It's fascinating how new media is influencing protest, publicity and fundraising. The three combine in
emphas.is, a kind of horribly-named kickstarter for photography projects. I especially liked this contribution on the emphas.is blog, where
Aaron Huey (
of Pine Ridge fame) talks about possible funding for putting his Pine Ridge pictures on giant billboards. It seems that the real new deal about funding might be that explicitly political work and models of showing the work are going to be getting funding that they never got before. The killer line is at the end though.
“I definitely hope to go beyond the model of how we get funding, but also to go beyond the model for how we share our images. To come up with a distribution plan that makes the images impossible to ignore. Simple images with simple statistics 60 feet wide on your commute to work. That is real power in the hands of a potential funder.
“The thing with the Pine Ridge project is, at a certain point, I thought, okay, I’ve made this incredible imagery. So does this all end with a photo show where everybody just drinks wine and pats me on the back? F**k that. It’s totally inappropriate. I also don’t want someone to pay me to go make another body of work just so it can be another magazine story or a photo exhibition where everybody congratulates me about being great at showing misery. “Now I know that my billboards are not exactly a commercial proposition. I’m actually proposing to not make any money off of this; I’m proposing to put out incredible amounts of effort for the issue. I would have no chance of recouping any life expenses from this, except maybe if it is coupled with a magazine partner. That would be ideal, of course, if someone said: Oh, love the billboard concept, I’d also like to run this as a photo essay. The truth is I do still need magazines to help spread the message.
