Choosing the Moment

I’m a believer in free speech and so forth, but sometimes I find myself having a sharp intake of breath. This morning, for example. I was reading yesterday’s Volkskrant (one of the Dutch broadsheet newspapers) over breakfast. I leafed through the magazine, and was suddenly confronted with a selection of images taken by a police forensics photographer during the course of his 30-year career.

 

The images (both black and white and colour) showed a series of bodies at the scene of their deaths, either by crime or suicide. I found the images shocking and unbearable to look at. I suppose part of it was that I was unprepared to see them.

 

The reason for the article is that there is an exhibition of the photographs opening in Amsterdam. And while I have no objection to the exhibition as such – after all, the images are of real events taken by a photographer in the course of his job – I do question the judgement of the editors in reproducing some of them in a colour supplement delivered to thousands of homes without warning. After that sudden intake of breath, I chose to skip the article and continue with breakfast, but the images that I saw remain. I can choose for myself whether to go to the exhibition, or buy the coffee-table book, just as you can choose whether you want to watch the video report (Bloedige tafelren op de foto) on the Volkskrant web site. I suppose what I am objecting to here is the removal, by the editors, of that ability to choose the moment, and the opportunity to prepare myself for the experience.