers of binaries and hierarchies in terms of the different forms of photography as it negates the importance of different perspectives. She highlights the complexity of the politics of visibility and the ethical considerations required when marginalised groups become visible through photography. Tiffany also explains peace photography and how it can be used to depict a desired future in contexts where conflict is still present.

What you’ll find inside: 

“I felt really uncomfortable I guess about this idea of who’s taking the pictures and who’s telling the story. That idea that taking photos of someone is almost like putting words into their mouth.” (7.37)

“Often in these projects a lot of the kind of benefits and the outcomes aren’t really anything to do with the image… really about facilitating something beyond the photography but also facilitating through and via photography.” (12.28)

“It’s not like peace photography is against war photography and we must have one or the other. I think there’s a danger sometimes in photography that we have to think in terms of binaries or in terms of hierarchies.” (16.06)

“The politics of visibility basically can not be straight forward when you’re working with groups that are traditionally silenced suddenly becoming visible and having their stories heard. It’s complicated as well because a lot of the times they’re not listened to, so there’s dangers of raising expectations that can’t be met through these projects. We’ve had complications around finances as well.” (22.25)

“Within peace photography that is one of the key considerations are these images to be shared or not? There shouldn’t be an assumption that these projects are always about sharing images.” (32.31)

“I think the idea of peace photography is asking us to really reassess what we think of as visually significant.” (40.17)

“A photography of peace can make visible all these elements of peace that we might not always consider.” (41.03)

What does photography ethics mean to Tiffany? 

“Essentially for me ethics means accountability and transparency in how you deal with others and communicate your work. There’s always the danger that the language of ethics end up obscuring what is actually happening, we can make it more complicated than it is. I worry a lot about people talking the talk about ethical photography but we don’t always walk the walk and it’s not simple to do that. I would say it’s this idea of ethics being grounded in transparent and accountable relationships with the people that we work with.” (41.52)

Links:

PhotoVoice

Street Vision

Anna Blackman

Voices in Exile

TAFOS

Fotokids

Nancy McGirr

Ingrid Guyon

PhotoVoice Statement of Ethical Practice - PhotoVoice - Projects, Training, Photography and Consultancy for Social Change

Liz Orton

Peace Photography Guide | Imaging Peace

Imaging Peace

Everyday Peace Indicators

Ariella Azoulay

In this episode, we talk with Kimbra Audrey about healing. Kimbra shares how her self-portraiture practice is a way to reclaim power over her image and body after years of modelling. She discusses documenting her breast cancer journey through photography as well as the current issues with breast cancer representation in terms of race, gender and age. Kimbra challenges the phrase taking a photo as she incorporates sustainable practices into her work, trying to give rather than take. She also explains her decision to takes self-portraits nude as a way to distance herself from the fashion industry.

What you’ll find inside: 

“I think that consent is the most important part of the relationship between any model and photographer and that clear boundaries should always be established before you even shoot. Also, clear explanation of where the images will be.” (7.50)

“I learned to love of all of my feelings and the complexities of my emotions through my self-portraiture. I feel like in modelling I loved the parts that fit into patriarchal values.” (10.58)

“It was also very healing to love my body when it was at its weakest and most sick and most vulnerable. And be able to find strength and empowerment in moments that were really really horrible and difficult.”  (13.16)

“But it can be hard to draw the line in the middle range of like green washing or also I’ve discovered more recently pink washing which is essentially the same thing but for breast cancer… you really do have to dig deeper and find your own personal compass.” (18.43)

“Just the phrase take a photo I have always had issue with because I’m not taking anything. I’m making I’m creating I’m making a self-portrait, I don’t want to take anything. I approach my photography the same way I approach everything in life and I want to give.” (20.22)

What does photography ethics mean to Kimbra? 

“Photograph ethics are not separate in any way from my life ethics. Also really specifically in my situation because of the nature of my work and the self-portraits being so insular and solitary they are a representation of who I am … love, kindness and self-responsibility I focus on what I can do and that I think is reflected in my work.” (30.49)

Links:

Model Alliance

The Sustainable Darkroom

In this episode, we talk with Kimbra Audrey about healing. Kimbra shares how her self-portraiture practice is a way to reclaim power over her image and body after years of modelling. She discusses documenting her breast cancer journey through photography as well as the current issues with breast cancer representation in terms of race, gender and age. Kimbra challenges the phrase taking a photo as she incorporates sustainable practices into her work, trying to give rather than take. She also explains her decision to takes self-portraits nude as a way to distance herself from the fashion industry.

What you’ll find inside: 

“I think that consent is the most important part of the relationship between any model and photographer and that clear boundaries should always be established before you even shoot. Also, clear explanation of where the images will be.” (7.50)

“I learned to love of all of my feelings and the complexities of my emotions through my self-portraiture. I feel like in modelling I loved the parts that fit into patriarchal values.” (10.58)

“It was also very healing to love my body when it was at its weakest and most sick and most vulnerable. And be able to find strength and empowerment in moments that were really really horrible and difficult.”  (13.16)

“But it can be hard to draw the line in the middle range of like green washing or also I’ve discovered more recently pink washing which is essentially the same thing but for breast cancer… you really do have to dig deeper and find your own personal compass.” (18.43)

“Just the phrase take a photo I have always had issue with because I’m not taking anything. I’m making I’m creating I’m making a self-portrait, I don’t want to take anything. I approach my photography the same way I approach everything in life and I want to give.” (20.22)

What does photography ethics mean to Kimbra?

“Photograph ethics are not separate in any way from my life ethics. Also really specifically in my situation because of the nature of my work and the self-portraits being so insular and solitary they are a representation of who I am … love, kindness and self-responsibility I focus on what I can do and that I think is reflected in my work.” (30.49)

Links:

Model Alliance

In this episode, we talk with Jesse Alexander about creative sustainability. Jesse discusses the nuances of rurality and place making as well as the urban bias present in landscape photography. He also explains how idealised images of agriculture are disconnected from their polluting impact. Jesse shares his ethical approach which focuses on the general messaging of his work and lowering his own consumption. He speaks on the ethical framework at Falmouth University, which invites reflection and innovation while allowing students to learn without shame.

What you’ll find inside: 

“There is I think a very very inherent urban bias in landscape representation. It sort of links to other things like enclosure acts and a very distorted appreciation of the land in a very broad sense.” (9.11)

“These images are really really pervasive I think, particularly around agricultural actually and its very disconnected. Unfortunately, the majority of agricultural practices are really bad, really polluting… the dominant narratives are quite different.” (12.06)

“Does it increase consumption basically in a bad way? That’s sort of my core fundamental approach, the priority has to be about thinking about the messaging.” (16.24)

“I do think if ethics are so far at the front and in such big bold letters then I think it can be a bit kind of restrictive. So, I think the thing I say is the MA course is a safe space to make mistakes.” (25.47)

“At the time I kind of had a distinction between ethics and sustainability and then since that time I’ve really realised that actually they are two sides of the same coin.” (32.17)

What does photography ethics mean to Jesse? 

“I think it is ultimately what your practice says, and what it says about you as well. Whether it is in like the really obvious messaging of the work or actually the kind of very subtle ways of how you go about working. I think it really does actually filter into all of those choices you make as a practitioner.”  (43.35)

Links:

David Campany

Paul Seawright

Paul Graham: Troubled Land

Clive Landen

The Digging Season

AdGreen

Albert

Jesse Alexander

Alice Cazenave

Dawn Woolley

Tamsin Green

In this episode, we talk with Heather Agyepong about embodiment and the self. She explains what reimagination means in her practice when representing black women in history ethically. Heather also explores the gatekeeping present in art and how this drives her to make her work visceral in order to transcend linguistic accessibility. She reflects on her decision to focus on self-portraits after witnessing the exploitative and distorted depictions of e-waste in Ghana.  Finally, Heather talks about self-exploration through art and balancing this with establishing boundaries.

What you’ll find inside: 

“It’s more about what I’m feeling and what sort of medium I need and then I fall into these different dimensions of making art.” (4.10)

“I think the reason I make art is to trust myself and rediscover myself. I think for a long period of time there was just so many different layers of who I was which were just kind of projected on to me… my quest in making art is to start removing those layers and I guess whilst I’m removing the layers I’m trusting myself more.” (4.41)

“There was something about looking back which helped me to understand my present circumstance, using these women from history to explore myself.” (6.22)

“A violence sometimes happens with these women where because of the lack of knowledge, they are created as like caricatures or their lives are reduced in some sort of way. So if anything, it feels like I’m trying to kind of repair some of the violence that happens in those old images.” (7.55)

“My work is not really about perfection it’s the intent and the intention of making something accessible.” (12.14)

“There’s something about giving it up to the camera and trying to make the camera not a critical viewer … more like a witness or an observer. So you kind of take the power back from that gaze it becomes less of a critical observer more of just like someone witnessing you.” (16.40)

“I think that work is always like the last chapter of something. Healing is a constant thing but in terms of that specific thing I’ve processed it I’ve got a revelation of something that’s happened, it doesn’t belong to be anymore.” (25:34)

What does photography ethics mean to Heather? 

“An empathetic ear, selfless reflection and progress. I think the history of photography has been ethnographic, anthropological and I think that often haunted photography for a very long time. The progress idea is that we need to evolve from this idea that its truth or about othering. I think that photography at its best is about connectivity and I think that it’s the responsibility of the photographer to engage with those three things.” (36.08)

Links:

Raymond Thompson Jr.: On speculation

Heather Agyepong: Yaa

Heather Agyepong: Through Motion

Heather Agyepong: The Body Remembers

Authentic Movement: Essays by Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow by Patrizia Pallaro

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk

In this episode, we talk with Nana Kofi Acquah about the complexity of consent. Nana speaks of the importance of prioritising understanding in order to photograph complex stories authentically. He also discusses how the coronavirus pandemic illuminated the lack of empathy present in the photographing of illness in Africa.  Nana highlights how images of poverty and opulence are often juxtaposed and that more understanding is needed to create nuanced images.  He explains how captioning is critical to remove bias and depict the original substance of the photo. Finally, he explores the capacity for consent in relation to people in vulnerable positions.

What you’ll find inside: 

“I think the secret of good photography when you’re dealing with very nuanced very complex issues is to not focus on the photograph just focus on understanding. Focus on getting to this place where the people can truly be themselves in your presence.” (9.18)

“To seek to disappear, to seek to not get in the way of the story. I think the pinnacle of all art is invisibility.” (10.51)

“When you photograph a child who is starving and dying maybe they lived maybe they became president of their nation, but nobody remembers that all we ever remember is a poor starving African child.” (16.29)

“People are more than just a moment you witnessed.” (18.38)

“In the effort to make exceptional images we tend to distort history especially for those who come after us … and the ability to see that the mundane is a story.”  (21.55)

“Captioning is the secret recipe that gives a photograph true longevity it’s that important. Captioning is crucial because captioning helped me step out of my bias to hear the original observer’s voice.” (23.45)

“Consent for me is a complicated matter especially when we are working with vulnerable groups.” (30.03)

What does photography ethics mean to Nana? 

“If I can go back show them the photographs and not have to worry about how they will feel about it. It may not be their greatest photo but they say at least that’s how I was feeling that’s the way I was. I don’t want to remember that part of my history again but that photograph is honest it speaks to that moment in my life.” (34.39)

Links:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

The Baggage that Lives with You Forever

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Nana Kofi Acquah on inequality in Ghana

Immediate Family by Sally Mann

Kadir van Lohuizen

In this episode, we talk with Alice Cazenave about the toxicity of photography. She examines photography and colonialism on a material level in terms of land ownership, extraction and contamination. Alice discusses how the use of plants allowed her to explore the different narratives that emerged from the same place. She provides insight into the plant-based photo-chemistries* that develop her analogue photographs, and explains how her work is informed by multi-disciplinary perspectives and resources. Through her practice, Alice stresses the importance of vulnerability as she pursues work which challenges her own assumptions.

*Plant-based photo-chemistries are made with plants and sodium ascorbate.

What you’ll find inside: 

“Using the plants was a way to kind of unveil the different levels of social and ecological harm that was coalescing in this space, without condensing that region to one specific narrative.” (11:48)

“Looking upstream at the infrastructures and the cultural practices around what we value in photograph and what that looks like if you look at the materials that we use. We might value aesthetically clean or well-balanced photos but there’s a real toxic legacy to making photos that way.” (16:05)

“It’s fascinating for me the way these chemicals move around and shape-shift, so I’ve also been interested in recycling and repurposing the actual chemistry to think about the way that contamination moves through time, and through people’s bodies and atmospheres, and these boundary-less spaces.” (23:21)

“I really think that looking to disciplines outside of photography, and bringing them back in through the work is a really enriching way to engage with the medium, because it explores the complexity of it. It’s a really complex medium, photography…ethically, materially, and historically.” (31:10)

What does photography ethics mean to Alice? 

“For me, it’s about starting a project or an approach from a place of feeling vulnerable. Approaching a topic or at least choosing things that have really marked you from a sense of not knowing too much about them and that being a problem. I think that sort of vulnerability is at the core of all of the work I have done.”  (37:26)

Links:

The Sustainable Darkroom

The Sustainable Darkroom Patreon 

Up the Anthropologist: Perspectives Gained From Studying Up by Laura Nader

Ganondagan White Corn Project

the.lilac.collective

Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics by Jennifer Gabrys

In Pollution Is Colonialism by Max Liboiron 

Coal Fired Computers

Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet by Andrew Blum

In this episode, we talk with Hernease Davis about empathy in the darkroom. Hearnease opens up about her use of photography to process, heal and take care of herself. The complexities of exhibiting work relating to vulnerable issues is explored as well as the topic of protection. Hernease discusses empathy in relation to trauma and the place of empathy in art history. The metaphor of walking in someone else’s shoes is deconstructed in order to depict empathy in a more nuanced way.  Hernease also gives advice about using photography for the pursuit of self-knowledge.

What you’ll find inside: 

“For the past ten years I’ve been crafting my practice to be a place where I can take care of myself. So like a psychological space and a safe place to imagine things that are metaphysically impossible in order to try and render a healing process for myself.” (3.20)

“Empathy actually started as an art historical term… empathy was started off as a way of appreciating art.” (25.23)

“You’ll never truly know what it is like to walk in their shoes or to be them and it’s ok to bring yourself in this idea of what empathy means.” (28.06)

“For me what it means to be seen is what you think of me as my surface is just the beginning. Ask me some questions, spend some time do a little bit of relating. It is also the way that I try to think about others as well.” (32.17)

What does photography ethics mean to Hernease?

“In my experience I have had the realisation that some people take photography personally, like too personally where it becomes their identity in some kind of way… I just approach it as it just is, it is and this is what photography has done. I can talk about it as a tool that has honestly saved my life but also has been a tool that has led to so many atrocities like genocide. That also has led to how we misread each other, how we misunderstand one another.” (37.24)

Links:

A Womb of My Own (Mistakes Were Made In Development)

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Hernease Davis

In this episode, we talk with Jai Lennard about opportunity versus access. Jai discusses how part of his ethical considerations include deciding if he is the right person to tell a story.  Additionally, his founding of Color Positive was part of his drive to diversify the stories which are told by aiding young black artists. Jai outlines how his mentoring role at Color Positive puts him in a place of access to talent enabling him to connect photographers with projects that they are aligned with. Access is also explored in relation to opportunity as Jai discusses how both are needed for artists to succeed.

What you’ll find inside: 

“I think that a lot of the subjects that I used to be more head on with dealing with actual people, dealing with survivors, dealing with people who are on the ground trying to change the world. Those same stories get told in entertainment… everyone wants to tell stories different ways.” (7.08)

“If I’m being approached about a project, is this a topic that I want to dive into? Should I be telling this story?... It’s always case by case for me, I take everything individually I don’t really have blanket answers.” (8.12)

“I just kind of always knew I needed a mentor and I think maybe that’s also back to just my background. Growing up as a young black man in a mostly white community – despite how diverse my area was – I just always knew that if I was going to succeed, I wasn’t going to do it on my own.” (18.52)

“You can be asked to do a job that sounds amazing and when you get there, you have not been set up to succeed and that is the difference between having access and not having access…there’s so many different kinds of access, an opportunity is just an opportunity and without access it’s not a lot.” (36.23)

What does photography ethics mean to Jai? 

“Putting the wellbeing of everyone who’s involved at the forefront of your mind when you do a project. When it’s there you’re protective of it and I think that photography ethics is about being protective to what’s important on every scenario. And it may seem like a lot times the most important thing is just to get it but it’s usually not. For me, a lot of the times it’s about the experience. When I focus on the experience as the most important thing for a photography project a lot of other things come into play very smoothly including the images.” (39.25)

Links:

Color Positive

Women Photograph

Color Positive Mentorship

Danielle Villasana: On representation and eq