Time Light Box Images Of Growing Up Mormon: Cause For Angst?

[Pahoran]

I think a photographer can select the times when subjects appear happier or when they are less so. There are some very stark images here that reflect certain truths about the LDS faith and it's families, but I think there are also those joyful times that haven't been recorded.

Probably what bothers people the most about these photos is their unblinking dedication to an agenda.

There. Fixed it for you.

If only these photos would have been of one of those well-to-do successful families that are perpetually smiling......

Would that have been a more accurate representation of LDS life?

It would have certainly been less exploitive of his own family, including the children therein.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Pahoran]

from the Photographer and article

" I was looking for moments and expressions which I felt captured this, and thus resonated with my own experience as a teenager.”"

Yes, the photos look like they were taken by a surly teenager.

Maybe one day he'll outgrow his adolescent rebellion and be able to see things as an adult. Unfortunately, I don't think pandering to the prejudices of a world that largely shares the attitudes of his teenage rebellion is going to hasten that day.

“It is one family’s history and experience in a very unique place in the United States ..."

No, it is not.

It is one mediocre photographer's spiteful back-hander at one family.

But it's somehow good enough to be published by an internationally circulated magazine.

Okay.

Regards,

Pahoran

Edited December 19, 2011 by Pahoran

[Bernard Gui]

I'm a late-comer to this thread, but I really like your comments here. International exposure is not easily obtained by artists or photographers, so there must be an agenda attached for it to get this kind of distribution.

IMO, you have nailed it. This is the portrait of the real Mormons that is not shown in the glossy up-beat Mormon ads. A counter to "I Am a Mormon," if you will.

Bernard

My main beef with this photo collection is not so much the photographer's work (though I have something to say about that as well). It is Time's editorial decision to feature this work and thereby make it more important than it should be and accessible to a national audience unfamiliar with Mormons or Utah. Try and imagine them doing the reverse- featuring the work of a believing Mormon who's photographs depicted his/her family sitting around eating a sunday meal and laughing or walking to church hand in hand or playing basketball in the church gym or having a squirt gun fight on a hot summer day, or >gasp!< kneeling in family prayer. Nope. Never would happen. Would be (perhaps justly) poo-poo'ed by the sophisticates working at Time as too amateur, to pedestrian. It's telling that when they want to showcase "Mormon Life" in Utah, they turn to an ex-member who lives in Brooklyn. Ok.. on to the show:

I'm an artist (though not a photographer). Conceptually, I think I get what he's trying to do.

The set is titled "Happy Valley" but no one smiles in the pictures... Get it? Get it? I don't have a problem with non-smiling portraits, in fact I prefer them. This is NOT 'slice of life' editorial photography. These photos look very staged to me. And staged in an awkward, obvious, sophomorically symbolic way. The whole collection is an attempt to tear down the facade of the 'superficial' Mormon value system and show Mormons as the 'other': a bizarre subtype of white bread hicks that live far off in fly-over-country that we can intellectually lump into one weird, wacky, mindless mass that all believe and live the same crazy way. They really can't live the way they claim. All that "happiness" has to be a show. He spells it out in the article summary:

"

The surrounding environment and people who inhabit it may be beautiful but something slightly unsettling lurks just below the surface."

Are there LDS families that could fit the unsettling "something" his photos suggest? Sure, so do a lot of non-lds families, but the majority don't. I doubt even Shumway's family is really like this. The photos shed no light on what it really means to be member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. No pictures of worship. No service to others. Very little tenderness. The one photo of a complete family is icy cold. But it's just one guy's experience with his own family right?. If that is true why does working through one's personal demons of teenage angst demand a national showcase? But that is not the intent of Time LightBox.

The article states:

"Nearly 600,000 people live in the valley, more than 80 percent of whom belong to the Latter-Day Saints Church (also know as Mormon), making it one of the most homogeneous communities in the United States.

Like the vast majority of residents of Happy Valley, Shumway’s family belongs to the LDS Church."

Read: "This family is typical of a homogenous group. View them all like this." Time is not trying to show this as just one guys family- it's intended to be construed as indicative of a monolithic homogenous community.

I am familiar with a few agenda artists. Their craft is secondary. It is beyond critique. Often I guess that's part of the schtick. Like saying, "What I'm doing is not about being skilled, it's about what I've got to tell the world. Telling the ugly truth- exposing the secrets that no one wants to admit." When they take aim at a group that deemed worthy to mock and marvel at, the media will eat it up.

[wenglund]

In my opinion, if the photographer in question wishes to advance beyond his somewhat pedestrian photographs to producing works of art, it may be wise for him to learn a thing or two about composition.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

But it's somehow good enough to be published by an internationally circulated magazine.

Okay.

Regards,

Pahoran

What do you think this says about the Magazine? Food for thought.

[Pahoran]

What do you think this says about the Magazine? Food for thought.

Probably nothing I didn't already know. Pandering to popular prejudices is what passes for fearless journalism these days.

But the more I think about those so-called "candid photos," the more perplexing I find them. Every child I know above the age of three (and several younger) just reflexively smiles whenever there's a camera in sight; and yet absolutely nobody smiles in any of those pictures.

Does anyone (apart from those delighted to pretend to believe that all Mormons are always miserable) really find this credible?

What did he do? Say, "Scowl at the birdie?"

Regards,

Pahoran

[Calm]

Having seen a number of other pictures of the family where they appear to be smiling, including many that appear spontaneous, it seems to me he either told them to not to smile or had to discard numerous smiling shots in order to come up with sufficient dour ones....which may explain the overall lower quality as limited choice means you go with what you got, not just the best.

Edited December 19, 2011 by calmoriah

[Pahoran]

In the comments section of the article, Kevin Graham wrote:

Daniel Peterson is an employee of and dogmatic apologist for the Mormon Church and a full-time professional anti-truth propagandist. Just so readers know.

Evidently, when Kevin Graham pretends to be civil in this forum, he is faking it; playing the hypocrite merely to stay on side with the moderators.

Just so readers know.

Well, it happens that Kevin Graham knows perfectly well that Dan Peterson is a professor of Islamic studies; that is his profession.

Therefore, when Kevin Graham falsely accuses Dan of being "a full-time professional anti-truth propagandist," he is lying.

Which is another way of saying, he is being himself.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Minos]

This thread is one post away from being closed if it doesn't become more civil.

[frankenstein]

What did he do? Say, "Scowl at the birdie?"

Regard

Pahoran

Of all the criticisms that is the best.

[Mariner]

Pahoran,

My earlier post that asked Daniel Peterson what he thought of the apologists' contribution to the comments section of the subject article was deleted by the moderators. Perhaps I should have tried behaving a little bit more like you did in your post # 233.