Lost in Translation

Over the last six weeks, we have seen an overwhelming flow of tsunami-related images. And, amateur videos have managed to do what television...

Over the last six weeks, we have seen an overwhelming flow of tsunami-related images. And, amateur videos have managed to do what television usually cannot: Capture the moment as it happens, with tourists8217; handycams recording often futile struggles for life. We have witnessed the intense suffering of millions, even as they come to terms with it.

One of the reasons we know something about this event is because of the veracity that is generally bestowed upon the photograph. Of the several pictures that have jumped out from TV screens and the print media, one of the most arresting is that on a recent cover of Time magazine. The image is of a poor, frail woman who has thrown herself in grief and loss upon the sandy earth below. From a distance of two feet, she appears more like an abstraction in many hues. This effect is enhanced as the image stands framed in thick, mourning black. Such framing appears to shift raw shock into harmonious composition8212;precisely what catches the attention.

Why is the picture following this aesthetic? Increasingly, news photographs seem to make an effort to stress their 8216;realness8217; by conglomerating under an anti-sophistication banner, far from other kinds of photography that may be classified as artistic.

If anything, the news photograph is one where we don8217;t expect a professional with training and complex lenses. For instance, the India Today cover image of a plane crash in the 1990s8212;a woman running desperately, holding up her sari, away from the site of the disaster8212;taken by a co-passenger. The image we8217;re referring to could well be in an art gallery, and that8217;s what makes it troublesome. Can we actually see the sorrow and terror of others in this space?

On the one hand, it is possible to argue that since the print media also puts Miss Worlds on the same front pages, the question itself is specious. Yet, when the news-like immediacy and freshness of the photograph is over, how will it be framed in a white cubed gallery? I ask this question because of the trend of putting up photography shows after such events; even 9/11 resulted in at least one big photo show.

It8217;s worthwhile taking in an argument by the late Susan Sontag, where she suggests that we are all, even inadvertently, voyeurs, and that we have this thing, so to say, for viewing pain and destruction. She mentions that drivers stopping at an accident site do so not only out of curiosity, but also on account of this darker side.

What will an image of, say, dead children lined up to be buried, or the aftermath of a famine or earthquake, mean when framed neatly in a gallery? The inherent voyeur will cringe at each frame. But the power of photography bears witness that this happened, and that we are aware of the tragedy of it all.

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Consequently, as more of us enter galleries and museums to 8216;see traditional art8217;, we have to address the discomfort we experience when we see non-art, based on other8217;s losses, in these same spaces. This could well be the beginning of a realisation of how, despite these images, there8217;s a glass wall between us and those we learn about. Photography cannot help us to bridge that gap.