on photographs in the field

Sometimes I pretend to be a visual artist, but generally, I think my writing is better. Or at least I hope since that’s the mode of expression I’ve chosen to be the primary means through which to make a career. But sometimes the visual just overtakes me.

I happened upon the Organic Quinua Grower’s Organization feria in La Paz this weekend. I’ve rather enjoyed the taste of quinoa for a while, but I never realized how beautiful it looks while still on the stalk (I think stalk would be the right word…). There’s an autumny dried flower look to it. And as I stood at the back of the crowd during the welcoming speech, it seemed like everyone in front of me was dressed in beautiful traditional clothes with a pack of quinua bundled on their back. I really wanted to take a picture, but felt a little conspicuous. But eventually I noticed a man near the front taking some pictures so I pulled the camera out quickly and snapped 2.

But it is not so much the feeling inconspicuous that keeps me from taking pictures at times like these. It’s the feeling that I might be exoticizing an Other. Or exploiting an other (simple other person in this case). In some ways, I’m lucky (or have strategically positioned myself) that my main subject matter is performers, and thus, I feel that it is not only accepted but at times expected that I take pictures of them (and as an aside I am totally, totally in love with my new camera). But when it comes to other cultural events, I don’t want to overstep my bounds. I guess one unwritten rule I have is to try not to take pictures of people’s faces. At least when they are close to the camera and recognizable. But at the same time, perhaps this further denies them sentience. Sure it’s a (fairly universally?) socially-constructed idea that the face is the person’s essence. But at the same time I think its worth considering. Is taking a picture of someone’s back objectifying them in way that is worse than exploiting their face. Am I denying them subjectivity, or protecting them from exposure? Is the answer just not to take pictures? Or to ask every person every time?

I suppose the real issue here stems not from one human’s objectifying of another, but the grand scale of global inequality produced by centuries of colonialism and imperialism in which there is an imagined bucolic other awaiting the North Atlantic explorer in far off lands. And to capture such a person on film (or digitally) amounts to a form of conquering. Perhaps that’s just me trying to displace responsibility for my own actions. But at the same time, it calls into question whether, even in episodes of performance, it is possible to capture pictures that do not reify, objectify, and in a way erase the inequalities between my life and a luchadoras.

In the end, I was given a flyer about women quinua growers and how women have always been fighting (yes, “luchando”) for their families and financial stability.