Quote:
Originally Posted by aizan
now that's interesting. what photo forum is it? i'm interested in the captions as much as the photos.
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Hi Aizan. It's not a photo forum but a facebook group called "Ubud Community". All kind of thing are discussed there by both foreigners and locals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aizan
again, very interesting! these "white, western" tourists who are more cautious and respectful (presumably because they're aware of colonialism) aren't the same ones in photos like those above who are being disrespectful, right? or are they the same?
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Hm, what to say, any generalization says something but also is false.
Of course not all will be so insensitive and respectless as those seen in these photos. There will be big individual differences of how sensitive and respectful someone is generally and when confronted with a foreign land and it's people.
However they may be much more the same in the sense of being little aware of the realities of the place they visit. The following may cause controversy and is out of my comfort zone but I'll try nevertheless:
In our western democracies the idea of "equality", at least as an ideal, has been established for quite some time now ( and sadly, since recently, seems to be in decline again ) Most socalled "developing" countries, in comparison, only recently basically have been feudal states: few rich and powerful and many poor and often rightless (!) Also only rather recently middle classes started to develop. Position and the power it gives are still very important. E.g. around most of S/E Asia, as far as I know, one has to pay substantial entrance fees to become a member of police, of army, customs asf. some places even to become a teacher. It may amount to the total of the official income of many years. Full family may put money together for one family member to make it or take a loan, if they have access to get one, that is. Once "inside" it also means integration in social security, health insurance and retirement money, sometimes for the full family but even more importantly a position which allows to make..side money! Generally position means power and most usually power to use, or often..misuse for one's own profit. Here in Bali a family of high position, e.g. after the death of a family member, may have to sell a car or even take a loan to have the cash ready to finance a big and spectacular cremation ceremony. If they fail to do so their social rank may decline which may result in diminishing privileges. It's an investment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aizan
what would happen if a white tourist aggressively posed working class subjects? would they be "flattered" in the same way? also, how are the photos taken by these local photographers being used? what role do they play in the local visual culture?
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I'd say generally most of all that depends on how one goes about it. E.g. the Indonesian photographer I had mentioned is an intelligent, highly educated man who knows how to entertain. When he directed people, who were persons who seemed to be just hanging out in their neighborhood around a huge market area, there had been good laughs and they seemed happy to get something going on. He is interested in showing traditional sites and scenes and as far as I know mostly only shares photos on his facebook. He may show them in other places too, I don't know, but he is a rather known figure in the local photography scene, had opened a well know camera shop in Jakarta.
In this sandstone quarry he had, for himself and two other photographers incl. myself, a worker pose in exchange for some donation from each of us.
He may have made more money posing for 20 minutes than working his hard job a full day and I'd think that for this reason only he was rather happy about it:
sandstone quarry by
andreas, on Flickr, C.V. Heliar f4.5/15mm, Sony NEX5n, Madura 2018
As a foreign tourist one always has a certain "fool's privilege. One can take advantage of that, often even without creating much of bad feelings, if at all. People know that the tourist doesn't know, so to speak, and will accept a lot and play along.
Hard physical laborers, so it seems to me, often are not proud of their work and are not happy to be taken photos of while at work.
At this shipwreck place, I was taken there by the same local photographer, I hardly got any faces
Untitled by
andreas, on Flickr
One did strike a pose for me, a bit as a way to deal with the situation, it seemed to me
Untitled by
andreas, on Flickr, C.V. Heliar f4.5/15mm, Sony NEX5n, Madura 2018
they were friendly, in a break I did get this, the only other pose. Interesting him holding up the working clove he just had taken off (?!)
Untitled by
andreas, on Flickr
Having been specially taken to the ship wrecking place by the local photographer I remember that I also did want to get some takes.
I wasn't feeling too well though and first had gone "astray" and got attracted by a nearby school. It was a special day and the kids were all dressed up. The teachers were surprised about the foreigner and rushed to line them up for me
Untitled by
andreas, on Flickr
It wasn't too bad at the ship wrecking place, but in retrospect, next time in a similar situation, I shall be less pushy to get some takes and more respectful.
Let me share another photo of mine that still also pains me to even have taken, but which, on the other hand, I consider being one of my most meaningful. ( oops, again dead center..though in this case I still may not want it any different ) It's in an apartment building in Dwarka, south Delhi, a typical residential area for the new middle class. I was out on the hallway taking photos of the architecture and of friends of my friend I was visiting that had been hanging out with us. There also had been a few poor laborers, bricklayers. I approached and with sign language, or did I use my little Hindi, asked if I could take his portrait. Unfortunately I can't remember if my local friend also mingled in and told (!) him to let me take a photo or not. Anyway he kind of.. froze at the spot, patiently waiting for me to manually focus my Takumar on a dSLR which wasn't as easy as with later mirroless cams and therefore had taken a rather long moment.
This was his pose:
bricklayer, Dwarka by
andreas, on Flickr, S-M-C Takumar f3.5/24mm, Pentax K-x, India 2010
cheers, andreas
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