Grade levels:
9 - 12
Duration:
Minimum one 45-minute classroom period
About this Exploration
Can a photograph inspire action?
In this lesson, you will explore how photographers can become advocates, and how photographs and other documentary evidence can both chronicle and persuade. You'll discuss the intended and unintended consequences when a photographer is also an advocate. As practice, you'll be challenged to find those telling details by photographing significant artifacts that figure in social justice advocacy. Finally, you'll reflect on your photographs and your own role as an advocate.
Vocabulary
Advocate, Advocacy
Someone who publicly supports and speaks up for an idea, a cause, or members of an identity group. Efforts to bring attention to social causes that need support.
Classism
Prejudiced thoughts and discriminatory actions that devalue people of certain socioeconomic classes, based on income, education, occupation, or economic status.
Colonialism
The invasion, dispossession, or political control of a territory or group of people, resulting in long-term institutionalized inequality in which the colonizer exploits the colonized.
Identity
An individual’s distinguishing characteristics. May include age, gender, religious or spiritual affiliation, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, ability, education, and socioeconomic status. Some identities confer majority status or privilege, while some confer unequal treatment.
Justice, Injustice
In different contexts, “justice” refers to both moral correctness and fairness, and also the rule of law. By contrast, “injustice” usually describes unfairness.
Oppression
The systemic use of power and privilege to disenfranchise, dominate, or marginalize a group of people, for the benefit of another group.
Racism
Prejudiced thoughts and discriminatory actions by individuals or institutions with power, based on perceived racial groups, to benefit a dominant group. Racism differs from mere prejudice, hatred, or discrimination, because of the power dynamics employed to carry out systematic discrimination through institutional policies and practices, and by shaping cultural beliefs and values that support racist policies and practices.
Upstander
A person who chooses to take positive action in the face of injustice. Can refer to specific events or incidents, or to broader societal conditions. The opposite of a “bystander,” a person who is present or associated, but does not take part.
Lesson
Introduction
Is it possible, or even desirable, for a photographer to be a neutral observer?
Key questions in this lesson include:
- How do photographs affect a viewer’s emotional response?
- How can photographs influence a viewer’s understanding of a subject or situation?
- What changes when a viewer understands more context around a photo?
- Can the audience’s feelings translate into social action?
Set the Stage
Ten-Year-Old Spinner in North Carolina Cotton Mill, negative 1908; print later, Lewis W. Hine, gelatin silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum
Look at the photograph shown here. Or, view or download the image on getty.edu or in the Resources section.
Questions for Discussion:
- What do you notice first about this image?
- Describe the subject of the photo.
- What do you think the photographer is interested in communicating about the subject?
- What details do you notice in the background?
- What details do you notice in the foreground?
- Does anything change when you know how the artist titled it?
- Does anything change when you know a bit more about the artist?
- What story do you feel the photographer is telling? What story would you use this photograph to tell?
- Is the photographer merely documenting, or does he have a perspective on the subject? What makes you arrive at this interpretation?
About Lewis W. Hine
In the early 1900s, sociologist Lewis W. Hine (1874-1940) used photography as a form of social documentary and a tool for social reform. He contributed to exhibitions and publications of the National Child Labor Committee, and his influential photographs led to changes in labor laws in the United States. During the Great Depression, he photographed for the Red Cross, bringing attention to issues such as drought and unemployment.
Discuss: Photography as Advocacy
Flávio da Silva, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1961, Gordon Parks, gelatin silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum, purchased in part with funds provided by the Photographs Council. © The Gordon Parks Foundation
Look at the photograph shown here. Or, view the image on getty.edu.
Questions for Discussion:
- What do you notice first about this image?
- What do you think the photographer is interested in communicating about the subject?
- What is the position of the subject, and his scale within the frame?
- How did the photographer use color, shadow, and lighting?
- What is the subject wearing or holding?
- What do you notice about the foreground and background?
- What do you think the artist is trying to show or explain?
- Does anything change when you read the caption?
- Does anything change when you know more about the artist?
- Does your interpretation change when you know more about the circumstances of the photograph and the aftermath of its publication? This question may provoke discussion about classism, colonialism, racism, oppression, and bystanders and upstanders.
- Looking once again at the photograph, what to you are the most telling details in it? What emotions does it spark in you? How do the details contribute to your reaction?
About Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks (1912-2006) portrayed American life and culture through photography, with a focus on race relations, poverty, civil rights, and urban life, showing a deep commitment to social justice. In 1961, as part of an assignment for Life magazine in Brazil, he photographed Flávio da Silva, an ailing boy who lived with his family in one of Rio de Janeiro’s working-class neighborhoods, which are known as favelas. Parks's reportage resulted in donations from Life readers for Flávio’s care, but it also sparked controversy for its depiction of poverty in Brazil.
For more, see: Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story, Getty Museum exhibition website and download the gallery text.
Practice: Photography as Document or Memorial
Review the earlier exploration of Gordon Parks’s photo of Flávio da Silva, including photographic elements such as framing, color, shadow, lighting, foreground and background, and symbolic objects. The related photography skills videos listed under Resources also provide quick skill refreshers. Think about how you will apply these skills and understandings.
Next, create a photograph as a document or memorial.
Continue your practice at home and in your neighborhood, taking the opportunity outside of class to find and explore artifacts from your life.
Reflect
Sharing your work can feel vulnerable, so creating a safe space for sharing is important for this exercise. In small groups or with a partner, share one to three of your photographs. You may choose to speak about your intention with the photograph(s), or not. Alternatively, this exercise can be done on your own as an individual reflection.
Consider the following questions as you look at each others' photographs and think about what it was like to make them. As you discuss them with your peers, think about ways you can share positive feedback with them.
Questions for Discussion:
- What is the first thing you think a viewer notices about the photograph(s)?
- What were you trying to communicate about the subject?
- What did you discover about yourself, and about others, in the course of the project?
- What was challenging, and why?
- What part are you most proud of, and why?
- What would you do differently next time?
Banner Image: Untitled, Sabinah Lopez, 2018
