Context Matters When Viewing COVID-19 Photos

Context Matters When Viewing COVID-19 Photos – PhotoShelter Blog

Since mid-March, various policies have been implemented at the state and federal level in the U.S. to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19. Photojournalists initially covered long lines at big box stores then vanishin

via PhotoShelter Blog: https://blog.photoshelter.com/2020/04/context-matters-when-viewing-covid-19-photos/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PhotoshelterBlog+%28PhotoShelter+Blog%29

Insofar as photojournalism is concerned, the best photos of the crisis avoid using photography as “facile ‘signifiers’” a term that Fred Ritchin, Dean Emeritus of the International Center of Photography School, used in a recent CJR article. Ritchin bemoans the use of images of a discarded mask or the early use of Chinese people as symbols of the outbreak, rather than “coverage” that advances photography as a way to understand a story.