Holiday windows

Some of us have been involved in conversations about the language of photography, the violence of the words often used to describe what we do: shoot, capture, take, grab. 

I’ve been following a group called Photographers Without Borders (a name at best an homage to Doctors without Borders, at worst a cooptation). I get regular emails from them, and I was happy recently to get “A Guide to Nonviolent Language for Lens-Based Work.” I like it. The Guide is not about policing our language, it’s about thinking deeply about what we do: whether it invades the privacy of others or honors them, whether it holds them up for ridicule, respect, solidarity, or something else.  

Today we lost an important figure in American literature: Nikki Giovanni. I was privileged to live at the same time she lived, to admire her nerve, to enjoy her poems, to listen to her speeches. She made room for others. 

She wrote, 

i hope i die
warmed
by the life that i tried
to live

— Nikki Giovanni.