Ruby Cornett, “I asked my sister to take a picture of me on Easter morning” (1975-1982), gelatin silver, 8 x 10 inches (courtesy /copyright Wendy Ewald) But the temptation to over-promise the impact of this kind of work is great, especially when it comes from artists outside of the communities they’re working with. Can these projects counter the pitfalls of photography as an exploitative or voyeuristic medium? Done well, yes. They take many forms, and have many different goals, including providing educational opportunities, engaging the public, raising social awareness, creating more interesting art, or attempting to get closer to a person’s subjective reality. In the last several decades, versions of this project - what is often called participatory photography - have proliferated. And I’m always looking for fresh ways of seeing.” In an interview with PDN, Ewald said, “I believe as an artist I can get something through collaboration that I couldn’t get any other way. Scott writes in The New Yorker, Ewald worked this way “twenty years before the term ‘socially engaged art’ entered the lexicon.” The artist’s educational work with Appalachian kids resulted in haunting images accompanied by personal narratives that revealed a perspective previously unseen in art. As early as 1969, she was embedding herself into new environments, from Appalachia to South Africa to Mexico, and teaching the children she met to use film cameras to reflect their dreams, fears, and everyday realities. While some photographers believe the medium possesses a special social and political power, others simply aim to gain further perspectives, crowdsourcing the task of seeing, and hopefully better understanding, the world. The scope, intention, and success of these projects varies widely and significantly.
In response to this critique of the assertive authority of the photographic gaze, photographers over the last half century have developed projects and programs to bring their subjects into the creative process and enable them to present their world through their own eyes. Many photographers in the realm of documentary or “street” photography have been accused of exploiting their subjects, objectifying or exotifying them to be consumed by viewers hungry for a glimpse into another life. Susan Sontag wrote that “in deciding how a picture should look, in preferring one exposure to another, photographers are always imposing standards on their subjects.” For as long as photography has existed, the morals and merits of the medium have been debated.