You don’t look like a victim

You don’t look like a victim

Colin Pantall’s blog about photography, writing, art and politics

Link: http://colinpantall.blogspot.com/2012/04/you-dont-look-like-victim.html

The idea is that one should look a certain way in the face of tragedy, part of the simplistic narrative that is expected of people when they are part of a photograph – a simplistic narrative that does not have an equivalence in writing. Here it is easy to explain the contrast between the glorious sky and the casual dress, the trappings of the picnic and the relaxed poses. These are all allowed to happen, but when it comes to a photograph, God forbid if anybody is caught doing anything that lies outside a very narrow band of expected responses