Visual Resources

ISSN: 0197-3762 (Print) 1477-2809 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gvir20

Photography vs. Visibility: Seeing Unseen Aspects

of a City

Elisabeth Neudörfl

To cite this article: Elisabeth Neudörfl (2010) Photography vs. Visibility: Seeing Unseen Aspects of
a City, Visual Resources, 26:1, 13-29, DOI: 10.1080/01973760903537843

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Photography vs. Visibility: Seeing Unseen
Aspects of a City

Elisabeth Neudörfl

“Photography vs. Visibility” presents methods of producing documentary photography with

Visual
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0197-3762
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Taylor
102010
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Francis
(print)/1477-2809
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aspects of visibility and invisibility in images of cities. In referring to texts by Bertolt Brecht,
Walter Benjamin, John Szarkowski, Walker Evans, and Abigail Solomon-Godeau, I elucidate
my artistic documentary approach, exemplified by presenting two art projects photographed
in Bangkok, Thailand, and Manila, Philippines. This article links theoretical reflection to the
images and to the experience of the actual cities, suggesting that the most important aspects
of cities are invisible. Despite the term “documentary,” which indicates a claim for objectivity,
the subjective role of the photographer as stranger is essential for the artwork presented.
Keywords: Documentary Photography; Visibility; Invisibility; Bangkok, Thailand;
Manila, Philippines; Asia

A fundamental strategy of photography is exclusion. In 1966, as director of photogra-

phy at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, John Szarkowski (1925–2007) wrote:
“The invention of photography provided a radically new picture-making process—a
process based not on synthesis but on selection. The difference was a basic one. Paint-
ings were made—constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes and skills and
attitudes—but photographs, as the man on the street put it, were taken.”1
Each photograph shows a very exclusive section of the world—spatially and
temporally. The picture is clearly cropped by the frame and the exposure is only a
moment in time. In spite of this spatiotemporal detail that excludes so much more
than it shows, we can see things in photographs that we cannot see in our continuous
perception of reality.
Although a lot more is potentially visible in the real world than in photographs,
our perception seems to be less focused and elliptic when it is not framed as in a
photograph. Our visual perception is guided or distracted by our other senses. We
cannot perceive our surroundings totally; we need the reduction of the photograph to
see everything there is (on the picture). In order to grasp the world visually, it seems
that we should not only eliminate hearing, smelling, and so forth, but we also have to
cut out a defined section of the visual world.
The boundaries of the picture—its limitations—can lead to new connections and
relationships between things depicted: “If the photographer’s frame surrounded two

Visual Resources, Volume 26, Number 1, March 2010

ISSN 0197–3762 © 2010 Taylor & Francis
14 Neudörfl

figures, isolating them from the crowd in which they stood, it created a relationship
between those two figures that had not existed before.”2
Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)3 stated in 1931: “…less than ever does the mere reflec-
tion of reality reveal anything about reality. A photograph of the Krupp works or the
AEG tells us next to nothing about these institutions.”4 The Krupp works and the AEG
were major German armaments and electric companies at the time.
He continued: “Actual reality has slipped into the functional. The reification of
human relations—the factory, say—means that they are not longer explicit. So
something must in fact be built up, something artificial, posed.”5
This “artificial, posed,” something that “must… be built up,” can be read—as
photo historian Abigail Solomon-Godeau has done it—as a construction within the
picture which distinguishes it from Brecht’s “mere reflection.”6 I draw a different
conclusion. I believe a photograph, in terms of one photograph, indeed tends to tell
us next to nothing. But I want to stick to the “mere reflection,” to a documentary
claim in the tradition of American photographer Walker Evans (1903–1975) who
used documentary means to create photographic works that still refer to a reality
that “has slipped into the functional.”7 Connecting the ideas of Brecht and
Szarkowski, the necessity of construction to gain relevance in art (Brecht) with the
selective quality of photography (Szarkowski), I suggest that it is possible to build
something up by taking something away. Combining photographs in a series in
opposition to the single photograph is the most important method of construction
for me.
I hope to illustrate, on the basis of my work, that photography, strictly applied in
documentary style, is an adequate means to expose social structures beyond visibility.
The “building up” does not lie in the pictures themselves but rather in the combina-
tion of pictures. In order to explain the particular relationship between the subject and
the city and its complication in documentary photography, I present two of my recent
photo projects, Super Pussy Bangkok (photographed in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2005)
and “E.D.S.A.” (photographed in Manila, Philippines, in 2007).

Super Pussy Bangkok

The cover of the book Super Pussy Bangkok is metallic pink with a black-and-white
logotype resembling that of a neon sign, similar to a photograph in the book. This
cover design creates a deliberate contrast to the book’s content. The stylish title and
the provocative color might raise expectations that will not be fulfilled, since the
content of the book consists of black-and-white pictures without people. One central
concern in this project is perception.
The photographs in this volume depict facades and constitute the framework for
a socially defined space. The buildings and streets provide the infrastructure; they
build up the actual place. Yet, while the site depicted is a quarter dominated by sex
tourism and densely populated at night, I photographed anticlimactically during the
daytime, suggesting that the agents, the people commonly interacting here, do not see
what my photographs reveal. So this work is also about seeing things in photographs
that are not visible in the real world.
 Photography vs. Visibility 15

In this project I pursue several interests on different levels. I am dealing with my

role as a stranger in an Asian city. I think this work, rather than depicting the city,
shows my role and my view. However, Bangkok is still crucial to this work. Bangkok is
a major destination for male sex tourists from Germany and other Western countries.
Thus the trajectory Bangkok—as a destination—and Germany—as my point of
origin—reflect an economic hierarchy that, together with a certain historical develop-
ment, leads to a situation in which Thai women offer their services to German men.
Traveling to Bangkok, it is easy to ignore this fact.
The book Super Pussy Bangkok is 41 by 26 centimeters in size and consists of
thirty-three photographs. Each photograph is printed full-bleed, one photograph per
double-page spread (Figures 1–6). The wire binding divides each landscape format
into two portrait format photographs. The book and hence the photographs are too
big to grasp the full picture all at once from half an arm’s length’s distance, a position
which is convenient to turn the pages. In the middle of each picture we see the wire
binding, with the punch holes going right through the pictures.
Placing a photograph on a white page emphasizes the rectangular shape and,
Figure 654321 Elisabeth Neudörfl, Super Pussy Bangkok (Leipzig: Institut fuer Buchkunst, 2006). Black-and-white photograph, double-page spread. Image © and courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.

consequently, the pictorial quality of the photograph. Here, without the white frame,
the picture and the physical book become the same thing. Without the white border,
the frame of the pictures is less clearly determined—and the photographs leak from the
book into the surroundings. This seamless blending of image and world is further
emphasized by the fact that every image is cut in half by the gutter and is pierced by
the wire binding.
In order to contextualize the visual material, there is a short text on the back cover
of the book, which reads:
It is estimated that Thailand has an annual turnover of approx. 25 billion
dollars from prostitution and that 10% of its gross domestic product is
generated by it (Germany: 0.38%).8
Prostitution is illegal in Thailand.
A section of the sex industry is explicitly directed towards customers from
the USA, Great Britain and Germany. Relevant bars in Bangkok can be
found along the streets of Patpong, Nana Tai and Cowboy. Patpong 1,
Patpong 2 which runs parallel, and Cowboy are each approximately 200
meters long.
My vantage point is always from the street. The camera is mainly tilted upwards.
There are no people. The distorted perspective leads to a view that seems out of
control, spontaneous, not really directed at anything, yet still very precise. Again and
again we see the same shops and signs.
I am approaching and experiencing the city as a Westerner, yet as a critical
observer. Thus, my photographs capture the experiential void that emerges for a
foreigner who withdraws herself from the experience constructed, “built up” for the
typical sex tourist.
The relationship between me, as a European tourist and photographer, and a
Thai person that I might meet during my photographic endeavor is never balanced.
We both bear our economic background, the background that lets me travel to
 16 Neudörfl

Figure 1 Elisabeth Neudörfl, Super Pussy Bangkok (Leipzig: Institut für Buchkunst, 2006). Black-and-white
photograph, double-page spread. Image © and courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.

Figure 2 Elisabeth Neudörfl, Super Pussy Bangkok (Leipzig: Institut für Buchkunst, 2006). Black-and-white
photograph, double-page spread. Image © and courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.
 Photography vs. Visibility 17

Figure 3 Elisabeth Neudörfl, Super Pussy Bangkok (Leipzig: Institut für Buchkunst, 2006). Black-and-white
photograph, double-page spread. Image © and courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.

Figure 4 Elisabeth Neudörfl, Super Pussy Bangkok (Leipzig: Institut für Buchkunst, 2006). Black-and-white
photograph, double-page spread. Image © and courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.
18 Neudörfl

Figure 5 Elisabeth Neudörfl, Super Pussy Bangkok (Leipzig: Institut für Buchkunst, 2006). Black-and-white
photograph, double-page spread. Image © and courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.

Figure 6 Elisabeth Neudörfl, Super Pussy Bangkok (Leipzig: Institut für Buchkunst, 2006). Black-and-white
photograph, double-page spread. Image © and courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.
 Photography vs. Visibility 19

Thailand and lets the other person remain there, and this background influences our
mutual perception. With respect to perception, as a European tourist in Thailand, I
have more things in common with other European tourists—including European sex
tourists—than with Thai people.
Ever since its invention, photography has been a tool used by us to help explore
them; it was a means of conquest.9 Thus this colonial or imperialistic view is implied
in photography itself. As economic dependencies have superseded political ones, it is
irrelevant that Thailand was never colonized. This implicit imperialism of photogra-
phy led to my decision to make my own view—the stranger’s view—my own situation
in relation to a less developed country, the central theme of this work.
Reluctantly thinking about sex tourism, I figured that unlike the sex tourist, I did
not want to exploit or affirm the situation. I wanted to reveal this context, to make the
structure visible. Consequently, I had to avoid imitating the sex tourist’s perspective.
I had to push back activity versus structure. I wanted to know how this particular place
appears without all those things that the sex tourist is looking for.
The sex tourist cannot see the exploitative structure. He needs it to satisfy his own
desires. If he saw it, he would have to question it, and if he questioned it, he would
have to stop using it.
I see this work in a topographic tradition of photography. I am using the term
“topographic” not only as a reference to the 1975 photography exhibition,10 but
mainly in the literal meaning of the word “topography,” as the description of the
earth’s surface, including nature and all artifacts, as a study of place.
Photography is used to describe and to determine how a place looks. A photograph
in documentary style shows surface. As I suggested when introducing the idea behind
the cover design of the book, the difference between the surface—and what is behind
it—and the possibility for the viewer to discover this difference is crucial. Unlike
Brecht, I believe that the “mere reflection” itself does reveal this difference—being a
construction as well.
In my photographs, we see shop front balconies, unlit neon signs, laundry drying
in windows: nothing special. Photography gives these things so much attention that
the viewer has to ask her- or himself: What does it reveal about its subject matter?
What does it mean? In this respect, we cannot only talk about what we see; we also
have to talk about what we do not see and what the pictures might imply.
The sex tourist does not see or pay attention to the phenomena I captured in these
images: street views of buildings, architectural structures, infrastructure, decay, every-
day normality at daytime. By temporally shifting my perception in relation to the sex
tourist’s perception, I also introduce a distance—a distance between me and him,
between his perception and mine; a distance between the city and me; and a distance
between him and the city. The point is not to get closer to Bangkok, to this part of the
city, to the people there; it is to keep a distance.
Whatever the sex tourist perceives—lights, colors, temperatures, smells, the
crowd—is absent in the photographs. I took photographs of objects only—or their
corresponding surfaces. There is no action, no operation, and no function. I reduce
perception to seeing, in black and white. In this way, I remove this first layer of percep-
tion, everything that can be felt, everything exciting, every bodily involvement; and the
20 Neudörfl

viewer can see through to the very facade, which is still only a surface. The sex tourist
cannot see behind this first layer, literally and metaphorically.
Exploring aspects of the city (it is not possible to explore the whole city
encyclopedically)—here Bangkok—as an artist, I use photography very directly and
photographically. Brecht’s “mere reflection” is influenced by decisions about the five
parameters of photography that John Szarkowski explained in his essay in the
exhibition catalog The Photographer’s Eye: “The Thing Itself,” the motif, what is photo-
graphed; “The Detail,” the section of the object; “The Frame,” the decision about
what’s going to be on the picture and what not; “Time,” the point in time, when the
exposure is made, and the length of the exposure; and, maybe most importantly, the
“Vantage Point,” the perspective.11
These decisions already lead to a subjective rather than a neutral depiction. Yet to
escape from affirmation and aestheticism—Brecht’s and Benjamin’s12 main allega-
tions against photography—more thought is necessary. Obviously, to reveal social or
other abstract structures, the artist needs knowledge—and a decided attitude.
Photographs are not absolute. They are not only relative to reality; rather they are
relative to other photographs, to images and expectations, to former experiences of the
viewer. Even using a documentary style, it is still necessary to challenge the viewer and
to interfere with her viewing patterns. This interference may lie in the photograph
itself, in the combination of photographs, in the correlation of the photographs to the
viewer’s expectations and experiences, and in the form of the presentation.
It is not possible to deduce from Super Pussy Bangkok a valid conclusion about the
city of Bangkok. But Super Pussy Bangkok shows a valid aspect very much connected
with this city.

E.D.S.A.
Manila is quite different from Bangkok. The Philippines have been colonized, yet they
are in an economic situation similar to Thailand or worse. Although tourism—includ-
ing sex tourism—is also an important economic factor in the Philippines, this does not
apply to the capital Manila. Unlike Bangkok, Manila is not a tourist destination.
Manila is considered Western, not Asian, not typical, not special. That’s exactly
what made it interesting for me. Again, I chose a topographic approach: The Epifanio
Delos Santos Avenue (E.D.S.A.) is the initial point of departure for this project.
E.D.S.A. is the main circumferential road in metro Manila; it is more than twenty
kilometers or fourteen miles long. The place this time is not a small area, but a very
long street. E.D.S.A. is one of the most important public spaces in Manila. In 1986, it
served as a demonstration site for the People Power Revolution against the regime of
President Ferdinand Marcos, which is also known as E.D.S.A. Revolution, and led to
Marcos’s ouster. In 2001, protesters again used E.D.S.A. for the peaceful overthrow of
President Joseph Estrada.13
I took a step back and looked at a wider social reality. I am still a stranger, a neutral
observer; I am not involved. I analyzed the street as a social space, a place not only for
vehicular travel, but also as a space where social actualities, involving all economic
groups, take place and can be observed.
 Photography vs. Visibility 21

I photographed in color. Choosing color film, I push back pictorial aspects and
allow a more common and less aestheticized view. This notion is supported by the
framing that depends on what lies beyond each photograph’s left or right border much
more than on the idea of a single balanced picture.
Compared to Bangkok, my distance to the motif is of a different quality. I am
literally farther away from my subjects than in Bangkok: some sequences are photo-
graphed from an elevated vantage point. The camera is level straight, providing the
most common view, supposedly hiding the presence of the author. Still, the concep-
tual approach leads to a record of the street that is everything but neutral.
All social classes use this street, but they do not meet there.14 As a thoroughfare,
E.D.S.A. is unavoidable. On the street, speed is a social characteristic—depending on
their social status, people use cars, trains, buses, jeepneys, motorbikes, bicycles, or they
walk. Those who can afford it, sit in the back of their cars, behind their driver,
protected by tinted windows, air-conditioned, in a space totally isolated from the
surroundings. Less well-off traffic participants share their in-vehicle space not only
with strangers, but also with heat, dust, noise, pollution, and the like.
Transit is not the only function of the street. For some, it is also a place to stay. It
is a workplace for public service staff, who clean, who construct, who control traffic.
It is also a space for small businesses, to clean windshields, to sell newspapers or
household items, or to beg.
The economic and social reality becomes apparent on the street, but it is perceived
differently by the different parties. For those using cars, the reality inside the car
prevails over the reality on the street. For those in the street, the cars are perceived
mainly in their metallic physicality, with their sounds and emissions, not as vehicles
with people inside. The people inside the vehicles will be perceived, if at all, as poten-
tial buyers or donators.
In my photographs, the reality on the street is evident, including all the vehicles,
but also including all the other people on the street, all the plants, billboards, kiosks,
and more. Because photography brings all movement to a halt, the viewer gains time
to see all these things.
Unlike in Super Pussy Bangkok, it was not necessary to shift perception temporally.
I just had to stop all the movement—using the instantaneousness of photography, i.e.,
the temporal detail. In Bangkok, I see a disparity between how the area is meant to
look and how it looks during the day. In Manila, I felt that the outdoors is not meant
to have any aesthetic quality. Those who can afford to do so avoid it. Public space does
not seem enjoyable, so it is not worth the effort of deliberately shaping and designing
it. By contrast, the billboards represent an almost pathological discrepancy between
imagination and the real structure.
To show the street, it is also necessary to show the sides of the streets: bus stops,
malls, slums, shops, offices, and so on. The street has a dominant shape: it is very long.
The sheer length of it led to a specific photographic strategy. I use and subvert the
panorama,15 dissecting the whole, wide documentation of “E.D.S.A.” into individual
vertically oriented photographs that are disconnected from each other in the book.
This arrangement contributes also to a perception of the street that is uncommon for
a panorama: as the observer never sees the whole panorama, the street experience is
22 Neudörfl

Figure 7 Elisabeth Neudörfl, “E.D.S.A.,” 2007. Color photograph. Image © and courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.
 Photography vs. Visibility 23

Figure 8 Elisabeth Neudörfl, “E.D.S.A.,” 2007. Color photograph. Image © and courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.
24 Neudörfl

chaotic and disorienting rather than affirming and directing. Every exposure is the
inevitable consequence of the previous one and is not purposefully made or chosen;
thus, it is incidental rather than intentional.
“E.D.S.A.” is intended to be viewed as a book. Each sequence starts on a right
page. On the next spread, the photograph from the previous right page recurs on the
left page, the following right page showing the next, consequent photograph of the
panorama (Figures 7 [and cover]–12). Each sequence ends on a left page, with white
pages separating the sequences from each other.
I use the panning shot that we know from film. But it is chopped up, the continu-
987 Elisabeth
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ity is missing, the movement is frozen—the movement of the camera as well as the
movement of people and vehicles. The whole kinetic energy of the street has come to
a halt, and this fact is brought to the viewer’s attention by the pretended panning shot,
by movement from one picture to the next, by the doubling of objects between two
pictures.
Using cinematic methods, doing something that is usually not done in photogra-
phy, with a machine that is unusable for film, I deny the quality of both photography
and film. I move the camera (panning shot) while photographing, but the photo
camera cannot record movement. I disobey photographic rules of composition. I set
the vertical format that confronts the viewer explicitly with the fact of the frame,
against the horizontal orientation of the panorama, which suggests a wide open visual
field.
This approach leads to a new—surprisingly very photographic—viewing experi-
ence. Again, the insight in the city—Manila—lies in the conceptual approach rather
than in the photographs themselves. Even if certain aspects are visible in single photo-
graphs, e.g., the discrepancy between the fictitious world in the advertisements and the
gritty reality, the single picture pales in comparison to the series and the whole
concept. It goes without saying that the reality of the street that is actually depicted is
crucial and necessary for this process.

Conclusion
Super Pussy Bangkok and “E.D.S.A.” each visualize marginalized aspects of a city. In
Bangkok, I examined a very specific matter that was closely connected with my own
role as a Western tourist there. In Manila, it was a more general aspect that applied to
other cities as well. As one of only a few tourists in Manila, I stayed uninvolved and
out of place.
In the two cities, I dealt with invisible aspects of the “other” and within a cultural
environment dramatically different from my own. In Super Pussy Bangkok, the
invisible is mentally present—it is obviously absent and thus still invisible in the
photographs. Unlit neon signs refer not only to lit neon signs, but also to the crowd
attracted by them. The viewer has to work out the process of perception actively, to
figure out presence and absence, actualities and possibilities. In showing things
different from the usual perception, I open up new vistas on the unseen.
On the one hand, we deal with unseen aspects that are depicted in the photo-
graphs and thus become visible—things that are usually not perceived because they
 Photography vs. Visibility 25

Figure 9 Elisabeth Neudörfl, “E.D.S.A.,” in unpublished artist’s book, 2007. Color photographs. Image © and
courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.

Figure 10 Elisabeth Neudörfl, “E.D.S.A.,” in unpublished artist’s book, 2007. Color photographs. Image © and
courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.
26 Neudörfl

Figure 11 Elisabeth Neudörfl, “E.D.S.A.,” in unpublished artist’s book, 2007. Color photographs. Image © and
courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.

Figure 12 Elisabeth Neudörfl, “E.D.S.A.,” in unpublished artist’s book, 2007. Color photographs. Image © and
courtesy of Elisabeth Neudörfl.
 Photography vs. Visibility 27

are hidden in the dark or because they are so common that they are disregarded, like
the facades in Bangkok or the road workers in Manila. On the other hand, we have
invisible aspects that are not depicted—but can be seen or understood. As a result of
the depicted aspects, the viewer’s attention is led to social incoherences (or, in
Benjamin’s terms, to human coherences, which he demands to be comprised by
art16). Such incoherences are relations between things that are not understandable in
single pictures, but that develop in a series of photographs.
In Bangkok, my strategy was simple: I chose a different time of day for my visits
to the area. In Manila, I had to develop a more complex photographic strategy: I froze
all motion. First of all, I had to stop moving. I found myself at common places that are
uncommon to linger. Next, I had to hold the motion around me. And thirdly, I had to
visualize the fact that motion had come to a halt and to show this in the photographs
themselves.
Both works have a social or even political backdrop. In Bangkok, Western individ-
uals take advantage of their comparative wealth, which is the result of political and
economic dependencies. In Manila, uninhibited business activities, also with a long
history of power and exploitation, lead to a specific structure and infrastructure, and
to fragmentation.
What Walter Benjamin expected from photography is what I still expect from
photography today: to reveal human coherences. This, however, is not an undisputed
claim. Bertolt Brecht explicitly denied this quality of documentary style photogra-
phy—the “mere reflection”—when he stated that “Photography is the possibility of a
reproduction that blots out the context.”17 Yes, it is possible to blot out the context.
But it is also possible to create a new context within a series of photographs—with an
undeniable dependency on reality.
The question is not whether a photographic work uses either documentary methods
or montage. As in film, montage is not necessarily used within the single picture, but can
be used by placing one picture after the other or next to the other. So montage (as in build-
ing something up, constructing something) is not opposed to the depiction of surfaces.
Human coherences can be revealed with strictly photographic methods. My
photographs are not documents, but I call my work documentary. The photographic
reference to reality is essential, and a conceptual approach is inevitable. The link
between reality and a photographic work is the artist as a subject, experiencing the
city—as fragmented, confusing, overwhelming, or detailed it may be.

ELISABETH NEUDÖRFL is professor of documentary photography at Folkwang Univer-

sity in Essen, Germany. She studied photography in Dortmund at the University of
Applied Sciences and Arts and in Leipzig at the Academy of Visual Arts and has held teach-
ing positions in Hanover and Leipzig. In addition to various group and solo exhibitions,
she has published her work in photo books: Future World (2002) by the Sprengel Museum
Hanover in conjunction with her solo exhibition; Super Pussy Bangkok (2006) by the Insti-
tut für Buchkunst Leipzig. Her most recent solo exhibition, Von der Straße, took place at
Galerie Barbara Wien, Berlin, in 2009. Elisabeth Neudörfl is currently preparing work for
her participation in Ruhrblicke, an exhibition within the European Capital of Culture
2010 program in Essen, curated by Thomas Weski.
28 Neudörfl

1 John Szarkowski, The Photographer’s Eye (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1966),
6.
2 Szarkowski, Photographer’s Eye, 9.
3 Bertolt Brecht was a renowned German author, playwright, and poet. In the source
for the quote, Der Dreigroschenprozeß [The Threepenny Lawsuit], Brecht reflects on a
copyright lawsuit he was involved in concerning the film adaptation of his drama Die
Dreigroschenoper [The Threepenny Opera], linking the difficulties that led to the
lawsuit to the relationship between film and art, to the role of the artist, the role of art,
and more; see Bertolt Brecht, “Der Dreigroschenprozeß. Ein soziologisches Experi-
ment,” in Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, ed. Werner Hecht,
Band 21, Schriften 1 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992), 448–514.
4 Quoted after Walter Benjamin, One Way Street and Other Writings (London: New
Left Books, 1979), 255, cited in Esther Leslie, “Interrupted Dialogues of Realism and
Modernism,” in Adventures in Realism, ed. Matthew Beaumont (Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 2007), 129. Benjamin (1892–1940) was a German literary critic, essayist,
translator, philosopher, and author of The Work in the Age of Mechanical Reproduc-
tion (1936) and Little History of Photography (1931).
5 Bernd Stiegler has analyzed the sources of the quote and its use in photography theory
in his essay “Die eigentliche Realität ist in die Funktionale gerutscht. Kapitalismuskri-
tik und Fototheorie. Zur Karriere eines bestimmten Zitats,” Fotogeschichte. Beiträge
zur Geschichte und Ästhetik der Fotografie 27, no. 10 (2007): 36–43.
6 Solomon-Godeau links back documentary approaches from the 1970s and 1980s by
artists such as Allan Sekula, Martha Rosler, and Sally Stein to Brecht’s and Benjamin’s
idea that truly political photographic practice cannot rely on mere reflection but has
to be planned out and constructed as in John Heartfield’s photo montages. These
documentary approaches use, for example, text in addition to photography and also
work with montage within pictures. See Abigail Solomon-Godeau, “Who Is Speaking
Thus? Some Questions about Documentary Photography,” in Photography at the
Dock: Essay on Photographic History, Institutions, and Practices (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 169–83.
7 Evans did not feel comfortable with the term “documentary” in relation to his work.
He explicitly characterizes himself as an artist and his work as art. He says: “Docu-
mentary? That’s a very sophisticated and misleading word. And not really clear.
…The term should be documentary style. An example of a literal document would be
a police photograph of a murder scene. You see, a document has use, whereas art is
really useless. Therefore art is never a document, although it can adopt that style.”
Leslie Katz, “Interview with Walker Evans,” Art in America 59, no. 2 (1971): 87.
8 Richard Reichel and Karin Topper, “Prostitution: der verkannte Wirtschaftsfaktor”
[Prostitution: The Underestimated Economic Factor], Aufkläerung und Kritik.
Zeitschrift für freies Denken und humanistische Philosophie 10 (2003).
9 Photography was invented in the nineteenth century, when European powers were
expanding their dominion overseas. In his report about the daguerreotype before the
French Chamber of Deputies in 1839, Dominique François Arago already mentions
the Napoleonic Campaign in Egypt as a possible field of application for photogra-
phy—the Egyptian Campaign being an (unsuccessful) attempt of French expansion
in the Mediterranean. See Dominique François Arago: “Bericht über den Daguerreo-
typ (1839),” in Theorie der Fotografie I. 1839–1912 (Munich: Schirmer/Mosel, 1980),
51–55; for photography as appropriation, see Solomon-Godeau, “Who Is Speaking
Thus?” (see note 6); for the balance of power between those photographing and those
 Photography vs. Visibility 29

being photographed, see Martha Rosler, “In, Around, and Afterthoughts (on
Documentary Photography),” in The Photography Reader, ed. Liz Wells (New York:
Routledge), 261–74.
10 New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, George Eastman
House, Rochester, New York, January 1975, curated by William Jenkins. Participating
artists included Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon,
John Schott, Stephen Shore, Henry Wessel, Jr., Bernd and Hilla Becher.
11 Szarkowski, Photographer’s Eye, 8–11.
12 Brecht’s quote is mostly known as quoted by Benjamin, seen in the context of
Benjamin’s text, Little History of Photography. See Walter Benjamin, “Kleine
Geschichte der Photographie,” in Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen
Reproduzierbarkeit. Drei Studien zur Kunstsoziologie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1963). In his text, Benjamin mainly attacks German photographer Albert Renger-
Patzsch (1897–1966) and his book Die Welt ist schön [The World is Beautiful], which
is associated with the art movement New Objectivity [Neue Sachlichkeit]. Benjamin
accuses the photography of the New Objectivity of not being able to comprise human
conherences, lacking context, and being stuck in aestheticism. As examples of photog-
raphy that works well in a social context, Benjamin mentions Germaine Krull, August
Sander, and Karl Bloßfeldt. Concerning photographic construction, Benjamin points
out Surrealism and Russian film as positive examples. In Brecht’s original text,
photography itself plays only a minor role. It is not clearly distinguished from film or
art. Brecht writes about the necessity of actuality in art and about the insufficiency of
the old, outdated art. He favors a new art that has social relevance. See Bertolt Brecht,
“Der Dreigroschenprozeß. Ein soziologisches Experiment.”
13 The demonstrations against Estrada are called E.D.S.A. Revolution of 2001 or
E.D.S.A. II. Four months later, supporters of Estrada gathered on E.D.S.A.; this failed
attempt to reinstate Estrada as president is called E.D.S.A. III.
14 In this respect, I find it very interesting that the E.D.S.A. Revolution and E.D.S.A. II
are perceived as movements of the middle and upper classes in contrast to E.D.S.A.
III as an uprising of lower classes who were mainly supporting President Estrada.
Thus even the power of the masses, expressed in the street as a very accessible place,
is separated by social status in the Philippines.
15 “Panorama” may be a misleading term in this context since I am not aiming at an all-
encompassing overview. Altogether, the panoramic sequences in the book do not
provide a complete view of E.D.S.A. The technique of the panorama and elevated
vantage points suggest a comprehensive representation, but the subjective determina-
tion of the beginning and the end of each sequence, which does not align with the
wholeness of a motif and the selection of sequences that are shown, undermine this
notion.
16 Benjamin, Kunstwerk, 62.
17 Bertolt Brecht, “Durch Fotografie keine Einsicht,” in Große kommentierte Berliner
und Frankfurter Ausgabe (see note 3), 443; translation quoted from Richard Dienst,
“History Lesson on the S-Bahn: Brecht’s Cartography of Capital,” in Confronting
Mass Democracy and Industrial Technology: Political and Social Theory from
Nietzsche to Habermas, ed. John P. McCormick (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2002), 98.