Comments on: jan sochor – hunger and rage https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/ burn is an online feature for emerging photographers worldwide. burn is curated by magnum photographer david alan harvey. Wed, 07 Sep 2016 08:29:35 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.4 By: Burn: Hunger and Rage « Art 263: Projects in Documentary Photography https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-31103 Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:30:31 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-31103 […] Hunger and Rage-Jan Sochor […]

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By: panos skoulidas https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-29950 Sun, 22 Feb 2009 07:32:35 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-29950 In reply to Rob Godden.

Right on… Welcome Rob !

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By: Rob Godden https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-29948 Sun, 22 Feb 2009 07:20:54 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-29948 Very interesting thread. I am new to Burn [which is a great find]. I am not a photographer, but a human rights campaigner [Amnesty International] looking at how photography is used in human rights work. Of particular interest is how photographers and NGOs can better work together – using photos to inform and move people, providing channels for them to take action, and ensuring that the communities being focussed on are part of the creative and campaign process rather than ‘passive subjects’. I personally think that focussing purely on the negative aspects on peoples’ lives, though ‘cutting to the chase’ so to speak is not always helpful, and that a more rounded representation can actually create great empathy with the viewer.

I have just started a personal piece of work called The Rights Exposure Project and would value suggestions and contributions that help share best practice in this field. I am sure there must be many photographers and organisations looking at these issues so links to resources would be great.

Rob

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By: Jose Alonso https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28502 Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:30:32 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28502 In reply to Kerry Payne.

With extreme situations like this i doubt that committed citizens can change the world, what this world needs is the elimination of dictatorships that are allowed to exploit their people such as it has been done in Haiti for far too long now. This is a disgrace to the human race, shame on these dictators that abuse their people as its done in Haiti. Don’t get me wrong I am all for it, actions from committed citizens, but proof that it never changed the world is right there in front of your eyes and not only in Haiti.

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By: La Rage et Faim par Jan Sochor – RapporteursPhoto https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28488 Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:17:16 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28488 […] Rage and Unger  – Jan Sochor sur BURN Magazine […]

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By: david alan harvey https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28408 Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:02:45 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28408 In reply to Joe.

JOE…

i agree with you in principle Joe….i just do not think that Olivier has the visual acuity to bring this story in as a great essay…yes, yes of course the story is moving…i am starting this whole discussion being very well aware of this story and the consequences…i guess i simply want more compelling photography to go with it…i think we all know this story well…it has been tackled by many…did you see the Judith Quax version where she just photographed the empty bedrooms left behind, the dead bodies on the beach, and then portraits immigrants who made it in their new living spaces in Spain?? check it out…much stronger for me …

we were comparing apples and oranges really..this whole discussion started out with Jan’s Haiti piece…a totally different kind of essay…and i do not think Jan has a “whole”…i just think his imagery stronger…as simple as that…OR as complex!!

cheers, david

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By: Ana Yturralde https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28313 Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:13:33 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28313 I already mentioned while commenting his single: This essay is great. Short, convincing and touching. Again, chapeau, Jan.

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By: chris bickford https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28310 Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:09:21 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28310 Hey Joe–now we’re getting into something really interesting: the role of the “participant-observer”. In contemporary anthropology there is a lot of discussion about the way in which the observer (be it a photographer, a writer, or a researcher), contaminates, as you say, the study just by being there. They were calling it “the anthropology of anthropology” and it was kind of a dawning self-awareness that an outsider coming into some sort of indigenous situation is being observed and studied just as closely as s/he is observing his/her subjects. Especially when the “observer” is a westerner with pale skin coming to town with all sorts of modern gadgets that are fascinating to anyone who has never seen them before. It changes the situation drastically, can upend belief systems and cause social upheaval and all sorts of crises of meaning.

The Kingsley story is very much a case in point, and I’ve been asking myself the same questions you have. How did he find this story before it even happened? How much did he help? How much more difficult, or easy, was it, for Kingsley to be traveling with a non-indigenous photographer? How did everybody else react to a guy traveling with his own media crew? The list of questions goes on. I think, like you say, it implies a certain “contrived” nature to the story, because the photographer is like a big elephant in the room. Better to acknowledge the presence and role of the participant-observer and bring him/her into the story, first on principle, and secondly to add more depth to the story.

I think that these issues are probably much more glaring to photographers than to the general public. With media so saturated by reality TV, people are used to the idea of “real” lives being documented in minute detail, and the production crews on those sorts of shows are painstaking in maintaining the illusion–subjects are not allowed to speak to the camera people or even know their names, camera people are not allowed to speak, etc…I can’t watch these shows for this very reason; I get caught up in thinking how much of a “performance” is going on because cameras are rolling. We all know the feeling; even when there is someone else in the room other than the person we are speaking to, we alter our actions and communications. And when that person is wielding a camera or shooting video, we change even more.

However, the average person is not going to be thinking about these things when watching Kingsley’s story, and that’s probably just as well. And though we agree that there should be some sort of an inclusion of the photographer/observer in a story that is so obviously intimate, I see that there could be problems with that approach as well; mainly that kind of self-indulgent narration that I see in a lot of “multimedia” that drives me f-ing nuts…You know, the “I first became interested in these poor people because of my deep desire to foster world peace”, or some bullshit like that…

Anyway, very interesting things to consider indeed, and a good topic for further and deeper discussion. Nice chatting with you Joe.

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By: wendy https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28302 Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:46:10 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28302 In reply to chris bickford.

yes..
I totally agree…
‘you can never tell the whole story..’
the story is always thru the photographers eyes..
and only that..
we create our own stories..
in life
and
in photography
**

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By: Joe https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28294 Sun, 01 Feb 2009 10:05:24 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28294 Hi Chris, i’m convinced we’re talking about the same thing when you say “The genius of a great storyteller is that s/he knows what to leave in and what to leave out” i like that, it sounds suspiciously like a viewfinder… framing decisions are relevant regardless of the device ;-) i was mostly trying to refute the ‘shock/headline’ story telling verses story telling in a more epic sense, but again, we’re talking similar spirits with regards to delivery.

more interesting to me is your interest in ‘where’s the photographer’ in the Kingsley story. i couldn’t stop thinking about that myself. It wasn’t really to catch him out as i immediately liked the idea and thus him at the outset. My fascination started first as how he discovered this story thread at such an infancy and how did he design his participation? It all seemed like a silent co-polite until some of the camera angles made me start wondering where he was to collect specific images, then later it started to really make me wonder,.. again not about catching him out or even if he was artificially contributing to the mission to make sure the story played out to the end; it was more about how much he was contaminating the mission merely be being a non-indigenous person travelling Kinglsey.

i’d love to attempt a story of such epic proportions, but designing participation in such a story seems impossible without admitting the obvious and allowing yourself be implicated by the story to better show the honesty of the story. i think the implicated story-teller seems the way to go now.

Thanks for the deep reply Chris

-Joe

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By: chris bickford https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28290 Sun, 01 Feb 2009 05:39:06 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28290 On another note, I remember the first time I saw “Kingsley’s Crossing”, about a year or so ago, so I guess you are right about its power as a story and as a documentary piece. But my main reaction to that story, then as now, is “where is the photographer”? To have a story that is this intimate without really getting into what kind of relationship the photographer has with his subject strikes me as strange. It makes me think of “Survivor” somehow. Who is this photographer who is tagging along on this journey just to make a good story out of it? Doesn’t he have enough money to get himself and Kingsley to Europe a little bit more easily? It’s that classic “participant/observer” dilemma here, but I don’t see much participation. The photographer is working as a fly on the wall but clearly he has developed a relationship with Kingsley during this long journey. Not to include pieces of that relationship in the story makes it seem staged somehow, like Kingsley is a movie star and Oliver is a paparrazzo. If Oliver is going through this same journey, where are his boundaries? Does he have money? Does he not give money to Kingsley in order not to taint the story? I don’t know; as powerful as the story is I find myself being mostly impressed with Oliver’s “getting in” there but a little perplexed by his invisibility…To me the obvious implications and questions about the photographer’s role in this story almost overshadow Kingsley’ story itself. But that could be like the film buff always ruining the movie for everybody by dissecting the cinematographer’s craft or pointing out chinks in the story’s armor…as my old girlfriend used to say, you just gotta let the art wash over you and have its way with you…

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By: chris bickford https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28289 Sun, 01 Feb 2009 05:13:14 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28289 Joe, I just read your posts. I hear what you are saying; there are two different implications to what you say that I’ll respond to.

The first is that you have to tell the “whole” story. The thing is, you can NEVER tell the “whole” story. The genius of a great storyteller is that s/he knows what to leave in and what to leave out. This is 90% of what art and journalism are about: distilling a meaningful thread from the multitude of events and stimuli that we are confronted with every moment of our lives.

Now, how much of the story you want to tell is your choice as a storyteller. You can do “War and Peace” or you can do “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”. Both have their uses and purposes; indeed, a single image may be all the story you need to tell. Doisneau’s Kiss at L’Hotel de Ville sums up the romanticism of Paris in a way that no other photo ever has, yet his lifelong body of Parisian street photography rounds out that story with a thousand vignettes of Parisian life. Perhaps it was his lifelong dedication to photographing Paris that allowed him to distill the city into one iconic photo. But at the same time, it is not necessary for us as viewers to see his entire Paris oeuvre to get the story.

But my main point in what I was saying earlier was that there just might not be a whole lot more to tell in Jan’s story. I’ve never been to Haiti, so I can’t say firsthand, but it would seem to me that hunger and poverty are the basic, brutal, overwhelming facts of life there, and these overshadow everything else. There is no “other side” to round out the story. To try to make it so would be facetious. Imagine Fusco trying to show the “joy” in his work on Chernobyl victims. He’s not going to show them sitting around playing guitar and singing folksongs, because that doesn’t happen. And yet, how many more photos of hunger (or in Fusco’s case, deformed children) do we need to round out the story? At what point would it become overwhelming, even off-putting?

Yes, we have limited attention spans in the 21st century, but you can’t fight that by being didactic. You have to keep people interested. And you do that by giving them just a little bit less than they want, all the time, so that they keep wanting more. As soon as you’ve given them more than they want, they will tune you out. They have to. It’s a survival instinct.

On that note, to avoid beating my point into the ground, I’ll leave it there.

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By: Mike R https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28277 Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:21:56 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28277 In reply to Tyler Gavett.

Tyler, only 17 and you have a resource more valuable to you at this point in your life than gold: Burn Magazine, D.A.H. and the community here. You lucky sod!

In many ways, a life is routine. By this I mean that a person is born, lives and then dies.

We all travel this common road called living but how we travel, and what we do with the opportunities, or lack of, that come our way: is what makes each and every one of us unique and thus a valuable, worthy subject for photography.

Once we, as photographers, grasp this truth we are free to purse our dream of documentary photography: we realize that we do not have to travel to new, exotic or desperate places in order to practice our craft. Humanity is all around us waiting to tell us each unique story.

Of course the world is full of terrible events that must, cry out to be, documented. But it is also equally valid to document lives seemingly more ordinary.

As Joe has said previously (in a reply to Anton Kusters’ “Work in Progress” essay – Soichiro) “fall into a story that you didn’t even go there for, maybe make the backdrop of this story purely incidental to the story you bring home. don’t be afraid to share your enthusiasm, your mission, your ideas, your wishes with everyone you meet, help them to quickly understand you’re not there to take pictures, you’re not there to take anything, you’re purely there to reveal something that someone else wouldn’t understand if you weren’t there to collect it with your lens
i suspect you will be amazed by how many rabbit holes you’ll be dragged into by people that want nothing other than to let the world see things they think would not be seen if you didn’t help it to happen, strangers have a funny way of knowing the things that a lens has never seen”.
Thanks for that Joe.

So Tyler, the terrible things that you must do are 1) stick around here and 2) find yourself a bookshop with a really good selection of photographic books! Let us here know where you are in the world and someone here will point you to one or more.

Good journey,

Mike.

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By: wendy https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28275 Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:06:10 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28275 In reply to Joe.

mmmmmm..
lots to think about…
mmmmm..
**

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By: Tyler Gavett https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28274 Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:27:25 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28274 I love everything about this essay. I have been following Jan’s work on flickr.com for quite some time and his work has been an absolute inspiration. The color and composition of his images are almost identical to the style I am trying and currently failing to achieve. Im only 17, so I still have a long way to go, but when I see photo essays like this I would do terrible things If it meant I could take photos like these in places like these right now.

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By: Joe https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28273 Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:21:48 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28273 In reply to david alan harvey.

with photography i always wonder what’s a time worn topic David. For me it’s all new material. Questions as simple as weighing and measuring the story vs. the storyteller will still send me into a mental mission to make that concept relevant to photographic communication.

Oliver’s telling of Kingsley’s story makes us impatient with its delivery. Ninety percent of Oliver’s images are easy to forget. The bland repetitive images drown the few images that are haunting. Would anyone think that Kingsley’s story is weak? Does this lead us to a logical conclusion about Oliver in this instance? Is that logical conclusion because we became impatient with the Oliver’s delivery?

A story can hold your attention because it’s interesting and/or it’s entertaining. i suppose it’s the ‘story’ that is interesting and the story teller’s ‘rendering’ that makes it entertaining. Either aspects of a story can hold your attention; if you have both then you have loads of traction with your audience.

i don’t think Kingsley’s story was at all entertaining; but it was interesting enough to maintain twenty minutes of traction. The images might be more entertaining if they were more daring in capture. It seems rare to see medium format ‘daring’ capture; the economics and the agility will always weigh it down for entertaining points of view or matching it’s presence to a moment.

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water; let’s go back to the balcony seats on the concept of story telling photography. If you google ‘immigrants’ and ‘boat’ what do you think you’ll come up with? Without including in that search the word ‘die’, how many times do you think you will see the word ‘die’ in the headlines of that two-word search? Now go plug that two-word search into the Magnum site and see the approach to covering the concept. Do we learn anything about the ‘why’ when we see so much of the word ‘die’ included in that story?

This is why i like Oliver’s approach to covering this headline. Rather than sitting in the safety of a coast guard cutter like some little league catcher, Oliver covered the story in true cradle-to-grave fashion. He started out before those headlines and he followed it past the sensation of suffering and into psyche of a survivor; Oliver let us know the entire lifecycle of the singular suffering event that’s continually reported.

it may just be by luck, but Oliver’s story offered some paradigm shifts for me; it’s made it more clear that this segment of immigrants are not just a bunch of ‘chancers’ discovering a raft and going for it, it’s an entire cross-social process routed in something as archetypal as entrepreneurial spirit with a dash of venture capitalism on the home front. It also uses the ‘grass is not always greener’ theme to offer a grand finally paradigm shift.

a year from now i’m going to ask you again David about this story. i’m going to ask you if the lack of visual-pace reduced it’s lasting impact on you. i’m going to ask you what you think of when you hear about people that die in boats. This is not in anyway to make a point about Oliver, i don’t know anything about him, it’s a point about the persistence of story…i’ve got a funny feeling that this story structure might live with you longer than the headline reporting structure of the same topic.

My point is that if you want to reveal a headline, don’t do it will loads of exhibits, or what I would describe as horizontal coverage. Do with deep-rooted story, tell it from beginning to end, start at the roots, take it past the trunk of the head-line and try to show us a surprising branch we might never have explored. This is the crux of my plea to Anton in his new adventure.

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By: Mike R https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28266 Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:23:36 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28266 Well Jan, your essay has certainly provoked discussion here! If your primary objective was to evoke a response of indignation that people have to endure such conditions then you have succeeded. Many valid points have been made here and, of course, there is more than one way to confront the subject.

I’d be interested to know how long you spent in Haiti and if it was your first visit? I imagine that it is a very difficult and dangerous place to work and that, no matter what, you are never able to just blend in!

On a photographic level, and after looking at your website, I personally find your framing to be a little too chaotic for my personal tastes. I’d like to see a little more structure. Your images actually seem very close to reality, so much so that I almost feel as if I am there, stood next to you. In that sense your way of working is very, very successful. I’d just like your work to succeed (for me) on multiple levels: as a
witness and as a photograph. By that I mean that a photograph can transcend the reality that it depicts and be something “other”; can become an object in its own right. This is a subject in itself. Is it possible for a photographer to practice the art and craft of photography as a photojournalist or is she / he only able to document reality? Are we, as photojournalists, able to include something of ourselves in our work or are we only able to offer a sterile window to the viewer?

Good work in a difficult and heartbreaking situation Jan. Congratulations.

Mike.

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By: david alan harvey https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28265 Sat, 31 Jan 2009 12:21:16 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28265 In reply to Joe.

JOE…

i always love your words of wisdom…and you certainly know how to use language well..you tell your story or make your point with good old fashioned words as the medium…wordsmith extraordinaire…and i do want to agree with every word you wrote and i do ..er, that is until i clicked on your link….

now , i am a big fan of Brian Storm at MediaStorm…as a matter of fact, his operation would be a very good multi-media production company for photographers here to use..Brian has a staff of well trained multi-media producers on hand including one of the best at it , Bob Sacha…if those boys had gotten hold of Jan Sochor , there no doubt would have been a very sophisticated presentation…MediaStorm and Burn may well partner on projects in the future…i linked to Brian long long ago…

however, to use this multi-media piece of Olivier as an example of powerful story telling does not work for me…i kept glancing at the “time remaining” icon….the problem is not in the story, Kingsley’s WORDS tell us a GREAT STORY ..the problem is in the TELLING of the story from Olivier..or, quite simply the photographs used to tell the story…..the STORYTELLER (photographer) just is not adept enough for me in this essay…in my mind, no matter how good a story is, the language used to tell the story must also be good…i.e.visually literate……as you do with words, i would expect a fine photographer to do the same with pictures…i.e.Oliver does not “speak” well or “write” well with pictures in this essay…not a single strong photograph in the bunch…mediocre pictures of yes yes meaningful story telling situations, but mediocre pictures nevertheless…

Joe, if you applied the same sophisticated standard to photographs as you do to words , i do not think you would rate this essay so high..i think if we put Jan Sochor on that same migration story, we would have someone who knows how to speak the language…

you are quite correct: “Nobody is going to change the world with some killer images”….but, nobody is going to change to world either if the audience gets lost or hits “pause” because of poor storytelling…

so, this brings us to the most time worn seminar topic of all…what is more important, the story or the telling of the story???? the answer must be that we want both….i suppose these two essays leave us wanting either one way or the other…

cheers, david

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By: david alan harvey https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28263 Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:46:59 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28263 In reply to Katia Roberts.

KATIA….

every photographer makes a choice in what aspect of a “story” they want to tell…i do not see Jan manipulating the truth…in my mind, he has simply chosen one aspect of life today in Haiti to tell…that of hunger…just one truth, not all truths….surely , there are other stories to tell….

knowing you and your work , you would have seen Haiti in a totally different light..you would have seen the individual humanity and relationships that exist despite harsh conditions….Maggie Steber and Alex Webb chose more political themes…Bruce Gilden went for the irony of Haitian life …..Antonin Kratochvil depicted the almost always conflict….all five of you would have seen in Haiti something quite different and all “true”…

i think i know what does frustrate you overall…and it does me too….and that is when certain photographer’s, out to make a name for themselves so to speak, will choose graphic subject matter for it’s own sake….will go to certain “hot spots” just to appear journalistic…or to win a prize…how many of them actually care?? how many photographers have “used” people in strife of one sort or another for their own benefit?? this is an issue which i think we could discuss at some length…

i do not know Jan Sochor…but, as i tend to do with most people , i assume good unless i find out bad….let’s give Jan the “benefit of the doubt” and see where he takes us next…fair enough??

cheers, david

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By: Joe https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/01/jan-sochor-hunger-and-rage/#comment-28262 Sat, 31 Jan 2009 10:08:11 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=1160#comment-28262 In reply to Eric Espinosa.

When Nachtwey covers a war…

Eric when Nachtwey covers anything this seems to be the case, and we always ‘know’ about the issue, but it doesn’t always make us want to do something about…

you can find 120 comments that explore this exact dilemma with this exact story approach with this exact person here..

http://blog.magnumphotos.com/2008/10/does_photojournalism_make_you_verklempt.html

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