Shooting The Messenger

Fed up with press images of politicians caught jeering and napping during New Zealand’s parliamentary sessions, a committee is plotting to severely restrict what photojournalists are allowed to capture. The use of any still or videotaped image for satire is to be prohibited. Also included in the new rules is a ban on still photographers from snapping anything, except the MP (Member of Parliament) officially speaking, "to minimise the prospect of disturbance by photographers moving around the public gallery," and "because still photographs cannot themselves reflect the context of the proceedings to which they relate.”

Aside from being a full-on assault on lively political discourse, the ruckus also raises interesting issues about photography. Why would a written description of an MP snoozing through a speech be allowed, unlike a picture of the same act? Is it inherent to the nature of a still photograph that important context is sacrificed? It’s a classic conflict of photography—the tension between its sheer symbolic power, and the fact that the so-called “decisive moment” is only one shot among countless others.