A conflict in images: photographic representations of 1957 Leaseholders’ Revolt

Abstract

This article analyses some pictures produced by the photographer of O Estado do Paraná, Osvaldo Jansen, covering the Leaseholders’ Revolt in 1957. The concern for producing humanistic and testimonial photography can be noticed in his pictures. How does the photographer’s urban eye of the capital of Paraná, inserted in a conflict for lands in the countryside of the state, influence in the possibilities of reading these images? Following the presupposition that the press photography is a documental representation of facts and, at the same time, of the symbolical construction of information, this article inquires – and unveils - what the photographies of the 1957’s revolt reveal and what they hide.