Objectivity

The Futility Of Being Dispassionate

Photo by Ty Beaver, circa 2016

This is Reading Photographs, a newsletter for those interested in remarkably mundane photographs and why the details, ideas, emotions, memories, connections and beliefs they arouse make them meaningful.

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I never expected to come back to journalism when I left for a public relations job eight years ago. A lot of this was the unlikelihood that a job in journalism would ever be able to provide me the pay to support a family, the time to spend with a family and the capacity to let me maintain good mental health for the sake of a family. But it was also the perception that once a journalist has been tainted by the “dark side,” as its referred, that there’s no going back to disseminating information through a dispassionate lens.

I took the photo above while covering a homeless outreach and support event with another reporter in the final months at my last paper. The man on the ground came stumbling in from an alley bleeding from his head and before long there were police cars and radios blaring as folks congregated around the man, unsure what to do.

At the time, I would not have ascribed any viewpoint of my own on this photo. I was there, I had my camera, this happened, I took the photo. We never even ran it.

Now, though, I see how it’s not objective. There’s a perception of calm indifference to the man’s plight based on the lack of a flurry of activity to render him aid. Given that this happened at an event aimed at serving the homeless, the photo is a pointed statement on the superficiality of some efforts to serve the homeless, as they often don’t provide the one thing those folk need the most: a home.

The starkness of this man’s circumstances paired with the event obviously motivated me. I was moved by the context and the perception. And I wanted to capture it. Whether the image was shared then, or now, didn’t matter. My viewpoint has existed in this tangible form regardless.

Next week I am rejoining the Fourth Estate as a business reporter. I have no expectation that the things I write will be as breathless, hard hitting or scintillating as what I wrote in my first stint. Same goes for any photographs I’ll take in the job. Pictures of new housing developments or posed photos at business events are a far cry from the visceral imagery of the photo above. But at least now I’m going in aware that my lens has a filter. And there’s nothing wrong with that.