Ryan Christopher Jones: On positionality and power
In this episode, we talk with Ryan Christopher Jones about positionality and power. Ryan discusses the connection between his identity and it’s influence on his photography, and how this ultimately gave him a more nuanced perspective as a photojournalist. He shares his personal experience of ensuring stories are ethically depicted - whether by taking the time to reshape a story, or by doing his own research to avoid confining the people photographed to negative stereotypes. Ryan also appeals for greater awareness and implementation of photo ethics within the NFT community, as well as more accountability for the role that editors and publications play within photo ethics more broadly.
What you’ll find inside:
‘I get to Sunset Park I realised, oh, what actually am I doing here? What is my voice? What is my vision? Why am I the person to tell this story?’ (4.29)
On taking a class with Davíd Carrasco: ‘Growing up I always felt like I was too white to be fully Mexican and too Mexican to be fully white. So I felt that I was not enough of either camp. And he had this amazing point. He said you actually have the capability of speaking from two centres now.’ (8.14)
‘I think that coming from a place where both Mexico and the United States, it’s a known reality for me, I approached that story with a bit more of a nuance to push out the idea that like, okay well, America is clearly the utopia here and clearly Mexico is the place that needs to be escaped.’ (12.02)
‘We had to have a big kind of broader like ideological reframing of the story, of this story is not really about housing. This story is about sacrifice. And in making a pivot like that, I think is a huge ethical consideration.’ (15.35)
On preparing to photograph addiction: ‘The contact sheet of those Google searches are horrifying. They’re all photographed pretty similarly. They are… kind of in a single dimension of pain. And it shows that these people are visualised, that they can do almost nothing but exist in this space of suffering. So I looked at that, and I was like oh God, I don’t want to do that.’ (19.58)
‘The NFT photo community really just likes talking about how great it is to have a community and that’s fine. But people aren’t really talking about the bigger issues of what happens when you make that kind of money on someone’s face, and that person had no say in it’s production.’ (29.48)
‘Ethics is a localised thing, but it’s also a much more institutionalised thing that I think needs to be talked about too. There was a breakdown of ethical story production throughout the pandemic, and it happened both from photographers, editors, and institutions.’ (34.15)
‘It was my job for three weeks to follow these priests and basically wait for people to die. And it put me in such an existential funk, because that’s not the place anyone should be in to tell a story.’ (36.11)
What does photo ethics mean to Ryan?
‘Identifying your position of power - the position of power that you have with your camera, with the people who are being photographed. You know, and that can be extrapolated to how are you extending power in the way that you edit? How are you extending your power in the way that you publish?’ (41.33)
Links:
Ryan Christopher Jones is a Mexican-American photojournalist whose work explores migration, labour, agriculture, and the environment across the United States and Mexico. He’s a regular contributor to the New York Times, and his stories have been seen in the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the Guardian, the Intercept, CNN, Buzzfeed, and more. He’s the 2022 recipient of the American Mosaic Journalism Prize which is awarded to two freelance journalists each year for outstanding longform reporting of underrepresented communities in the US. In fall 2022, Ryan will begin a PHD programme in social anthropology where he will continue to study the ways that water scarcity and environmental concerns are affecting Mexican American communities.
You can see his work at http://www.ryanchristopherjones.com.
Thank you to Redeye, The Photograph Network, for partnering with us to produce Season 3 of The Photo Ethics Podcast. Redeye is a not-for-profit organisation with a strong ethical focus, offering support and opportunities to help you advance your photography and your career. Find out more at http://www.redeye.org.uk.