The picture that changed a life
Written by John MacphersonIn many ways it is an unremarkable image.
It shows a young boy.
It got shared on social media numerous times.
It had ‘power’ and prompted an unexpected outcome.
It has changed at least one life, profoundly.
But this is the image you didn’t see this week.
And I can’t show you it.
It is an image of a 14 year old boy, a naked selfie taken and shared whilst ‘flirting’ with a girl of the same age and sent via Snapchat. What happened next took him, and his family, by surprise. The implications for him could be pretty drastic, with his name flagged as a ‘sex offender’ if an enhanced CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check is applied for. This ‘stain’ on the young man’s character will remain present for at least 10 years, under UK law regarding ‘indecency’. There are numerous reports about this case, but Ars Technica has a succinct and objective account here, which highlights some of the troubling matters of legal representation & criminalisation raised by this ostensibly ‘simple’ sharing of an image.
And then there was that ‘other’ image of a young boy. It’s been described as ‘graphic’, been published with warnings that it may upset viewers, and numerous editors of our major daily papers have made public announcements to justify their use of it prominently on their front pages.
It’s intriguing that the image is really NOT particularly graphic, certainly when compared to some of the images that came out of Gaza some months back. The child may be asleep, so relaxed and ‘comfortable’ he appears, indeed were he lying on a bed his pose would be wholly appropriate for one deeply in slumber. A fact that many have picked up on and reflected in their tributes.
In truth there is little genuinely ‘graphic’ about this image. What hits home the hardest (certainly for me) is the ordinariness of it, it is like many images I have of my own son when he was three years old, fallen asleep whilst playing on the rug. I could be THAT policeman, the man who had to gently lift this unfortunate child; I can imagine myself moving my son from the carpet where he’d dozed off whilst playing, and placing him gently in his bed, carrying him JUST like that policeman did.
One news agency showed the image, but pixelated it, ironically in an interview with the journalist who was present and made the image. Will this make it any less affecting? I doubt it.
There are numerous opinion pieces you’ll perhaps find of interest, some taking the wider view: ‘Can Images Change History’ by Ian Jack in the Guardian, and ‘Sometimes we need to see Horrific Images like that Syrian Boy’s Body on The Beach’ by Matthew Ingram writing in Fortune (with few images and excellent internal links) and the deeply personal response from Dr Helen May Berents ‘Helen May Be Writing: Young Death as Spectacle’, exploring issues of consent, choice and the risks of ‘sanitising’ the narratives of conflict.
The ‘power’ in images is an elusive quantity, and sometimes comes not from their ‘graphic’ content, but from their emotional resonance, touching something deep within us. This image of Aylan Kurdi certainly moved many. As it should. I think it worked because it was ‘simple’, you did not have to be ‘visually literate’ to understand it. You did not have to fight your way past splintered bone and gore, be revulsed by carnage, and have to fight against the very human desire to turn away. It was an easy look. It was a child. He was unmarked, and could be sleeping, just like YOUR child, MY child. Except, he was dead.
The most shocking image I’ve witnessed this week, and one I have to confess I am having trouble shaking off?
It’s below. It’s someone who should know better, and do better, and he represents a world-view I find utterly reprehensible. He looked at the image of the dead child we all looked at, but he looked beyond ‘death’ and any notion of ‘slumber’, and ‘read’ the content of the image, and came to a conclusion…
You may read the pieces I’ve linked to above and ask yourself the questions: Does taking images, or sharing them, actually do anything? Do images really have power? Can they actually effect change? Will they make a difference to people?
The person you need to ask is Peter Bucklitsch. If this is his opinion of the dead, I wonder what his opinion is of the living, those to whom the UK will (now) provide refuge. His is not a voice representative of the people of Britain, and I suspect this image, and his ‘caption’ beneath it, will remind him of that for a long long time, and effect profound changes on his life.
Images, they possess power, and sometimes, just sometimes, they wield it mercilessly and in ways we least expect.
Author — John Macpherson
John MacPherson was born and lives in the Scottish Highlands. He trained as a welder in the Glasgow shipyards, before completing an apprenticeship as a carpenter, and then qualified as a Social Worker in Disability Services. Along the way he has cooked on canal barges, trained as an Alpine Ski Leader & worked as an Instructor for Skiers with disabilities, been a canoe instructor, and tutor of night classes in carpentry, stained glass design and manufacture, and archery. He has travelled extensively on various continents, undertaking solo trips by bicycle, or motorcycle. He has had narrow escapes from an ambush by terrorists, been hit by lightning, caught in an erupting volcano, trapped in a mobile home by a tornado, kidnapped by a dog's hairdresser, rammed by a basking shark and was once bitten by a wild otter. He has combined all this with professional photography, which he has practised for over 35 years. He teaches photography and acts as a photography guide & tutor in the UK and abroad. His biggest challenge is keeping his 30 year old Land Rover 110 on the road. He loves telling and hearing stories.
Discussion (6 Comments)
I went to Bucklitsch’s Twitter feed and saw he’s reaping the whirlwind for the storm he seeded. Some say Twitter plays the role of public shaming as he appears to have been pilloried into silence in spite of his public apology –at least via Twitter.
I have stopped following one or two on Twitter after growing tired of their toxicity. Sure I believe in free speech and letting folks have their say, but there are limits…
Robert frank once said that a good image is like a poem one feels forced to reread because of how it captivates the mind. I am paraphrasing what he said, of course, but the point I want to make is that images convey ideas and everyone has them, even nasty ones like those shared by folks like Peter Bucklitsch. Bucklitsch claims he is a fan of Hayek, a man who rejected the idea of ‘social justice’ and even felt that government safety nets for the needy, if any, should exist for the sake of those who are better off lest the poor react against them out of desperation. Interesting how Hayek feared any sort of collectivism could lead to fascism or an authoritarian state, even a push for social justice. His ideas ended up helping a man like Bucklitsch justify what in some ways could be described as an us vs. them mentality characteristic of a tribalistic fascist mentality. I have digressed, heavily.
Images can bring no more change than an individual is willing to allow. People witness pain and human treachery today more than any time in human history via their screens, yet I don’t feel this has made us any more sensitive to the plight of others. In fact, seeing so much of this has perhaps desensitised many of us instead. People like Bucklitsch somehow prove there will always be folks as immovable as boulders no matter the words or images they come across. They simply have no empathy for others unlike themselves; they will find justifications in their ideas about how the world should work to pursue outright harm or ignore any plead of conscience obliging them to help someone in need.
Thanks Luis, yes I agree that in the face of the ‘immovable’ like Bucklitsch an image’s power may not amount to much, may not change him. But. But the tiny effect it has on other people when magnified through the lens of social media can sometimes make a bit of a difference. But on the wider issue of desensitisation – yes I think for some it turns them off. Easier not to look than to confront it.
It is curious why the question ‘Can photos change the world?’ is periodically posed. Is it that photographers have such little confidence in their medium? If I ask my friend who is a creative in advertising whether images can help her sell products for her clients she will not only say “yes” but will also have a good idea regarding how. Equally, if I ask my friend who works in food retail whether labelling on food, including images, can help sell more of them he will, again, not only say “yes” but will tell me how to target specific consumers. I could say the same for some of my colleagues working in NGOs. What the first two are doing may not be classed as ‘changing the world’ but what they are doing is working out how to influence people. More importantly, they are going beyond the question of ‘can’ and asking ‘how’. So, for me we are asking the wrong question about photos. What we should be asking should be phrased something like ‘How can photos, as one tool in a larger movement for social change, be used better?’ Some may argue that this is pedantry, or at least that the more detailed question is implicit in the less defined version. However, I would argue that even if this is the case the debate rarely gets down to the nitty gritty practicalities of ‘how’. In many cases this is unfortunately because photographers, despite having put blood, sweat and tears into the work of producing great images don’t put as much work into how best to use them. The fact that this debate has surfaced once again around highly emotive images – and focussed on their impact – may also speak to the propensity for image makers to generally consider these the most likely to ‘change the world’, displaying a rather one dimensional approach to communications strategy. I think Fred Ritchin posed the question ‘What works?’ Maybe we would be better served by starting with that.
Thanks Rob, you raise very good points. I think that aspect of considering images as being for ‘advertising’ purposes is a key one – many pj’s would consider their ‘art’ more worthy than being simply mere advertising fodder. And that’s the problem. I’ve found (found recently in fact) a huge disconnect between the needs of the PR folks commissioning the images, and their folks on the grounds aspirations for how those images should be taken/created/set up. Add the photographer’s own interpretation and aspirations and you have the recipe for something that meets nobody’s needs. Least of all the subject in need of the awareness-raising.
You should have read the Yahoo commentary on the drowned boy- many were not nearly as genteel. Yes, these people freely walk amongst us…
Thanks Stan. I’ve read the comments in various places. Along with the conspiracy theorists and many others with axes to grind. None of it very inspiring. Yes they walk amongst us. That’s why every now and again I stop walking, turn round and look at them, knowingly. Strangely, they look away.