One question project: Nina Berman
How do you balance the journalistic responsibility of documenting reality with the artistic instinct to tell a compelling story?!
I never worried about that. But maybe another way of talking about this is to ask what is the role of aesthetics is in the production of visual journalism. How does the form of the thing align or subvert the content? For me, I try to find a visual approach to a story that takes the work to a level beyond the literal so that the look of the work whether it's a film or a photograph, is original and storytelling in itself. For example, when I was making my Purple Hearts book, I chose a square format to communicate the idea of being boxed in, contained, trapped in memories. In Homeland, I used saturated colors and intense flash to mimic advertising aesthetics which aligned the War on Terror propaganda with a consumer marketing language.
When I can't find a compelling or creative visual approach, I'm frustrated and lose interest in the pictures because they end up feeling ordinary or something any photographer could do, and so this is a kind of failure.
I'm talking about documentary work here and not press photography which has different concerns.
To learn more about Nina, visit her website.
About Nina:
Iām a documentary photographer, filmmaker, author and professor at Columbia University, where I teach photojournalism and visual storytelling to journalism graduate students. I was born in New York City, where I currently live and have focused much of my work on American society and the tension and horrors within.
If you want to be part of this project or know someone who would, please go here.