Figurations of the body in the snapshot of digital photojournalism: the non-pose and disfiguration

Abstract

This article analyses the technological changes that have modified the snapshot in photojournalism. Formerly, snapshot was a result of the technique and expertise of the photographer. Today, due to a kind of "agility" of the cameras, it has become a possible practice for any photoreporter. Sequential photographs turn the portrayed subject's body into a pliant element of the editorial process. In figurations that privilege unfulfilled gestures and disfigurements, some images published by the press symbolically alter the social representation of the person portrayed. The study described within this paper also points to the use of an aesthetic of the grotesque, present in the expressions, gestures and posture of the subject photographed and to a discourse of the snapshot as a regime of power exerted by the press. Keywords Snapshot in photojournalism; non-pose; social image; aesthetics of the grotesque ResumoEste artigo analisa as alterações tecnológicas que modificaram o espontâneo do fotojornalismo. Antes, o espontâneo era resultado da técnica e perícia do fotógrafo. Atualmente, graças a uma espécie de "agilidade" das câmaras fotográficas, ele tornou-se uma prática possível a qualquer foto-repórter. As fotografias sequenciais tornam o corpo do sujeito retratado um elemento manipulável do processo editorial. Em figurações que privilegiam gestos não concretizados e desfigurações, algumas imagens publicadas na imprensa alteram simbolicamente a representação social do retratado. O estudo apresentado neste artigo também aponta para o uso de uma estética do grotesco presente nas expressões, nos gestos e postura do sujeito fotografado e para um discurso do espontâneo como um regime de poder exercido pela imprensa. Palavras-chaveEspontâneo no fotojornalismo; não-pose; imagem social; estética do grotesco Focusing on the snapshotThe single photo -the decisive moment or a moment of frozen time -as defended by Erich Salomon in the 1920s and by Henri Cartier-Bresson in the 1950s, gave rise to the use of snapshots in photojournalism (Freund, 1983;Sousa, 2001). This is a tradition of factual genres, which does not accept and form of simulation or staging, and which portrays the subject almost always in action during an ongoing event. At the time when snapshots first began to be used, it was the photographer's responsibility to master a