{"id":173,"date":"2023-12-15T11:02:36","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T16:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/?p=173"},"modified":"2023-12-15T11:02:36","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T16:02:36","slug":"freeds-police-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/uncategorized\/freeds-police-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Freed’s Police Work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Magnum Photos is a company founded in 1947 by co-founders Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David \u201cChim\u201d Seymour. The founding photographers were aiming to take photographs that would capture various conditions around the world after the second world war. As more photographers began to join Magnum Photos, in 1972 a photojournalist by the name of Leonard Freed was recognized and allowed in the company. As Freed continued his work in photojournalism, he had continued to produce other collections of his work until his attention began to shift towards the New York police department in the 1970\u2019s. Freed would go on to name this collection \u201cPolice Work\u201d, as many of the photos were related to the daily lives of police officers in both work and domestic settings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In New York City in the year of 1979, Leonard Freed took a photograph which he captioned \u201c”A demonstrator refused to stop blocking traffic. The police removed him bodily”. The image presented by Leonard happens to be in complete black and white which blocks out much of the background with the face of bystanders barely visible as a result. The one face that is legible in the background of the photograph bares an expression of confusion and disbelief. The subjects that are in the center of the photo are the five police officers and one man. While there are five visible cops, five of these cops are physically restrained or grabbing at the man. The cop centered on the left side seems to have been screaming at the protester as the photo was taken. The man being dragged has a scared expression as his mouth looks like he was trying to say someone in front of him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sort of photo taken by Leonard is a prime example of concerned photography. Leonard is trying to achieve the \u201cconcerned look\u201d through the presentation of police brutality to his audience. While the police did have the right to remove the protestor, it is clear to see how excessive the force is to the audience. Allowing for behavior like this to be continued without consequence would only confirm to aggressive or corrupt officers that excessive force is alright; this would lead to higher rates of police brutality\u00a0among civilians\u00a0\u00a0and create social unrest between the police force and defenseless civilians. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leonard places great emphasis on the subjects at hand through the usage of lightning and contrast which leaves the audience examining mainly the interactions between the officers and protestor. To analyze more specifically, examining the position of all subjects would be important as there seems to be some form of still motion. There is one hand tugging at the hair of the protester and another hand tugging at his shirt. The last hand is wrapped around the neck of the protestor. These hand placements suggest that at the scene of the moment, things had already become physical between the officers and protestor, as there are multiple officers making aggressive moments on the man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second element present is the facial expressions of all the visible subjects. While there are three officers whose faces are visible, the officer on the left has a clear expression of frustration while the protester has a face full of fear. The only bystander whose expression is shown wears a face of shock which once again paints the officers as the aggressive party in the photo. Given the role of the subject and the group that they are aligned with it seems that Leonard was able to use the lighting in the picture to draw attention to both the movements and facial expressions of those at the current scene. Freed seems to convey this repeated message of how police officers who use excessive force are evil and violent, the protestors are helpless victims of police brutality, while making bystanders understand how shocking the treatment these officers had for defenseless people.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freed\u2019s piece of media is trying to express concern over how the police interact with the general public, specific when there is violence mixed into the situation. When analyzing Freed\u2019s series of work, it has been stated that, \u201cWerner Bischof, R. Capa, David Seymour, Dan Weiner, Andr\u00e9 Kert\u00e9sz, and Leonard Freed had documented some of the most volatile issues in the twentieth century: urban poverty, racial strife, and civil wars and revolutions around the world\u201d (Bair, page 75). While police brutality isn\u2019t directly mentioned, it can be assumed that this sort of topic is something Freed would want to share with the world if he had thought it was a prevalent issue during his time. This background knowledge combined with the message of the photograph suggests that his intention was to invoke a reaction towards this injustice in the city. Expanding this existing notation, \u201cAd Reinhardt\u2019s \u201cHow to Look at Modern Art in America\u201d (fig. 1), published by the mass-circulation New York daily newspaper PM in 1946, is by now nothing less than a fixture in the classroom presentation of what most mattered in American modernism at mid-century\u201d (Hill, page 78). If this application of representation of contemporary issues is accurate then the application could apply to Freed\u2019s photo, which once again implies that the issue of police brutality was such a problem that Freed felt it was necessary to reveal the type of behavior these officers exhibited once they received to act in such a corrupt degree.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without proper action, issues in the past can still affect the present, as police brutality is still relevant in modern society. While concerned photography is a way to get others informed and involved in the issue at hand, ultimately reform starts from the very top. Police officers shouldn\u2019t have to resort to violence in escorting one protester out the way as shown in the photograph above back then and it shouldn\u2019t be happening now. It also shouldn\u2019t be happening outside of the moment the photograph is taken either. Peaceful protestors shouldn\u2019t feel scared about those entrusted with the power to protect us, especially when both parties want to improve the lives of society as a whole.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
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Magnum Photos is a company founded in 1947 by co-founders Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David \u201cChim\u201d Seymour. The founding photographers were aiming to take photographs that would capture various conditions around the world after the second world war. As more photographers began to join Magnum Photos, in 1972 a photojournalist by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}