"Being Photographed" > Comments > "Review of "Being Photographed""
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Commenter Profile
- Elizabeth Chur
- Username: echur
- Location: San Francisco, CA
- Joined PRX: May 23, 2005
Piece Information
- ""Being Photographed""
- Summary: A radio story about being photographed
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Review of "Being Photographed"
Elizabeth Chur
Posted on August 05, 2005 at 10:00 AM
Have you ever stood in a room with two mirrors facing each other, showing your image in an infinite series of reflections? That's a bit of the feeling I get from producer Jake Warga's piece, which documents (and reflects) on the process of being documented.
Usually that experience of documentation places us-- and the audience-- on one side of the mic. Occasionally, as a subject ourselves, it can be disconcerting to realize how our words and images are necessarily taken from us in order to share them with a larger audience.
This piece has the twist of holding up another mirror. By documenting in sound while he is being documented in image, the producer cleverly loops the one-way gaze into a Mobius strip of reflection, or at least refraction. His introduction of a microphone turns them both into subjects and documenters at the same time.
His critiques of a rather staged (though gorgeous) background raise interesting questions of authenticity. How close can the documenter-- and the audience-- get to what's real? What are our ethical responsibilities in how hard we try? And yet he's self-reflective enough to turn the analysis back onto himself, and the craft of radio, with an ending that made me smile.