Until this morning, after a tip off from the power-house team at Wronging Rights, I didn't know who Rankin was. Now, I do. The celebrity photographer had dirtied his leather loafers in the muck of Congo's refugee camps. He isn't the first, and he won't be the last. But I thought I'd take this opportunity to stand on my lion-shaped soap box and ramble a bit about the topic.
Rankin said, in a press release posted on Oxfam's site,
“It is crazy that we hear nothing about the Democratic Republic of Congo. The level of suffering there is horrendous, but it hardly makes the news. I heard awful stories of young girls being raped and people fleeing attacks on their villages. Despite the suffering that they have been through the people of Congo are just like us and need our help. I hope the exhibition will wake people up to what is going on.”
Rankin's got company. Congo is definitely the in place to be these days! Eve Ensler is trooping through, doing performance art and talking about rape. Select members of the East African press pack has made recent appearances, as things have been going from bad to worse.
The thing is that Ensler and Rankin and the like all say Congo doesn't get media coverage. While Laurent Nkunda has yet to make his Us Weekly appearance, I would conjecture that he's one of the most photographed rebel leaders around. Dude is media savvy. And Congo is in the news - if you look for it. Just like if you look for news about Uganda, or anything that isn't the Beijing Olympics or the US Presidential race. It's all there if you look past Us Weekly.
All of this brings me in a round-about sort of way to and dude named Renzo Martens. This bit here of Marten's thoughts on photography in Congo is taken from A Prior:
The NGOs, for example, get barrels of money thanks to the images that photographers generate of mortally sick or malnourished children, money that they use, among other things, to expand their projects… If I ask a local African what he would really like to do professionally, I often get the answer that they want to work for an NGO, because in their country, NGO workers live a rich life in comfortable houses.”“In fact,” continued Martens, “I find it a very hypocritical situation. Not because journalists and photographers would be just a gang of profiteers exploiting others’ poverty by turning it into attractive or impressive images and making piles of money, but because none of the profits that these images generate return to the people that deliver the raw material: the poor allowing themselves to be filmed. This makes the exploitation of filmed and photographed poverty a perfect double (analogy) for rubber, coltan or slave labour. The economical value of these phenomena is denied to the local population, and consequently, they get hardly anything in return. The poor are never involved in getting anything back from the exploitation of their poverty, they have no ownership over it, they are mostly not even aware of the fact that their willingness to be photographed brings in huge amounts of money for the NGO’s."
Ehem. Glad you brought to my attention, Renzo, that my work and other photography is similar to having people mine rubber. Most definitely when I take photos like this one I'm actually taking the photo as a precursor to having those cute little kiddies find me a huge chunk of coltan.
And also, to clarify, neither I nor most photographers I know make piles of money.
Recently, I spoke with a guy who was going to do some photography in the Kireka quarry. He wanted advice in general, and specifically he was worried that he'd make the people feel like they were in a zoo and just having their photo taken for sport. I asked him if he thought he was taking their photos for sport. He said, no, of course not. I told him if he didn't feel like that people wouldn't see him as that. I told him that if he sat next to people in the dirt, or climbed with them to the edge of the ridge, or looked them in the eye and asked their names, people wouldn't feel like that.
I've never thought much of Renzo Martens other than that he's a ridiculous provocateur. But today I thought about him. Who is Rankin taking photos for? Himself, or the Congolese people in his images? And ultimately, does it matter?
Rankin will go back to London and tell stories about Oxfam containers and refugees and rape and poverty. He'll throw in the standard I-was-energized-by-their-hope-and-humility bit. Maybe he'll get some more people to donate money or learn about Congo who normally wouldn't. And maybe this will change some things for some people.
But change isn't about a two week trip and then a press conference. Change is about long term, sustained interest and committment. The photographers at VII have been doing work in Congo for ages. They are looking people in the eye and asking their names. They are coming, leaving, but always coming back. They will outlast Rankin or Martens. They will take images people don't want to see and provide news some people think doesn't exist.
I'm glad Rankin has informed a few people. But for how long? And so what? If the people who read about Rankin didn't previously know Congo was in the news, they'll forget as soon as Rankin leaves.
Rankin has already left.
I took this photo when I covered Congolese refugees in Uganda in 2007. Just yesterday, I wrote an update for IRIN about the current influx of Congolese refugees in Uganda.
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9 comments:
Thank you for this great post! I think I'm pretty much J Q Public when it comes to the news. The Internet is changing me. I follow some photographers at Flickr and just yesterday was discussing a post by Alex de Waal about photojournalism and Darfur there. Posts like yours help very much for ordinary news readers to make better sense of photo journalism. I hope you understand there are many people who engage with your photographs and your craft.
To Scarlett Lion:
Looks like Rankin touched off a raw nerve there!
Too close to home perhaps for the self-appointed and self-styled professional journalist, photographer, and now expert-on-Uganda going by the name Scarlett Lion?
Even though Scarlett Lion has been on the ground in Uganda much much longer than Rankin, I see no difference in the level of her understanding of local issues. At least Rankin, to his credit, does not claim longevity or any local expertise.
As a local Ugandan who has followed her stories for a while, I’m struck by the fact that many of Scarlett Lion’s stories and reports seem to be influenced by a mixture of a self-centered focus, lots of preconceived ideas, and direct “handling” by strategically placed and politically motivated local handlers she may not even be aware of. As a result many of her stories reflect minimum objectivity, understanding, and lack of checks for authenticity as well as an overall poor analysis of the situation.
To me she is the ultimate “western” vulture, living a privileged adventurous life in an exotic setting, and feeding off the misery of Ugandans depicted in her pictures and stories, whether in the NSSF building accident last week, Karamoja, Kireka quarry, or northern Ugandan camps. Her attack on Rankin is just typical of territorial behaviour triggered by a new arrival (Rankin) potentially competing for a piece of the same carcass. How dare he! Didn’t Rankin know the Great Lakes region is Scarlett Lion territory?
I say Scarlett Lion has got new and perhaps unwanted company!
Thank God Rankin returned quickly to his base and shared the pictures and stories. We here are still stuck with the long-term vultures that wait expectantly, and with certainty for the next African victims of endemic violence and anarchy, angrily reacting to any message of hope or change which would definitely go against the profitability of their industry.
Anon
@anon - you know, reading my blog is quite optional. I've never claimed to represent anything other than my own perspective. And since you seem to know my local "handlers" (and here I'm guessing you mean friends and colleagues?), then take it up with them instead of masochistically reading until you can work yourself up into a frenzy of insults from behind the cloaked safety of anonymity.
Now, please excuse me - I have to go take some photos for an NGO of visually impaired people. I will profit greatly from this assignment, and then asked the blind kiddies to find me some rubber and clean my shoes. Not to worry though, you can expect a self-centered and biased report here in a few days. So glad there are blind people in Uganda so I can make loads and loads and loads of money in my role as a western vulture!
Correction: Coltan is mined but rubber is tapped from trees. You may need a trip farther west of the continent for the rubber.
Reason for the anonymity is to focus on the issues raised rather than the scapegoat you would make of the person behind them.
Anon
to the individual commenting here as "anonymous":
First, you claim that SL is a "self-appointed" and "self-styled" journalist; did you think that journalists are appointed? Becoming a journalist is a difficult process that requires an unusual level of resourcefulness, ambition, and talent; becoming a journalist in a foreign country is, you may be surprised to discover, even more challening. But SL has become successful in Uganda, by virtue of her tireless hard work, natural ability, and a profound respect for the stories which she tells.
I don't think you have any idea what a good journalist does, which means you utterly lack the perspective necessary to understand what makes someone an exploitative journalist. It's incredibly rude and insulting of you to describe her as a "western vulture," but because you obviously are more interested in offensive hyperbole than actual discussion, your opinion on the matter doesn't carry much weight.
There are many Westerners (and others) in Uganda and across Africa who are truly exploitative, but SL is not one of them. No reasonable individual thinks that people in the rest of the world should be ignorant of things that happen in Uganda when those things are tragic. There are problems with foreign exploitation in Africa, and there has been for many centuries. But there is also a huge corruption problem in many places, including Uganda. Yet I don't see you mustering much outrage for the Ugandan ministers who steal literally billions of shillings and effectively perpetuate the social disparities that keep those people in camps in the north, or smashing rocks all day at Kireka. So you criticize SL for reporting on the collapse of the NSSF building, but I don't see you pointing a finger at the Ugandans who looted NSSF itself or failed to construct a safe engineering project. Scarlett Lion makes her work available to the public on her blog, so I guess it's easier to take her to task rather than the government officials hiding in their ill-gotten houses in Kololo.
And as for news of hope and positive change, why don't you get out there and do something positive in the world instead of complaining obnoxiously about the lack of reportage thereof? Why don't you start your own blog, Messages of Hope and Change in Uganda, and after you become inundated by negative comments from ignorant, belligerent cowards, feel free to give up and go back to sniping from under your cloak of anonymity, which you apparently need to "focus on issues," which actually means personally attacking the individual whose blog you're commenting on. Scarlett Lion will continue to do her thing, and do it well, because that's who she is.
Dave,
So it is OK for SL to attack and rubbish the work of others like artist Ensler and "celebrity" photographer Rankin (some of which I saw Online on the BBC just before reading her blog), but taboo to criticise her own work?
I think my comment was fair game given the abrasive tone of her criticisms of those people trying to make a difference in the DRC.
And now she even needs a "bouncer" such as yourself to muscle negative comments off her page? She should learn to take as good as she gives, otherwise treat other professionals with respect too.
Anon
@Anon - the old blind lady in the post I'm putting up today actually mined rubber for me yesterday! She asked if she could tap it, but I said no no no, us Western Vultures like our rubber mined!
And, in other news, for future pot shots against me Anon, which are hopefully about your dissatisfaction with Western media that you are taking out on me, or if it's really me you've got yourself some problems, you'll have to create a fake blogger ID. And that's that.
I would also suggest a new habit besides hating me and my work: perhaps golf? Given that your first comment was written at midnight, you either have internet at home so you have money or you work too much. Either way, some golf will do you good. You might also meet other Western Vultures to antagonize!
Glenna,
Just the fact that you are sensitive to the issue of "am i profiting, or taking advantage" to the situation tells me enough.
People without a conscience would not even be bothered to think about this.
Many aid workers struggle with the same questions. As long as we don't stop asking ourselves this question, I guess we are still OK.
@Peter - I don't think I make enough money to worry about profiting from disaster! One of the most ironic part of the @anon comment is that he clearly doesn't see that - I guess I should take it as a compliment that he thinks I'm on the same tier, professionally and monetarily, as Rankin!
I think there is an issue of profit in that I make my living doing this. But if I stopped doing that, the system wouldn't change, I would just be out of a job. And honestly, my favorite work is the kind of thing that usually makes me ZERO income. There is a media system that rewards me for taking photos of dead bodies like in the accident, but that certainly isn't how things would be if I had my say. In my ideal world, I'd make tons of money (okay, really, just enough money to live on and go out to dinner every now and then) from photos like the one of the little girl holding up a brick as if it's a camera that I just posted yesterday.
SL
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