“Is It Possible to See Objectively?”
While the news photography industry has spent the last decade bemoaning the diminishing numbers of photography positions in large news organizations, a small group of researchers are shedding light on another unsettling number crunch: the gender gap. In the field of photojournalism, there is a surplus amount of gender crisis. In this digital era, professional photojournalists as a whole are in practical pressure and this seeks a challenge for female photojournalists. The state of having employment or ‘precariat’ is presently affecting the photographers and women photojournalists massively. Feminist scholars have been debating the issue of power in visual communication since Laura Mulvey’s landmark essay “Visual Pressure and Narrative Cinema”. Though women are seen are less capable in the field of photography or photojournalism, women photographers are likely to have better success regarding some subjects. Particularly women in patriarchal societies, may be perceived as less threatening than their male counterparts in some contexts and may bring greater depth and nuance to their portrayals of conflict.
As Homo Sapiens we constantly judge situations and the best way to judge it is to judge it objectively. Objective judgement is to perceive events as they simply are. Unselfish action, willing acceptance of all external events team up as objective judgement. And in case of women photographer’s objective view or judgement is required to make this era a golden one. There is a great deal of enjoyment, and optimism among women in the lifestyle that photography provides, the researchers wrote: “Photographers feel valued in their communities. They feel their work is important. They are positive about the new opportunities that visual storytelling offers. They feel satisfaction with the creativity and variety of the work. And, notwithstanding the low earnings, they mostly feel better off now than five years ago, and they expect things to continue this way for the next five years.”
According to stoicism, we can’t control about what is happening to us but we can control the way we react to a situation that happened; photojournalists like Larry Burrows even had to restrict himself from personal attachments with people who became very close to him while he was covering the Vietnam war for “Life magazine”(1962–1971) to strike a balance between document and subjectivity to make the war meaningful. We can’t be human without emotions but we can have the fortitude to look at things objectively and impartially.
Zabed Hasnain Chowdhury (Anando)
Photojournalist and Documentary Photographer Based in Bangladesh.
Student of Diploma in Visual Journalism
The Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University
