Photojournalism and Documentary Practice: When sometimes we turn away

This paper is divided into two sections - essay and visual stories. Early in the essay photojournalism and documentary practice are defined whilst responding to their association with the real. It acknowledges that when faced with stories of trauma, audience responses are often polarised between compassion for the subjects of the story and anger at the author for telling those stories. It questions whether our delight in knowing is diminishing or overwhelmed by the number of trauma stories told and re-told. Borrowing from a number of theorists it is argued in this paper that storytelling defines and maintains the boundaries that surround our communities. It applies the framework of Durkheim's Moral Community to suggest that media (print, electronic and social) have become the collective rituals ensuring an almost tribal adherence to notions of the profound and the profane. Questions as to whether or not compassion is finite and therefore limited and to whom it is afforded are addressed. The visual component looks at the work of the authors and seeks to identify alternative approaches to non-fictional storytelling.