We’re starting off this week with another great interview. Last month we did a post about a list of the top photo bloggers, including two Wonderful Machine photographers, put together by Pete Brook of Wired.com’s Raw File. Pete’s got another blog on the side called Prison Photography, and his work is so interesting we had to pull him for some questions.
How did you end up writing Wired.com’s photography blog?
My long acquaintance Keith Axline, who is Associate Photography Editor at Wired.com, forged Raw File, Wired.com’s photography blog, as a space to publish valuable content and to build a following and hopefully a community. My commitment of time and knowledge toward blogging about photography was my ticket in. I have written in Prison Photography for over two years now and yet I have little expertise in camera tech. I am interested in how we produce and consume images; in the images that are seen and the images that are omitted from daily life. I think it was important to Wired.com that they address not only the gear-head preoccupations of the rapidly developing photography ecosystem but also the cultural output, artistic reactions to image production, and photography’s intersections with culture.
What do photography blogs contribute to the appreciation of photography and to the photography industry?
Simply put, good bloggers are good filters of content. A good blog has a clearly stated goal and delivers according to that mission. That’s how I judge success. Some blogs may cast a wide net, others focus on a niche, but in either case, a consistent voice will secure the interest of readers. One hundred committed readers are more valuable than hundreds of thousands of browsers and “stumble-upons” if the text and image of a blog create change in the thoughts of those one hundred. We can all create “tribes.”
It is not a cliche to say that bloggers (within certain niches) have usurped, recreated, and manifested interest in aspects of photography mainstream media doesn’t have the time or capital to focus on.
Your blog Prison Photography deals with visual narratives of sites of incarceration, while Raw File has a wider focus on contemporary photography and technology; how do the two projects intersect?
The two projects rarely intersect. I am paid for my work with Wired.com—it is a job, a job I enjoy immensely. By contrast, Prison Photography is, always has been, and – I expect – always will be a labor of spare-time curiosity. Articles for Wired.com run the gamut of its editorial process and I only submit articles on pitches that are approved. Obviously, I only pitch stories that I want to write about, and only subjects that will interest Wired.com readers are given the green light.
Prison Photography on the other hand, is my own nerdcore niche and I alone stand, prosper, and wither by the choices I make in the publication of posts. Prison Photography is born of my belief that American prisons are a human rights abuse. Prisons are largely invisible in modern society. My blog tests the theory that photography can show, or does show, things people would otherwise not see.
I am enjoying the back and forth between the two platforms, each with motives and profits at different ends of the spectrum. Of course, my knowledge of the photography landscape pays dividends, but if an outsider were to draw a Venn diagram of Raw File and Prison Photography, the circles would minimally intersect.
What do you see as the social role of photography?
Ah! The classic question. Firstly, I would say many other forms of media (text, video, forums) and non-media (community gatherings, direct action) have greater roles to play than photography in fermenting social thought.
The media landscape has changed so much… even in the last five years. Photojournalism from Vietnam was perhaps the last true era in which photography made—in America at least—a direct change to widespread opinion and knowledge. You could say we live in a time of cynicism and that we don’t trust images anymore. This is valid; photo manipulation is within our daily visual experience. We don’t live in an era whereby a single image has the same effect as say a Don McCullin or an Eddie Adams photograph did. This is not a problem, it’s just a renegotiation. I think bloggers play a vital role in launching awareness and discussion of this fact.
People say that photography—or photojournalism (which is generally recognized as social photography)—is dying, but that’s bullshit. More photos and images are being created than ever before. Just because the print magazine (which is understood as the stalwart traditional outlet for publication) is suffering doesn’t mean the photographic tool is dying.
Also, the term photography is a catch-all and inadequately describes the image-saturated culture we inhabit. Maybe we need to ditch the term photography and just think of “the image.”
The image—a.k.a. photography—is here to stay and will always play a huge part. We need to be responsible as consumers and producers of imagery. Today, if photography has a social role it is to create an awareness of fallibility, complexity, and a readiness to debate.
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