In the biographical documentary about James Nachtwey, War Photographer, Nachtwey said, “It’s more difficult to get publications to focus on issues that are more critical, that do not provide people with an escape from reality, but attempt to get them deeper into reality, to be concerned about something much greater than themselves.”

Modern culture, which globally is (unfortunately) becoming more Western and even American, has focused on being entertained instead of engaging life around us. It is the difference between reading a book and watching television. It is giving the kids a video game instead of taking them on a walk or kicking the ball around. Those things have their place, but not if they completely replace an interconnected, relational, engaged approach to life.

Nachtwey mentioned how advertising has pushed out content. It is quite simple: companies do not want their perfume and clothing (and beautiful models) seen across the page from war, disease, poverty, and injustice. Evidently, it is hard to sell luxury items when readers might actually be affected by photos of those in suffering. They might just become “concerned about something much greater than themselves”.

It is so easy to be gamed, advertised, and sit-commed to spiritual death. Nacthwey wants to be the eyes in the field for us, and for some of us media producers, we should follow his lead, engage the world, and with camera in hand, pass on a taste of reality to our smaller audiences.

Instead of striving to create more online forum prize winners, why not switch off the ultimate entertainment internet, and re-join our local community, our neighborhoods, our families.

Here’s a tip of the hat to you, Mr. Nachtwey.

He says in the film, “We must look at it, we’re required to look at it, we’re required to do what we can. If we don’t, who will?”

This film is not about a man who pushes to the front lines and is right in the middle of the decisive moment even when the bullet are flying just for personal glory, more prizes, or the photo with the most edge so he can beat out the competition for the front page. The theme that comes through over and over again is that he goes out so he can capture the essence of what is happening around this world, because he believes people want to know, that people want to do something, and in so doing, he is trying to write terms of peace.

I have been questioning the purpose of photography lately, and this is a breath of fresh air. Why even take photos? Why would I go through contortions just to take a beautiful, unique photo of a flower or landscape instead of just enjoy it with my own two eyes and be fully present in the moment? Personal glory? Why do I attempt documentary photography when the photos’ meanings can be so subjective and the story manipulated (by me or others)? Why not just write about it? Am I trying to entertain? Am I seeking personal glory again?

Then I think about my use of Twitter, which for many, including me, is often just “getting my work out there”…i.e. it is all about me and my personal glory. Ich! That may not be a problem for you, but it is certainly easy to do for me. Sure, there are great uses of Twitter and Facebook or blogs (oops!), but it is a matter of the heart.

If am to continue to be a photographer, what is my responsibility? What is my responsibility to my conscience, my God, my culture? James Nachtwey provides a little glimpse in that quote, maybe not the full answer, because that will be different in different situations and for different people, but at least a sign post to get us headed the right direction: “to do what we can”.

What can I do? Well, as much as I would love to begin to rationalize it, I am not going to be able to leave my family for a self-glorious life of photography around the world. So, am I ok…can I just take my flower pictures now? Not quite…at least, that does not begin to console my conscience.

There are plenty of issues close to home too. There are plenty of issues that never hit the main stream media: little injustices around us or maybe even praises of those who are stepping up and doing what they can. There are churches feeding the poor, there are teachers sacrificing financial security to educate, there is the beggar in the intersection, or the lady dying from cancer with a life of experience to pass on.

I agree with James Nachtwey: I think people want to know. There are plenty of people out there, I believe, who are willing to take out the ear buds and reengage society around them. Let’s not entertain or seek our (ill-fated) photographic glory; we do not have the humility to keep it going anyway. Let’s just do what we can.

The update came from some friends in China whose young daughter had just successfully undergone heart surgery this morning. Obviously, that is scary, a lot of emotions are involved, and words alone are usually all we get through e-mail updates from friends. Ok, maybe we get some snapshot. This too was a snapshot, but a powerful one. Photography can be so incredibly powerful, if wielded well.

In the photo, a nurse is holding the six year old girl soon after surgery. The nurse and a couple more nurses behind the girl (in the center of the shot) and the mother are all beaming with joy, clearly saying with their expressions that the darkness of their fears has been washed away and the joy of the morning is dawning. The moment is perfect.

The photo is also dynamic. There is a subtle hint of movement in the mom, toward the girl, but the girl is fixed, clear, and the center of the joy. The blurred, far-background nurses make me feel that all else keeps moving, but for the girl and those around her, all time has slowed so they can drink up every joyous mouthfull of this perfect moment.

And it even has vignetting. Too cool. I am sure this is just the “inferior” qualities of the extreme wide angle of a compact camera, but it further brings my focus to the center of the photo.

These folks are not photographers. This photo is a total fluke. Anyone can take a wonderful photo, but we have to strive to capture all of this on purpose. That is a tall order. There is so much of that photo which cannot be made or forced. It has a lot to do with the settings being second nature so that when that moment comes, you do not think about how to capture it, you just capture it.

Anyone can shoot a great photo, but only the fearless can be great.

My boy is utterly fascinated with the moon.

All day long, though he knows it is rarely visible in the day, my boy is asking about the “mooyn”. Every circle is a moon, not a ball or even a sun…it is a moon. Even my SmugMug camera strap, which features a simple smiley face (two dot eyes and a crescent looking mouth) is a moon and two stars to him.

I rarely post family-related photos here, because I want to keep my focus. I make this exception, because my focus has changed! I making more of an effort to use documentary photography, telling the stories of life around me instead of just taking isolated, nice-looking shots. Well, when I’m 64, I sure hope I can look back with pride at having told the most important story to my very best: my family.

I take photos of my boy lining up his toy cars; it describes how he thinks. I take photos of his sweat drenched head with a little chuck of fried chicken stuck to his forehead. I know my little girl smiles, and I want to have a photo to show to her grandmother (who lives on the other side of the world). I even have silly things like a photo of the first time my boy clapped his hands.

As a quick aside, I feel very sorry for my children when they have to put together one of those wedding slide shows…it will take them months to work through even the favorites…that is, if I have told those stories well!

It is great experience too. I experiment a lot on my family. In the shot above, I was playing around with the lighting balance between my boy (simple bounce flash off the balcony walls) and the sunset. I should have started earlier, but still managed to squeeze a little sunset out. I was also trying out different angles, trying to use the geometry of the photo to draw more attention to my subject, but also itself to tell more of the story.

So, that is all to say, in my quest to tell the stories of life, I cannot overlook the stories I know the best, to which I have complete access, and which will probably mean the most, in the end: the story of my family.

Well, so I do not overload you with a long post here (because if you actually follow that link and read his post, it is already quite long), I will cut to the chase. The Strobist post was good, but I very much liked the e-mail he left a link to near the bottom of the site. This was an e-mail from a friend of Mr. Stobist (David Hobby) who was passionately explaining his idea of developing documentary (story telling) photographers by teaching them “how to create decent photojournalism using Bressonian decisive moment style.”

Just in the last post, I mentioned Henri Cartier-Bresson, right? Here I have stumbled across him again. Well, I guess that should not come as any huge shock; he was, by most accounts, one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, after all. Why was he famous, though? Aha, so we get to it. He was all about catching the decisive moment, that was his motto, of sorts.

The guy who was e-mailing with Mr. Stobist was one of the creators (I do not know anything about them, but at the very least, he was one of the creators) of Momenta Workshops, which uses “photography as a force of change”. One the main themes in that document was that the tools necessary to tell the stories are accessible to all of us. For a very minimal investment, we can be documenting stories that really should be told. Instead of gawking at the newest National Geographic, maybe we should be learning how to tell the stories nobody else is going to tell.

That quote above, though, said it all for me. I may never be pro, and honestly the more I know about being a pro photog, the more I tend to not want to be a pro, but I can still create “decent photojournalism”. Now, I have never seen Time or NatGeo show up in the places I have lived, so who is going to tell the story?

And the second half of the quote guides us to a huge solution: “using Bressonian decisive moment style”. In other words, teaching budding photographers to stop shooting randomly allowing the equipment to think for you, and start reading situations and people, feeling the moment, and focusing entirely on catching the “decisive moment” that tells the story. Piece a few decisive moments together, and you have a quality story worth telling.