White guy says "wow!"

If you want to find the truth, find your ego first

I once stood on stage in the Grosvenor auditorium at the National Geographic HQ and started a speech by talking about my fellow photographers “I have never met such a bunch of warm, friendly, generous, caring, liberal-minded ego-maniacs in all my life”.

THE PITCH 

We’re deep in the heart of the Amazon, a man with a headdress and a bone through his nose leads us through chest high, anaconda infested, swamp. I’ve wrapped a bandana around my head to look more like Rambo and I hold my tripod above my head like it’s a gun. The journey in was brutal. Small planes, boats, dug-out canoes. All to reach ‘the tribe’. We have braved jaguars, enormous caimans, biting flies, tarantulas and snakes. Eventually we meet the tribe, they daub me in paint and I’m welcomed as one of their own; their deep spirituality rubbing off on me. I don’t just get a peek into their world – I am part of their world. Generations of deep connection to the forest and its spirits soaks into me in a matter of minutes. And now here, with a TV camera poking in my face, I am able to deliver one beautifully considered line that sums it all up ‘wow!’.

Damn I want to watch that shit! 

THE REALITY

Got the plane from Heathrow to Lima. Stayed in a hotel, got tired. Flew to Cusco the next morning. Got in a car and drove over the Andes. It was amazing but I didn’t have to do anything but sit in a comfy car watching it all. Stayed in another hotel that night. In the morning we struggled to get a good cup of coffee – it was hell. Got in a boat and went down a river. It was amazing but I didn’t have to do anything except sit on a pillow, which made my arse hurt by the end of the day. Stayed in a lodge for the night. Got a mosquito bite on my arm which is really itchy. Got up in the morning and faced the reality of no toilet seat. Also the toilet paper was really thin and not very absorbent. Got in the boat again for another couple of hours until we arrived. Met lots of people in t-shirts, flip flops and shorts. They were really nice. Where are all the feathered neck decorations and spears? I asked and they laughed at me. We had fun – good people. I made fart jokes and we all got the giggles.

The truth doesn’t play well on TV so the lie becomes reality. And it’s so infectious that lie that eventually the tribes themselves start buying into it. I have turned up at communities who have dressed up in traditional clothing for me, because the photographer or tv crew who was there last year had asked them to. The journey of the presenter, the photographer, the self-styled hero, becomes the narrative, the subject (the tribe) the vehicle for their ego.

It was journeys into the Amazon that opened my eyes to misappropriation of content and truth for ego – a pervasive problem in the media. As a photojournalist I believe it is critical to understand this, because being a good photojournalist has little to do with f-stops and shutter speeds but has a lot to do with context and an attempt at objective understanding. It never ceases to amaze me how intelligent, grown adults are often so appallingly bad at accepting and understanding their own ego. How and why their motivations are often selfish and biased, even with good intent. I guess in most industries it doesn’t matter, but in some it really does – the media is one of them. 

Most TV shows and media coverage of tribes in the amazon are ego-based. They rely on one of ‘us’ (the hero) making the daring journey in. The suggested motivation is to reveal to the viewer another extraordinary world. This is achieved by exaggerating cultural and spiritual differences – majoring on how exotic and different Indigenous people are to ‘us’. The Hero gets all excited about face paint and feathered adornments, which of course few people wear outside ritual events (most just wear shorts and t-shirts). The Hero concentrates on the deep spirituality they claim the tribe has and which they try to claim they understand – looking deep, looks good. They become involved in a ceremony to prove this. Crucially what this does is make the gap between us and all bigger, because the greater the gap between us, the more heroic the journalist. The editors and commissioners back home love all this of course and encourage it; they like the hero’s journey, they like the shots of all the exciting looking people.

We need to leave our egos at the door when we venture into a world different to ours. We need to ask one simple question – does my approach to this subject directly benefit me? If it does then you’re not doing your job. I’ve been that guy who says ‘wow!’. I have spent a lifetime battling with my ego. I understand it and control it these days, but as a younger man I allowed it to shape much of my motivation and life, chasing down ideas that made me look good, but had little to say about anything else. There’s a critical point that I have experienced and I have watched many of my friends and colleagues go through – when your passion for your subject becomes a commodity – in your own mind or in real terms. That’s when you start concentrating on yourself as a brand – and that’s when it all goes to shit, because your passion for your subject – your value, eventually turns into your passion for yourself. And you being your favourite subject is not good. 

I’m not saying it’s all gone. I still have an ego, anybody who knows me knows that, and it’s them who help me keep it in check. But when I pick up a camera and go to work, or when someone sticks a camera on me these days, I will always say the same thing ‘It’s not about me’ – something my mum said to me in my early years presenting wildlife shows; and something I always keep right there in the front of my mind. Because it’s too easy to start bending and shaping the narratives and nuances in your own direction; especially when you’re off in a world that’s different to your own and your job is to understand it and bring it back for an audience.