The Right or Responsibility of Inspection:
Public Photographs and People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

The ways that we learn about other people has a strong effect on just what it is that we come to know about them. Do we learn about other people by reading a book about them, or looking at pictures of them, or hearing a story about them, or by meeting them and talking to them? Sometimes, the ways we learn about others, such as people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, can be hurtful. It is really important that we think about and try to understand what we know about people with disabilities and how we came to know them. People with intellectual and developmental disabilities have had little, if any control over their ‘image’, over what people who do not have disabilities know about them. We need to ask ourselves how do we learn about people with intellectual and developmental disabilities? How have their lives, stories, and identities been told?

Public photographs are one way that we learn about people with disabilities. By “public photographs” we mean photographs such as charity advertising pictures, movie posters for movies about disability, pictures of people with disabilities in the newspaper or in art galleries or art books, and pictures used by agencies that provide services to people with disabilities. We see these pictures in the mall, in the community, on the subway, on billboards, and at the agencies where we go for programs.

Public photographs of people with disabilities are very powerful. They can influence the attitudes that people without disabilities have towards people who do have disabilities. This is because people who don’t have disabilities often believe that pictures of people with disabilities are true. But not all pictures tell the truth about disability. Sometimes pictures tell a very particular story about disability for a particular reason. For example, if a charity wants to raise money they might show pictures of people with disabilities in a way that makes them look like they need help, like they can’t take care of themselves. And sometimes this makes people who do not have disabilities feel sorry for them and feel like people with disabilities are not as important or valuable or as equal as people without disabilities. These types of pictures do not tell the whole truth about disability. And they can lead to poor attitudes towards people with disabilities.

These public photographs can also affect how people with disabilities think about themselves. Sometimes people with disabilities see pictures that make people with disabilities look bad and they start to feel badly about themselves. If they see pictures that show people with disabilities in a different way, in a way that makes them look like they are equal, valuable and that they belong, then this might make them feel better about themselves and give them a feeling of pride.

The people who take these public photographs do not often ask people with intellectual and developmental disabilities what they think about the pictures. They do not ask people with disabilities for their opinions on what kinds of pictures they should take. They don’t ask them if a picture tells the real story of disability.

We started this project to try to better understand how public photographs show people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We looked at photographs taken from the newspaper, from charity advertising, from service agencies, from art books, movie posters, and photography books. We talked about how we felt about the pictures. Did we like them or not? We talked about the story the picture seemed to tell. We also discussed if we liked that story or if we didn’t. And we talked about whether it showed people with disabilities in a good way or a bad way. Did they show what it was really like to be a person with a disability? We also talked about what people without disabilities might think about people with disabilities if they looked at these pictures. Also, whether the person with the disability would like the way they were portrayed in the picture.

The last thing we did with each picture was to talk about how we could change it. We used the computer program, Photoshop, to change the picture. Sometimes we changed it so that we liked it better, so that it told a better story about people with disabilities. Sometimes we changed it so that it showed people what we didn’t like about it. Sometimes we took our own pictures instead. This is how we came up with the name for our group – “The Photo-Changers”.

View work of the Photo-Changers >>

Bob:
They all look happy, like maybe they have jobs but not in a sheltered workshop.
It is good that they are all together – they seem happy.

Sam:
They look like a family.

Bob:
I think they asked someone to take their picture.

Mike:
Well, the way the picture describes it, meaning, Ok, they’re, they’re, they got together as a group, they weren’t ashamed of their disability, they wanted to get them, you know, get everyone recognized, I mean, basically, trying to prove a point that they can do something else like anyone else, they can find a job or work. 

Sam:
This is depressing, sad, humiliating.  Why are her arms wrapped up? It’s like military school.

Bob:
She looks institutionalized, she has bars in her room.

Robin:
She looks like a hostage, like a prisoner in Iraq.  This place doesn’t want any special people, people with disabilities there.  This is why they torture her. Special people get tortured because they have mental disabilities.

Sam:
People don’t want her there because of her disability.  They don’t approve of her, they are not keen on caring for people with disabilities.  They have a bad attitude or gesture or opinion.  They’re corrupt, low life.  They should be punished for how they do this to a child with a disability – it is wrong.