Ethnic Minority Man

posted by Fotofill on 03 Feb 12 11:11 

A common cliche amongst today's photographer is the "Ethnic Minority Man", a fairly common photographic subject, sure to turn heads and win competitions. The setup is simple, ship yourself to some foreign land, preferably with extreme poverty but with excellent year round sunshine; Jump out of your 4x4 Air Conditioned Land Rover, stick your hiking boots on and keep walking until you hit a suitable village of mud huts and half naked tribal priests (actually, the less clothes the better). Next find somebody of appropriate old age, a face full of wrinkles and character that suggest a lifetime of hard work, then set your camera atop of your tripod and attempt to steal that persons soul, making sure that before hand you taught them how to say "cheese". Job Done, time to go home.

I have several problems with this current trend of photography (or perhaps not so current) but first of all, let's start with the positives, usually Ethnic Minority Man is illustrated with a high level of technical competence, you most often get a very nice portrait, with that person dressed in attire which appears to be suitably appropriate to the lifestyle you'd expect, nothing wrong with a nice portrait, but this is where it all starts to go wrong.

Now consider for a moment, you've just flipped through the latest edition of Photo Monthly Weekly Magazine, and you've come across a portrait of Ethnic Minority Man, what does this picture really tell you about that person? Does it build a story? Does it create an image & a story of that person in your head? Is that image accurate?

My problem is that such a portrait only serves to reenforce several negative stereotypes, not least the defining stereotype that the photographer themselves provided of that person when they took the picture, the photographer intentional went out to find such a picture, and either intentional or accidentally perpetuated the stereotype of what people in the west imagine a person in poverty in the third world would look like, I have found out nothing about what the life of Ethnic Minority Man is really like, I am just looking at yet another stereotypical image.

What is most impressive about this situation is that most likely, the photographer thinks they have done a great service is promoting the plight (and probably showing the enduring internal spirit) of Ethnic Minority Man to a greater audience by taking such pictures and by travelling to such "harsh" conditions compared to their normal life, however beneath the surface such photos can only come across as Condescending with a Superiority complex thrown in for good measure, the photograph has conveniently forgotten that this is the normal life of Ethnic Minority Man, who is living in these harsh conditions everyday, by putting his portrait on a plinth for all to admire as a work of art. The photographer has had an idea about what type of person they want to photograph, decided upon a remote muddy location and went and packed their camera, the very concept of being anything other than condescending was lost from the very start, how could it be anything else?

I'm not saying it's not important to go on such journeys, and bring back photographs from far away places, of far away people, photography of that nature has served an important role in our society and help illustrate a world different to our own, and any plight that might exist in that world. However to go to such a place, and returning with images that perpetuate a stereotype is an easy and lazy option, a far greater, better thing to do would take photos of people in context, no matter what that context may be, even if that context contradicts what you where hoping to photograph, or your own personal stereotypes. Ethnic Minority Man has no meaning without context, context is lost within a single, often misleading portrait.