Comments on: tilde de wandel – gaza https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/ burn is an online feature for emerging photographers worldwide. burn is curated by magnum photographer david alan harvey. Wed, 07 Sep 2016 08:30:58 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.4 By: MH https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78521 Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:46:28 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78521 I usually stay apart of the discussions here on Burn, but would like to share my feelings here:

First, of course, Tilde has all my admiration for having taken the kind of risks she took, to go and see by herself. some pictures are very powerful.
I have also to take off my hat for the will to go behind the “usual” horror, and to try to explain the complexity of the situation by mentioning that the three young people killed by the Israeli army where about to shoot a mortar shell (these are mostly directed against civilians). I am so used to the full blown “good and bad, black and white” stereotypes. Just to add some details: 1-the tunnels from Sinai are extensively used to smuggle arms and ammunition, and are therefore targeted by the IDF. 2- as far as I am informed, the blockade is far from total. the control requested by Israel on what goes in is to prevent arms to find their way in, and Hizbullah is trying all the time to send their “goods” to Sinai, and from there to Gaza. Food, energy, and other supplies do enter the Gaza strip. 3- The the four “settlers” that were “shot” were, if I recall correctly, civilians members of a family, including a pregnant woman that were first shot then approached to be simply executed. As strongly as I disagree with their ways, settlers are still civilians, and in my book, should not be targeted. Remember also, that the whole purpose of their killing was to force a break in the negotiations between Netanyahu and Abbas.
So really, the horror can be on both sides, and pictures of horrors do not depict a situation and do not show who is right and who is wrong. systematically going with the underdog cannot replace some attempt to understand a situation and most important, thinking of a way out of this mess. Remember the “good” Afgan Mujaheedin fighting for their freedom against “evil” USSR. Who is good and who is bad really needs to be analyzed a bit more rationally than based on pictures (The book “voyages en Afganistan” by Didier Lefevre is a great example of how to make a really good photo essay without falling into the romantization of a cause that is totally opposed to my (our) values)

About the pictures themselves, I think a more “long term” description of the daily struggle of the Palestinian that live there in terrible conditions would have been more effective. The focus on horror and death may not be subtle enough, and we may “shut off” our attention to the details, switch to the “war photography” mode. It could be just me of course.
Also, I feel there is a problem when the story is not there.
Does a good picture needs the mention that an F16 was flying just above?
Or this other one of the fishermen. Do we need to be brought back to the conflict artificially by the story of this other boat being shot?
I know this kind of criticism sounds completely discordant with the subject, but I am really waiting for that great photoessay that will go deep in the life of the Palestinian, its subtilities and difficulties.
They deserve it.

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By: bob black https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78240 Sat, 16 Oct 2010 14:50:33 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78240 herve :)

agree completely….my words and heads are a big sluggish…been an awful week…i meant to suggest that part of the problem is that pictures desensitize (sontag’s sometimes correct argument, more importantly berger’s difficulty with pictures) and that WE fall ‘victim’ to that…that is why i always take the responsibility for my own ‘desensitization’ because i willing swallow pictures and live in a world in which we’re inundated with quick, superficial, electronic sensory overload….that’s why i still fight the fight: reading proust….spending limited time on internet/social media/blogs…lots of time in silence, with family, alone, etc…so that i do not write or feel the way the jaded do….but you are right, i simply believe and try to suggest that that is part of OUR responsibility as consumers of images..we’re drowning ourselves as well…twitter facebook games pinballs in the skull…but we are not gadgets…and yes, the photographer has that responsibility too…but i see tilde’s effort, external to the pictures, as an attempt to transgress that sluggish, mechanicalized behavior of the drone, of the hive….but i do see lots of reactions as predictable…a more personalized story, of course would love that….but i agree, understand…hope that better clarifies what i attempted to say mon ami

running
b

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By: Herve https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78234 Sat, 16 Oct 2010 05:15:22 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78234 Well, I think, rather than saying “you’re jaded, that’s the problem”, it’s more important to find out why people are desensitized to a certain quantity or even quality of pictures from conflict zones, while at the same time, the same people can still prove to be sensitive and responding, ie. unjaded, in their own daily lives or for that of others, like with humanitarian crises.

I even think that these people can take quite a non-jaded interest in said conflicts, while not bothering to do more than looking at the photos. Certainly, the Gaza vs Israel is one conflict where people do not wait for the pictures to comment, or have opinions.

So, I guess I disagree with you, Bob. I think the problem (or the phenomenon of photos not being able to make their marks, nowadays that is) has to do with photography as a media, not with the people looking at them, and maybe even the ones taking them.

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By: bob black https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78231 Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:03:43 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78231 First of all, i’m much too tired and drained this week to wade into the discussion, but i did want to offer a few thoughts to Tilde…

i think that ‘our saturation’ ‘our ennui’ ‘our desensitization’ to images of war, images of the israeli/palestinian conflict is not your or the photographers responsibility, it is our own as jaded viewers….the irony is we rarely suggest the same with books, paintings, told stories, etc and yet i hear the siren song of being jaded and numb by this kind of stories…while i understand their lament, i thing we must (especially as photographers and consumers of images) rail and fight against this….

mw makes a very good and important point about discussion and the need to discuss effectiveness/truth….i’m not sure that telling stories ever solves anything….trust me, nothing we do ever ends suffering, it is not within the power of photogrpahy or, mostly, our intentions and resources to do that; however, we persist, we must persist….we must continue to tell stories and to share them…it is important that, stories continue to be told and that, different perspectives are shared and seen….photography both illuminates and it numbs, and there is the profound paradox and conundrum….

what i like about this story is that the photographer is trying to get inside moments of this conflict as a means of, again, sharing….a way to get the audience, or some audience, to see or sense something about the suffering and the torment….

as david wrote, if for even one person, one may accomplish a great deal…

before ‘inferno’ there were all the books of Nam and Korea and wwii and before them, the founders: the american civil war and the crimean war…nothing stop, but we continue and we continue for both important reasons (to speak out against suffering) and for more crude reasons (because we think that we must use images as a service to prevent, when it will not), but i will always side with those who continue to speak out, if even imperfectly….

david grossman’s new novel (though nearly perfect) as another example….

we cannot desist….

i look at tilde’s essay, strangely, in a less critical way this night when i’m exhausted, which is this: a reminder of how little we have really accomplished in terms of understanding one another, or shall ever, and yet how extraordinary our efforts to not relinquish fully the hope that maybe (if even a delusion) that we can arrest some small part of suffering by speaking out….

and that, both of them, are why i am not jaded or cynical….

and, again, the bravery of sharing a part of one’s life and transformation with an audience that has seen too much, and that too me is a courageous and beautifully humane effort and sharing….

thank you tilde and congratulations

bob

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By: david bowen https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78221 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 22:32:08 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78221 as a second final word..

¨attractive for those who don’t want to look¨

thats not what the issue is.. it’s not a case of making war even more palitable.. it’s a case of bringing the horror home in a less blunt and much exposed way.
the mundane in gaza is just as horrific as a dead child, and much less seen.. potential to cause impact is the thing and i wonder if in this age subtler means work more wonders, expecially given anyone living above ground knows what is happening in gaza.
it’s not about people not wanting to look, for me at least, its about people having seen it so much it does not regester.

michael said:
¨For example, when she writes “It might be clear that I choose a side in this conflict but is that wrong?” I’d have to say yes, at least from a journalistic perspective. The job is to present reality as it is, not to work as an advocate for a particular point of view. Not a journalist, you say? Then what? An artist? If so, these photographs don’t work as art. They look too much like photojournalism.

.. and i agree..
if you have an artists eye, which you do, then i think the possibilities are infinate.. boundless.. and what you are settleing for may not be doing you justice nor achieveing your goals given the shape of the media.. does nacthwey make more impact because of the subject matter or because he is jim-jimmeny with a 30 year history?
tunnels, corpses and waiting for the pain may be the least you can do.
i’m trying to form a compliment of sorts..

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By: david bowen https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78213 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:55:25 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78213 tilde – is there a finantialy viable form of documentary photography which does not involve struggle and sacrifice? repcest for your descision to follow your heart.
the only way is to photograph what one feels and i’m not sure there is a way of making money doing that.

as a final word – when i was 18 i bought the plane ticket.
a shoe box full of sorrow did neither me nor them any good, although that was in the stone age before interweb.

good luck and thanks for chipping in.
:ø)

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By: panos skoulidas https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78191 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 18:12:01 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78191 http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/titled-burn-but-printed-on-paper/

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By: mw https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78167 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:53:39 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78167 Just to clarify, I don’t in any way mean to suggest that Tilde is monstrous. I trust her motivations are admirable. It’s just that saying “that’s the struggle” referring to how much money she can make in the context of the Palestinian struggle comes off as, well, monstrous.

I hate to dwell on it because I really do trust she’s a good person making personal sacrifices trying to do some good in the world, but some of the things she’s written touch upon long running debates here that are both timely and important. And these same issues have come up in several recent essays, most notably the one on Kashmir.

For example, when she writes “It might be clear that I choose a side in this conflict but is that wrong?” I’d have to say yes, at least from a journalistic perspective. The job is to present reality as it is, not to work as an advocate for a particular point of view. Not a journalist, you say? Then what? An artist? If so, these photographs don’t work as art. They look too much like photojournalism. No, the reality is, if a work clearly takes a side, if it arranges reality in such a way as to aid a political movement, then it is propaganda. Regardless of whether or not the cause is justified. And I’d go farther and posit that obvious propaganda actually damages a just cause. It becomes just another excuse for people to ignore what’s really going on.

On a marginally related note, David Bowen is right that pretty much anyone, at least anyone from a roughly middle class background in a wealthy country, can go work in conflict zones, or travel to just about any part of the world and live there for awhile if that’s what they really want to do. I used to do it all the time and knew plenty of other people living the same lifestyle. It’s just a question of priorities.

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By: Tilde De Wandel https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78165 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:25:15 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78165 @peter
my site is a bit slow, should work but takes some time to load..
thanks

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By: Thomas Bregulla https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78158 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 05:40:19 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78158 Tilde,
congrats. not only for being published, but even more to have your essay enable this discussion. it helped that the people here reflect on so many things. you are on the right track. keep it up.

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By: peter grant https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78155 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:34:54 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78155 hi Tilde… more images like 8 and 11 would work for me in articulating the dire consequences of this situation Palestine finds herself in. Kitchens. Food. Water. Struggles. Daily struggles we all can relate to as we all need to eat drink and be satisfied.
Take care and keep on with how you feel.

By the way, when I click in to your web site only find an empty page? I’d like to see more.

thanks for showing your work to us.

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By: panos skoulidas https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78154 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:25:50 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78154 Chris had a website recently.. I meant

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By: panos skoulidas https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78153 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:23:12 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78153 Pete true.. I do have time , I had a lot time from Burn day 1..
Actually from Roadtrips day 3…
There was time that I was driving my truck around 15 freeway , up and Down from highway 14 all the way to Norco..and from Jacinto to highway 74 upon the mountain typing, posting to Burn via iPhone..
Yes true, I always have too much time in my hands when it comea to Burn…
Why? Coz I post pictures up here since day 1…
And not expecting to be paid… And that’s why I like this place.. Coz it let’s me post links, photos, words, anything, so I get clean, vent, breath, feel free”… Burn is therapy that’s why I love it..
It’s not just because I might get more hits on my website and make money …
Websites are good tool to advertise .. I believe it..
Chris Anderson just had one first time in his life.. But nothing prevented him from entering magnum ..
That’s why I like Burn..
And I’m making time for Burn.. It’s family

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By: Imants https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78152 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:33:30 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78152 That sorta makes Pete a troll according to our mate Sid’s logic

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By: mw https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78151 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:16:49 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78151 “to go for pics that give me financial possibilities or to go for what I really feel. That’s the struggle..”

I’m sorry, but that comes off as simply monstrous. I’ve not been in the anti-conflict photography camp around here, but that devastatingly sums up their argument. Suffering people around the world, just props in some rich kid’s struggle against the inevitability of great wealth.

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By: mw https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78150 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:01:06 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78150 “to go for pics that give me financial possibilities or to go for what I really feel. That’s the struggle..”

I trust those people in your photographs have appropriate respect for such a heroic struggle as yours.

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By: Pete Marovich https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78149 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:24:36 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78149 Panos you have way too much time on your hands.

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By: panos skoulidas https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78148 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:17:01 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78148 And I’m not gonna say more out of respect to my buddy Michael K..
Coz I know for some not explainable reason he is your friend!
Where’s the money u owe me mr. Pete?
Where? Since you are so good In counting money????

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By: panos skoulidas https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78147 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:14:31 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78147 And I don’t have a website?
Why? I’m a BURN photographer.. What more credentials do you need???
Order Burn.01 book and you’ll see who I am..
My name is Till….
And if u don’t know who Till was ask Lassal..or wiki it
Educate yourself.. Not a bad thing!

and don’t change the subject..
I’m still waiting for that check from all that google analytics you bragging for…

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By: panos skoulidas https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2010/10/tilde-de-wandel-gaza/#comment-78146 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:10:34 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=7269#comment-78146 I suggest u get couple good photos on your website and that’ll be the reason folks checking u out..
Not because of me..
Thanks for the credit but I see no check from your google advertisement ..
And that’s stealing?

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