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| On the street in downtown Austin. |
When I returned to the US after photographing in
Paris, I immediately felt that I was in a freer place, artistically speaking.
No longer would people yell at me for taking pictures in public, as the French often did. The French privacy laws have made the land of Doisneau and Cartier-Bresson a rather inhospitable place for that same type of
photography today. But, how interesting it is to come to Austin, Texas, which
has changed dramatically in the 20 years since I last visited. It is a vibrant
city and one of the highlights for me was seeing the "First Photograph"
which is enshrined at the Henry Ransom Center. I always teach my students about
this image by Niepce, yet I had never seen it. It is kept behind glass and walls
in its own “section” of a room, with guards close by, next to the Gutenberg Bible. I love the story of the making of this photograph as
it shows the tenacity and drive that people had to create an image, using materials
such as bitumen and lavender oil, waiting for hours to make an exposure that often
resulted in failure.
Texas is involved in recent debates over laws
about photography. I learned that it is legal now to take pictures up womens'
skirts here, otherwise known as “upskirting.” To get a full understanding of
the law and the reasoning behind it, one must read the article, and go beyond
the obviously lurid subject. This is a far cry from France. Texas is actually
a place of freedom, even if in a perverted sort of way. One could say that it
is a place where photography matters and debates are possible. The
judge in the case, Sharon Keller, wrote: “The camera is essentially the
photographer’s pen and paintbrush. A person’s purposeful creation of
photographs is entitled to the same First Amendment protection as the
photographs themselves.”
http://www.dougrickard.com/interview/boom-california/
One of the joys of photography is making images
of things we don't normally have access to or pay attention to and sometimes
these can be disturbing and uncomfortable. But the American law protecting
freedom of speech is there because it supports a "free society." For
me this means a society that examines itself, however imperfectly. The
collective presence of all types of photography helps us do that. There is
another issue, of course: censorship. We know that the American government has
censored and impeded an enormous amount of photography related to our recent
wars, but at least on an individual level, there exists a certain freedom to
keep the spirit of photography alive.