Shooting occupation: the sociology of visual representation

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DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Accordingly, Roland Barthes (1981, 90) wrote about still photography: ‘Motionless, the Photograph flows back from presentation to retention’. Referring to the visual documentation of wars, Meir Wigoder (2001, 14) observes: ‘TV cameras have been known to deliver shocking war-related contents, but most people nevertheless remember the still photographs, precisely because they are so concise and accessible on the newspaper’s sheet.’

2 This phenomenon can also be found locally. It reared its head again during the 2006 Lebanon War: In line with IDF Spokesperson’s policy, photographers were denied combat zone access. It was only in a handful of cases that they were allowed to enter such zones, though only under the army’s supervision.

3 See for instance Fishman and Marvin 2003; Griffin and Lee 1995; Griffin 2004; Perlmutter and Wagner 2004; Tomanic-Trivundza 2004.

4 The interviews were conducted between 2002 and 2004. At the time, the photographers interviewed were working for Haaretz, Association Press, BauBau and overseas agencies. With the exemption of two (Warshavsky and Mizrahi), their works were not systematically reviewed as part of the photo stock I was analyzing, as online stocks offer no access to them. As I seek to focus on, and analyze, how photojournalism was institutionalized, the personal identity of the agents active in the field becomes redundant. As a social phenomenon, to cite Pierre Bourdieu (1993), institutionalization has its independent characteristics, which means we can in fact underplay the characters of social agents active within it.

5 The research method employed is referred to in social sciences as photo elicitation interview. About the method, see for example Banks 2001; Collier and Collier 1986; Harper 1988; 2002; Pink 2001; Prosser 1998; Schwartz 1989.

6 The photographs can be found in the agencies’ online stocks, mainly set up for newspaper editors seeking to purchase photographs to run in their publications. Every media event courts dozens or even hundreds of photographs, but only a handful are selected to feature on agencies’ websites for sale. It is usually the photographers themselves or photographic editors with agencies that select them. Getty, opened in 1995, employed some of the most highly-acclaimed photojournalists, as well as art and research photographers, and by its own account, the agency owned the world’s largest professional photographic stock. BauBau was an Jerusalem-based, international photography agency, with some clients that number top local and global newspapers. It was established in 2001 by photojournalists Eyal Warshavsky and Lior Mizrahi. Its main objective is to provide clients around the world with visual coverage of events in Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

7 The array of walls and barriers erected by Israel, with an outline traced overwhelmingly in the occupied territories, is referred to by local state institutions and the majority of media outlets in Israel as ‘the separation fence’. The International Court of Justice, on the other hand, weighing on the legality of the project, opted to employ the term ‘wall’ (ICJ 2004). Given the complexities and ideological and practical implications entailed, I have opted for ‘the separation project’ terminology. The seven-month period from January to July 2004 was chosen for the high-profile media coverage garnered by the project during that time. The coverage included photos that followed the project’s progress and the many protests raging against it. These protests received ample coverage across the Hebrew-speaking media, particularly since the injury sustained by Israeli protestor, Gil Naamati, who was shot by an Israeli soldier in late December 2003. That period also saw a surge in popular Palestinian protests against the project, following the International Court of Justice, which convened on February 2004 to discuss the legality of the separation project, and then again in July 2004, to announce its decision (ICJ 2004) The process of selecting photographs for analysis relied on the photos’ classification by the agencies themselves. The separation project was catalogued by both agencies with the following code names: ‘Separation Barrier’ by Getty and ‘Mideast Israel Palestinian Wall’ by BauBau. The 801 photos selected are the overall photographs by the eight photographers, appearing under these code names during the selected period. The photos were searched and retrieved in December 2004.

8 The field of photojournalism is marked by male dominance. In the period reviewed, only one female journalist could be found in both agencies (Gali Tibon, with Getty), but she only shot the separation project during a limited period within the seven months, which meant that her photos were not incorporated into the analysis.

9 See two photos on page 132 in the original article (Nathansohn 2007): https://tinyurl.com/Nathansohn2007. Top photo by David Silverman (Getty), Qalqilya, 15 July 2004; Bottom photo by Pedro Ugarte (Getty), Beit Surik, 24 February 2004.

10 These professional networks number the prestigious annual competition of World Press Photo. The winning photos feature in a traveling exhibition across the world’s leading museums.

11 John Tagg notes that in the age of the camera, ‘representation is no longer a mark of celebration, but a burden of subjection’ (Tagg 1999 [1987], 246), while Walter Benjamin found it an anxiety-reducing phenomenon, a threat looming over the person facing the camera (see Azoulay 2004, 66).

12 According to Giorgio Agamben, ‘bare life’ is life exempt from the law’s protection, a life where the biological body becomes synonymous with political existence (Agamben 1998). For how Israeli occupation reduces life into bare life, see for example Ghanim 2005; Handel 2006.

13 The regime form institutionalized in the 18th century, whereby visibility allows to wield supervision over the population (Foucault 1991).

14 Timothy Mitchell (1992) notes that such absent presence marked the presence adopted by European visitors to the Middle East in the 19th century, who sought to see but not be seen: ‘The representation of the Orient, in its attempt to be detached and objective, would seek to eliminate from the picture the presence of the European observer’ (Mitchell 1992, 306).

15 See two photos on page 137 in the original article (Nathansohn 2007): https://tinyurl.com/Nathansohn2007. Top photo by Jamal Aruri (Getty), Biddu village, 26 February 2004; Bottom photo by Pedro Ugarte (Getty), A-Ram, 21 July 2004.

16 See two photos on page 140 in the original article (Nathansohn 2007): https://tinyurl.com/Nathansohn2007. Top photo by David Silverman (Getty), Budrus, 4 January 2004; Bottom photo by David Silverman (Getty), Sawahira, 7 July 2004.

17 In cases where such photos make it to the newspaper, they do not leave their viewers confounded for too long, as they always come with a text to frame the photo’s meaning and satisfy the desire for order (see Barthes 1977 [1964]).

18 Ariel Handel (2006, 160) notes that since Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, the Israeli soldiers became those who see but can’t be seen: Only soldiers can see the Palestinians, while any other options may shake the mechanism’s own foundations.

19 See photo by Nir Kafri (published in Ha'aretz on 28 September 2004) on page 146 in the original article (Nathansohn 2007): https://tinyurl.com/Nathansohn2007.

20 A similar proposition was put forth by Zygmunt Bauman (1991) and Bruno Latour (1993). According to Bauman, order and chaos are modern twins; modernity boasts of the world’s fragmentation as its chief achievement, when this work in fact creates confusion and ambivalence. The sturdier the fragmentation, the less controllable and less systematic the chaos it generates. Latour regards this duplicity in the aspect of hybridization and purification in modernity, arguing that the more the modern seek to purify the hybrids, the further their hybridization is facilitated.

21 This perception is naturally prevalent among the agents of occupation as well. Of the photographers active in the occupied territories, those unrecognized as Israelis suffer most at the hands of such agents, who pick on them, stop them, injure or even kill them. See annual reports by Reporters sans frontières, www.rsf.org.

22 On ‘on-behalf photography’ in Palestine/Land of Israel in the 1930s-1940s; see Sela 2000.

23 Many of the photographs taken by activists are in fact banal, at times even aesthetic, capturing the protest actions of the organizations and their activists, yet not transgressive in themselves.

24 The Breaking the Silence group was established by soldiers who sought to start a discussion across the Israeli society on the occupation’s implications on soldiers’ mental health. Pictures taken by them during their military service at Hebron between 2001 and 2003 were first presented in June 2004 as part of an exhibition curated by Miki Kratsman at the School for Geographic Photography of Tel Aviv. Garnering high profile media coverage, the group also published military service testimonies and set up its own webpage (www.shovrimshtika.org). Military commentator Amos Harel (2005) noted that Breaking the Silence had sent shock waves through the military. On 21 June 2004, military police raided the exhibition, confiscating different items; the four reserve soldiers who had initiated the exhibitions were summoned for investigation (See Lis 2004).

25 My research included in-depth interviews with several Breaking the Silence members regarding the photos in their personal albums. For an exhaustive analysis of these interviews, see Nathansohn 2005.

26 See photo on page 150 in the original article (Nathansohn 2007): https://tinyurl.com/Nathansohn2007.

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Regev Nathansohn

Dr. Regev Nathansohn holds a PhD in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 2017). His fields of research and teaching include visual anthropology, digital urbanism, collaborative media and engaged research.