cry baby

last week i went to see the world press photo exhibition at the state library. i encourage everyone who reads this blog to do the same, and then to tell their friends to do the same, who will in turn tell their friends to do the same, and so on until we're all part of one big exhibition-viewing daisy chain of friendship and enlightenment.

this incredible exhibition of photojournalism by the world's best has left me pondering. ever since i went, i have been disturbed by the strange reality we exist in in which one person's horrific plight on one side of the world becomes another person's act of voyeurism on the other side. i am troubled by the level of desensitisation we have achieved as a society, whereby images of human misery can hang comfortably beside shots of sport, weather and festivity in a photography exhibition. a society in which people can walk around such an exhibition sipping free beer and talking on their mobile phones in ignorant bliss.

i'm not questioning the validity of the exhibition, nor the photographers' brilliant work. it is indeed an important method of communicating to the world just what is going on in those faraway countries whose names we often can't pronounce. i'm just kind of thinking aloud. or rather thinking a-blog.

as i walked around the exhibition, i felt an army of tears forming behind my eyes. at first i resisted, ready to go into battle against a teary public shame. but soon i surrendered, deciding that if it were my picture hanging in such an exhibition, depiciting my suffering, i would hope that someone somewhere would be crying for me.