Photography As Activism

You want to look through the lens of your camera and change the world. You want to capture powerful moments in one click that will impact the minds of other people. Photographic images are one of the most popular tools used to advocate for social and environmental awareness. This can be as close to home as drug use, prostitution, or pollution or as far away as famine, war, and the plight of refugees and migrant workers. One well-known example of an activist photographer would be landscape photographer Ansel Adams, who trudged to Washington with stunning images of the American west to advocate protecting these areas. His images and testimony were instrumental in creating the National Park System and garnering specific protection for Yellowstone National Park. More recently Robert Glenn Ketchum's images of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge raised awareness of why this area should be protected. Nigel Barker's seal photographs advocates against seal clubbing. What is your cause and how can you use your camera to make the world a better place? This book provides a comprehensive theory of, and history of, photography as activism. It also includes interviews with contemporary photographers. It is a call to action for young photographers to become activists, a primer of sorts, with advice for how to work with NGOs and non-profits, how to work safely in conflict zones and with suggestions for distribution on websites, blogs, and interactive agencies.

The only book to cover the most popular tool for social change - photography.

This publication maps out key moments in the history of environmentalist photography, while also examining contemporary examples of artistic practice. Historically, photography has acted as a technology for documenting the industrial transformation of the world around us; usually to benefit the interests of capitalist markets. An alternative photographic tradition exists, however, in which the indexical image is used 'evidentially' to protest against incidents of industrial pollution. By providing a definition of environmental activism in photographic praxis, and identifying influential practitioners, this publication demonstrates that photography plays a vital role in the struggle against environmental despoliation. This book will be of interest to scholars in photography, art and visual culture, environmental humanities, and the history of photography.

You want to look through the lens of your camera and change the world. You want to capture powerful moments in one click that will impact the minds of other people. Photographic images are one of the most popular tools used to advocate for social and environmental awareness. This can be as close to home as drug use, prostitution, or pollution or as far away as famine, war, and the plight of refugees and migrant workers. One well-known example of an activist photographer would be landscape photographer Ansel Adams, who trudged to Washington with stunning images of the American west to advocate protecting these areas. His images and testimony were instrumental in creating the National Park System and garnering specific protection for Yellowstone National Park. More recently Robert Glenn Ketchum's images of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge raised awareness of why this area should be protected. Nigel Barker's seal photographs advocates against seal clubbing. What is your cause and how can you use your camera to make the world a better place? This book provides a comprehensive theory of, and history of, photography as activism. It also includes interviews with contemporary photographers. It is a call to action for young photographers to become activists, a primer of sorts, with advice for how to work with NGOs and non-profits, how to work safely in conflict zones and with suggestions for distribution on websites, blogs, and interactive agencies.

Documentary photography is undergoing an unprecedented transformation as it adapts to the impact of digital technology, social media and new distribution methods. In this book, photographer and educator Michelle Bogre contextualizes these changes by offering a historical, theoretical and practical perspective on documentary photography from its inception to the present day. Documentary Photography Reconsidered is structured around key concepts, such as the photograph as witness, as evidence, as memory, as narrative and as a vehicle for activism and social change. Chapters include in-depth interviews with some of the world's leading contemporary practitioners, demonstrating the wide variety of different working styles, techniques and topics available to new photographers entering the field. Every key concept is illustrated with work from a range of innovative, influential and often under-represented photographers, giving a flavor of the depth and range of projects from the history of this global art form. There are also creative projects designed to spark ideas and build skills, to help you conceive, develop and produce your own meaningful documentary projects. The book is supported by a companion website, which includes in-depth video interviews with featured practitioners.

The history of the civil rights movement is commonly illustrated with well-known photographs from Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma—leaving the visual story of the movement outside the South remaining to be told. InNorth of Dixie, historian Mark Speltz shines a light past the most iconic photographs of the era to focus on images of everyday activists who fought campaigns against segregation, police brutality, and job discrimination in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and many other cities. With images by photojournalists, artists, and activists, including Bob Adelman Charles Brittin, Diana Davies, Leonard Freed, Gordon Parks, and Art Shay, North of Dixie offers a broader and more complex view of the American civil rights movement than is usually presented by the media.North of Dixie also considers the camera as a tool that served both those in support of the movement and against it. Photographs inspired activists, galvanized public support, and implored local and national politicians to act, but they also provided means of surveillance and repression that were used against movement participants. North of Dixie brings to light numerous lesser-known images and illuminates the story of the civil rights movement in the American North and West.

Through powerful case studies, Adjusting the Lens addresses the ways that the historical photographic record of Indigenous peoples has been shaped by colonial practices, and explores how this legacy is being confronted by Indigenous art activism and contemporary renegotiations of the past. Contributors to this collection analyze the photographic practices and heritage of communities from North America, Europe, and Australia, revealing how Indigenous people are using old photographs in new ways to empower themselves, revitalize community identity, and decolonize the colonial record.

During the 1970s, London-based photographers joined together to form collectives which engaged with local and international political protest in cities across the UK. This book is a survey of the radical community photography that these collectives produced. The photographers derived inspiration from counterculture while finding new ways to produce, publish and exhibit their work. They wanted to do things in their own way, to create their own magazines and exhibition networks, and to take their politicised photographic and textual commentary on the re-imagination of British cities in the post-war period into community centres, laundrettes, Working Men's Clubs, polytechnics, nurseries - anywhere that would have them. The laminated panel exhibitions were sufficiently robust, when packed into a laundry box, to withstand circulation round the country on British Rail's Red Star parcel network. Through archival research, interviews and newly discovered photographic and ephemeral material, this tells the story of the Hackney Flashers Collective, Exit Photography Group, Half Moon Photography Workshop, producers of Camerawork magazine, and the community darkrooms, North Paddington Community Darkroom and Blackfriars Photography Project. It reveals how they created a 'history from below', positioning themselves outside of established mainstream media, and aiming to make the invisible visible by bringing the disenfranchised and marginalised into the political debate.