When it comes to “strife photography” I am a detached, immovable object. It’s not that I lack empathy, I am not a sociopath. It is the photography of said plight that isn’t engaging.I coined the term strife photography while I was at Art Center. I was looking for a more all encompassing term than simply “war photography”. It encompasses any documentary work that might not fetishize, but aesthetizes the unpleasant nature of a given situation, whether it be the war in Iraq or a holler in Appalachia. From war to the poor.

©Susan Meiselas

At the terrible photography “conference” Photo LA (basically a photo gallery bazaar) three years ago my experience was saved by a lecture from photographer Susan Meiselas. She showed work from Carnival Strippers (I believe she was there promoting a new edition), as well as Nicaragua and more recent projects. Her work is the kind of war photography that I ‘like’ to see. Straight, dead pan images with little to no romance and as objective as photographically possible (I know, I know). Strife is no place for style, war even less so.

Who else spoke at this conference? None other than the captain of colorful strife, Steve McCurry, famous for the “Afghan Girl” photograph that graced the cover of National Geographic. A girl with a dusty face and amazing eyes now defined Afghanistan for an entire country. Only years later, when McCurry set out to relocate and reshoot the girl, with the two image shown together did that photograph serve any real illustrative purpose to the strife of those living in Afghanistan.

©Steve McCurry

Prior to that it amounted to pretty travel photography. From the lecture it is actually hard to imagine him in a different light, something other than a really pretty travel photographer. In one breath there is a dramatic story of a treacherous border crossing with film sewn into clothes, and in the next a revealing statement about ethnocentric lack of engagement–after a number of trips he never bothered to learn any of the native language.

©Shelby Lee Adams

In contrast, Shelby Lee Adams is very involved with his subjects. He is connected to them geographically and is well liked by a fair amount of them, if we are to believe the documentary about his work in Appalachia, The True Meaning of Pictures. The difficult thing about Adams though, is that even though he calls himself a documentary photographer, he is (to go by this body of work) more of a portraitist. Everything is set up to a degree (some more than others) and everything is lit. There is a fair amount of editorializing going on in the images as well, which pushes it even further out of the documentary realm.

The lines for all of this are very vague, especially since I have done a poor job of defining what I believe “strife photography” really is. What started as basically a snide remark as turned into a partial framework for how I view all documentary photography. The big question being is it actually effective, or is it just attractive?

Oh and borderline strife photographer James Natchtwey won a TED award.