Staging Suffering: Photographic Ethics in the Representation of Pain, Poverty & Pathos

Staging Suffering: Photographic Ethics in the Representation of Pain, Poverty & Pathos critically examines the intersections of aesthetics, ethics, and photographic practice in representing hardship and psychological distress. Using the author’s photo-series Precious Poverty as a case study, the essay explores how constructed imagery, performativity, and magical realism can function as credible strategies of visual narrative beyond documentary realism. Drawing on theorists such as Susan Sontag, David Levi Strauss, and Jo Spence, it situates socially engaged photography within wider debates about empathy, agency, and the politics of representation. Through practice-based research and autobiographical reflection, the essay argues for hybrid forms of storytelling that foreground affective resonance and ethical awareness in lens-based art.