Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Christopher Sanderson on August 23, 2017, 12:18:55 pm
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Andrew Molitor has written a modest proposal for a resource that might be used to sound the ethics for the use of published images - images that may have been altered or 'photoshopped' or which have content that is arguably exploitative.
Find it here. (https://luminous-landscape.com/ethical-photography-go/)
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It's an excellent essay. My personal solution is to be honest and open about what I do. My approach to photography is artistic and I make no secret that all my work is representative of my personal vision of the scene, not representative of reality. In short it is manipulated, enhanced, modified, changed, altered, transformed, Briotized, etc.
I also offer a 100% money back guarantee if someone buys my work and as it turns out it is not manipulated. This guarantee is posted on my Prices (http://beautiful-landscape.com/prices.html) page on my site under heading 4-Personal Style Warranty. I obviously take no risks here since all my images are transformations of reality in one way or another. However, this guarantee does make the point that the work is not about reality.
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I still have the issue of, I believe it was Camera 35, where Smith’s photos and story were presented.
What people now don’t understand, was the severe situation that he was representing. Eventually, he died from the beatings he received at the hands of the thugs hired by the company.
Nothing in any of his photos misrepresented the reality that he was presenting, and it was a terrible one. From the distance of time, it’s easy to talk about possibly ethical violations. But when looking at if from the time it happened, there was the question whether his photos were enough. Fortunately, they were, and the Japanese government stepped in. An unusual situation at the time, and the government was concealing problems caused by their industries in these days, not cleaning them up.
Smith’s work went a long way towards making the government there change its ways. He was personally responsible for that, and paid for it. There is nothing anyone can say about ethics there. Nothing at all. The problem is that it’s too abstract a situation for the author to appreciate. And having seen many of his photos firsthand, back then, I can say that the manipulation he did was common. It was used to enhance, not to alter or conceal.
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Well, I think there ought to be a conversation on the ethics of television docudramas. And geez, how 'bout them Avengers? I mean a scientist guy that turns green, gets really big and looses all his smarts is definitely an insult to scientists, right? So, "Ethical Cartooning: Why not now?" Yeah.
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Interestingly, Smith's work probably had little to do with any government actions in the Minamata case. It is a commonly held feeling that Smith's work was instrumental in the Minamata settlements, but this seems to simply be untrue.
- The first publication of any of the work is in June 1972, in Life
- The Camera 35 issues appears to be 1974
- the book on Minamata is 1975.
Relevant government actions are:
- various arbitrated agreements in the decades prior to the Smith's time in Minamata
- recognition that the disease was caused by the pollution in september 1968 (still prior to Smith's arrival)
- the verdict in favor of the litigation group, Mar 20, 1973
- subsequent bailouts of Chisso to prevent them going out of business through the next decades, after the Smiths departed
(another random note: The EPA began operations about 6 months after the Life publication, so while its launch may have been shaped or accelerated, slightly, by Smith's work, its formation is likewise not primarily "cause" by Smith's Minamata story. Prior to specifically studying the Minamata work, I would have bet cash money, and quite a lot of it, that Smith's work was very influential, but again the evidence is against it. Think back and ask yourself which President must have signed those documents, though!)
It is possible that the Life article had an impact on the verdict, but it it worth noting that the Japanese media were doing Plenty Of Work at the same time, and it's unreasonable to suppose that the Life carried any particular weight.
None of which is to discount Smith's work. The book is a masterwork of photojournalism, and as I think I made clear in my essay, it absolutely tells us important truths. It is not dishonest in any way shape or form. However, neither is it objective (Smith's own opening statement makes this explicit) and nor are the photographs un-manipulated, and nor are the photographs without ethical concerns (again, Smith's own words, he was constantly troubled as he did this work).
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Interestingly, Smith's work probably had little to do with any government actions in the Minamata case. It is a commonly held feeling that Smith's work was instrumental in the Minamata settlements, but this seems to simply be untrue.
- The first publication of any of the work is in June 1972, in Life
- The Camera 35 issues appears to be 1974
- the book on Minamata is 1975.
Relevant government actions are:
- various arbitrated agreements in the decades prior to the Smith's time in Minamata
- recognition that the disease was caused by the pollution in september 1968 (still prior to Smith's arrival)
- the verdict in favor of the litigation group, Mar 20, 1973
- subsequent bailouts of Chisso to prevent them going out of business through the next decades, after the Smiths departed
(another random note: The EPA began operations about 6 months after the Life publication, so while its launch may have been shaped or accelerated, slightly, by Smith's work, its formation is likewise not primarily "cause" by Smith's Minamata story. Prior to specifically studying the Minamata work, I would have bet cash money, and quite a lot of it, that Smith's work was very influential, but again the evidence is against it. Think back and ask yourself which President must have signed those documents, though!)
It is possible that the Life article had an impact on the verdict, but it it worth noting that the Japanese media were doing Plenty Of Work at the same time, and it's unreasonable to suppose that the Life carried any particular weight.
None of which is to discount Smith's work. The book is a masterwork of photojournalism, and as I think I made clear in my essay, it absolutely tells us important truths. It is not dishonest in any way shape or form. However, neither is it objective (Smith's own opening statement makes this explicit) and nor are the photographs un-manipulated, and nor are the photographs without ethical concerns (again, Smith's own words, he was constantly troubled as he did this work).
Yes, the Camera 35 issue came out later, but his work was know long before that, and was published widely within Japan itself, according to a friend who lived there at the time. He said that the response to it was one of shock over the country. There’s no doubt that it spurred the country to action.
The question of ethics isn’t a simply one of right or wrong. It’s a matter of degree too. I know all about the arguments of the ends not justifying the means. But there are limits to that. If people are being crippled and dying do to a major problem, and you can present that problem in such a way as to mobilize people to get it stopped, then is it unethical to manipulate images to show what really, after all, is happening? I don’t think so.
If it’s a book, and you’re doing major manipulation just to forward a feeling, then that’s a different level. Eliminating a person from an image to convey just the opposite of what the actual image represents is unethical.
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With all due respect, since we clearly agree on the essential point that the ethical concerns in these sorts of situations are complex and fluid, to what action to we imagine the country of Japan was spurred by Gene Smith's pictures?
He didn't even arrive until 1971, and as far as I can see literally the only substantial action by "the country" that occurs after that is the verdict in favor of the litigation group, which trial had been going on for 1-2 years before Smith shot his first frame, and which concludes shortly after the first pictures might have been published. The verdict is the last, and most beneficient, of a long long series of settlements and verdicts that occurred in the decades prior. While Smith's pictures may have stirred up a lot of comment and excitement, the trajectory was set before Smith arrived, it appears to me.
Smith in fact was told that the story was over, and that he shouldn't even go. It's done, it's settled, everyone knows Chisso's at fault it's just a question of sorting out the details.
The impact, I maintain, and I believe the evidence supports me, is much broader than simply the details of who got what from Chisso in Minamata. The Japanese, I maintain, and I believe the evidence supports me, did the vast majority of the heavy lifting here.
Smith's work is a keystone work in an edifice of work that, perhaps, starts with Silent Spring and continues today, work that continues to modify what is normal, that continues to teach us not to trust corporations to take care of us or to treat us fairly.
Minamata was just the starting point, and in the end it doesn't even matter in the grand scheme of things if Smith got the victims an extra $10,000 or not (although I dare say the victims would have been pleased).
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I can understand why it might be seen as an issue, but I think there's a big problem: the magazines such as Life are long gone. Even that august body had fights with its own staffers over uses (and what some saw as misuses) of their photography. And don't forget that photography, at the time, played a soft second-fiddle to the writers. Yes, seeing may have been believing, but is it today?
Today, apart from those who delight in calling out snappers or writers, few give a damn either way. Criticism is an insider game; the rest of humanity cares nothing about photography and remembers even less. Sure, there are always extreme religious groups who will find a fault with anything, but they are as much a problem as the things to which they object.
Truth is, few really give a damn about anybody else's photography, especially so if the other person isn't besotted with cameras and that game. I long ago gave up trying to show people I know the route to my website. Turns out none of them ever bothered looking it up. When I first discovered this I was a bit miffed, and then I did the simple trick of putting the shoe onto the other foot, and it made perfect sense.
There's the artificial issue of models on fashion magazines. Those zealots get their reinforced knickers into twists because the girls on the catwalk look so skinny. Sure they do, but they are on the catwalk, and Jane Public seldom sets her heavy foot there: only fashion writers, buyers and special customers usually get invited, fat or thin-footed as they may be - and everybody knows why the girls are stick models: they make clothes look more elegant. It's the business of selling: first to buyers and then to the public. It's the selling of clothes. Period.
When it comes to photographing for those magazines, they photograph as they do because they charge page rates to shops and cosmetic and fashion people who want to expose their wares to the tiny market able to buy. It's about selling brand, not any specific skirt, dress or blouse at several grand a pop. That's just the gloss to draw attention to brand. You don't make people want to pay you a fortune because you show off the girl next door (in your dreams) - you have to sell your customer the idea of being in a better, a special place if she buys into your product. That some nutter will starve herself to death because she wants to look like a stick is nobody's fault but her own, her lack of common sense. Might as well abolish birds because some other nut glides off buildings with or without a parachute. It's part of the contemporary disease: it's always somebody else's fault, whether I'm rich or poor, blonde or brunette or just plain bald, thin or fat.
Frankly, we need less interference with our lives than more. Freedom of speech is becoming ever more at risk, even as more and more verbiage gets out there onto the social networks, and the very stuff that should be taken down is protected by the zillionaires who run the game. How ironic if FBook or Twitter were to have their owners blown to shit by the very terrorists they allows to roam across their platforms! Nothing gets done about that material, nor about the porn that corrupts the young and previously sane old.
Nope, no more censorship of ordinary people; lots more of it where it matters.
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The fact that Smith appears to have been beaten for digging into the story goes against this reading of events.
With all due respect, since we clearly agree on the essential point that the ethical concerns in these sorts of situations are complex and fluid, to what action to we imagine the country of Japan was spurred by Gene Smith's pictures?
He didn't even arrive until 1971, and as far as I can see literally the only substantial action by "the country" that occurs after that is the verdict in favor of the litigation group, which trial had been going on for 1-2 years before Smith shot his first frame, and which concludes shortly after the first pictures might have been published. The verdict is the last, and most beneficient, of a long long series of settlements and verdicts that occurred in the decades prior. While Smith's pictures may have stirred up a lot of comment and excitement, the trajectory was set before Smith arrived, it appears to me.
Smith in fact was told that the story was over, and that he shouldn't even go. It's done, it's settled, everyone knows Chisso's at fault it's just a question of sorting out the details.
The impact, I maintain, and I believe the evidence supports me, is much broader than simply the details of who got what from Chisso in Minamata. The Japanese, I maintain, and I believe the evidence supports me, did the vast majority of the heavy lifting here.
Smith's work is a keystone work in an edifice of work that, perhaps, starts with Silent Spring and continues today, work that continues to modify what is normal, that continues to teach us not to trust corporations to take care of us or to treat us fairly.
Minamata was just the starting point, and in the end it doesn't even matter in the grand scheme of things if Smith got the victims an extra $10,000 or not (although I dare say the victims would have been pleased).
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The fact that Smith appears to have been beaten for digging into the story goes against this reading of events.
That is a beautiful story, but it is untrue.
Smith was photographing a protest action during which Chisso security got violent. Smith may have been singled out for extra violence in the
moment as, perhaps, the gaijin with the camera, but there's no evidence of anything deeper. He was severely injured, but there's no evidence that
Chisso was trying to stop him from uncovering the story.
Smith's pictures consistently show us other photographers, often lots of them. Smith's words tell us about the ongoing media circus in the town of Minamata. He describes parades of journalists, literally a line of them traipsing through town, visiting the usual people, the usual places, every time anything remotely newsworthy occurs.
The myth of Eugene Smith as the lone reporter, digging up truths uncomfortable to the faceless corporation, simple isn't true. The truth was known before Smith arrived. The critical testimony proving Chisso's deliberate cover-up had been given before the Smiths arrived. Uncovering the facts of the case is simply not what Smith was about.
And, just do everyone knows, I've actually done the work here. I am not Jim Hughes, nor am I a Minamata expert, but I have actually read Smith's book and have looked up and read related materials. I dislike being in the role of squashing everyone's half-remembered impressions about myths surrounding events of nearly fifty years ago, and it's not relevant to the essay I wrote in the first place. But if you're going to argue with me, I suppose I will do my best to correct misconceptions.
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Come to think of it, messing about with content and editorial distortions and misrepresentations was one other reason for the creation of Magnum; it wasn't just about retention of copyright. There's little new under the Sun.
Rob
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Come to think of it, messing about with content and editorial distortions and misrepresentations was one other reason for the creation of Magnum; it wasn't just about retention of copyright. There's little new under the Sun.
Rob
Totally accurate. And Cartier Bresson (who founded Magnum) saw himself (and the work he is known for) as a journalist, not an artist, even though he was trained as and he painted and drew his whole life.
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Totally accurate. And Cartier Bresson (who founded Magnum) saw himself (and the work he is known for) as a journalist, not an artist, even though he was trained as and he painted and drew his whole life.
I think that's backwards. Bresson considered himself an artist and did not fancy taking pictures only for documenting though his work was obviously used as journalism.* As for Eugene Smith, hell, everybody knows he dramatized not only his Minimata work but his early photography as well.** So what? The thing is, while journalism has loftily considered facts above opinion, journalism is always imbued with opinion. Even those sacred cows of the enlightened, NPR and APM will subtly align with a side. Listen carefully. And of course there's all the major media which has splintered along political lines. Read all about the WSJ and the editor's attempt to stifle in-house criticism of Donald.
Ethics? Are we so juvenile that we must now use a Disney version of the First Amendment? That dear friends is not ethics, it is censorship, at least to adults. As for Souvid Datta, what he did was plagiarism, a bit beyond opining. So please, let's get on, grow up and leave the ethically correct Hallmark likes of "The Family of Man" in the rear view mirror.
*http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/arts/04CND-CARTIER.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5090&en=11443904bc0a721f&ex=1249358400&partner=rssuserland
**In fairness to Smith, during his professional career publications like Life, Look and National Geographic preferred melodramatic work.
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Omer, I realize that your presence on LuLa's forums is now entirely devoted to attacking my front page pieces, so replying to you is likely fruitless. Still, allow me to quote from the first paragraph of my recent piece:
"We’re seeing a lot of commentaries triggered by the Souvid Datta episode, where he is accused of both photographing unethically, and of passing off collaged and plagiarized material as his own."
There are two issues with Datta, one is plagiarism, and the other is working in an unethical fashion. I am frankly uninterested in the first.
While it's clear that you disagree with my piece, and with everything else I write, simply saying "No, ethics is easy you are wrong" isn't really a reply, it's just an opinion.
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It is perhaps worth re-iterating a point that is not sufficiently clear in my front-page piece.
This isn't trivial stuff, shooting in an ethical way is complex and difficult. This isn't just my opinion, most of the people I cite in my remarks (Stryker, Berman, Smith, even Datta) have written at some length about how hard it is. People who have not been there making these choices moment by moment, and a few people who have, tend to talk about how it's easy, you basically "just don't do the bad things, duh" but those people are, objectively, measurably, wrong.
To be honest, I'll take Smith's opinion (there are at least two passages in his Minamata book where he explicitly wrestles with the ethical issues, just for starters) over, well, most anyone else's, and certainly over general remarks by People On The Internet.
My essay is specifically and entirely about better equipping photographers to cope with the inherent ethical difficulties that crop up as they go about their work.
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I think that's backwards. Bresson considered himself an artist and did not fancy taking pictures only for documenting though his work was obviously used as journalism.* As for Eugene Smith, hell, everybody knows he dramatized not only his Minimata work but his early photography as well.** So what? The thing is, while journalism has loftily considered facts above opinion, journalism is always imbued with opinion. Even those sacred cows of the enlightened, NPR and APM will subtly align with a side. Listen carefully. And of course there's all the major media which has splintered along political lines. Read all about the WSJ and the editor's attempt to stifle in-house criticism of Donald.
Ethics? Are we so juvenile that we must now use a Disney version of the First Amendment? That dear friends is not ethics, it is censorship, at least to adults. As for Souvid Datta, what he did was plagiarism, a bit beyond opining. So please, let's get on, grow up and leave the ethically correct Hallmark likes of "The Family of Man" in the rear view mirror.
*http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/arts/04CND-CARTIER.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5090&en=11443904bc0a721f&ex=1249358400&partner=rssuserland
**In fairness to Smith, during his professional career publications like Life, Look and National Geographic preferred melodramatic work.
You really should watch some of his video interviews, those where he speaks, not those easy ones about him; you'd either change your mind or tell the memory of HC-B that he's a liar.
He gave up photography in the end, and settled back down with his first loves: painting and drawing. Photography was of interest to him primarily because it allowed him a route into publishing his left-leaning views via the magazines that carried those opinions. You mustn't forget that he came from anything but impoverished roots; this sort of paradox is quite often to be seen, though it usually reverts back to a more adult view on liberté, égalité and fraternité as age and reality become more dominant.
He didn't just work in Paris - he went all over this globe of ours. He could afford to do that. But should you look a little more carefully at his oeuvre, you'll see that everything had the same slant: we, as photograhers, especially the more free that we are, do what we do in the way that we do it because that's what we do. It isn't any great mystery. We fulfil our programmed rôle. Like robots created to think themselves "artists", we do what our wiring tells us to do. That's why I can't understand how people can believe that they can pay somebody who'll then go on to show them how to be artists. All anyone can show them is tool-using. Anything deeper has to be their own, and if it is there, why pay for it? Ah, of coure, to "bring it out..."
Rob
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It is perhaps worth re-iterating a point that is not sufficiently clear in my front-page piece.
This isn't trivial stuff, shooting in an ethical way is complex and difficult. This isn't just my opinion, most of the people I cite in my remarks (Stryker, Berman, Smith, even Datta) have written at some length about how hard it is. People who have not been there making these choices moment by moment, and a few people who have, tend to talk about how it's easy, you basically "just don't do the bad things, duh" but those people are, objectively, measurably, wrong.
To be honest, I'll take Smith's opinion (there are at least two passages in his Minamata book where he explicitly wrestles with the ethical issues, just for starters) over, well, most anyone else's, and certainly over general remarks by People On The Internet.
My essay is specifically and entirely about better equipping photographers to cope with the inherent ethical difficulties that crop up as they go about their work.
Well, I have never been a photojournalist but my photographic life has had its fair share of moral decisions that had to be made on the fly. Take fashion, for one: lot's of pictures from the 70s onwards, at least, feature open shirts with acres of tit on display. There are markets for that but insofar as my fashion life went, they were not what my clients wanted from me. Moral decisions? Of course; the girls never knew what I was supposed to do other than make snaps of whatever they wore, and it was up to me to show or not to show. I chose never to do so because I felt it was exploiting the girls, and such images would have been for my own gratification, had I made them without client request.
When it came to calendars, I was perfectly happy to photograph some of the best boobs in London, and though it would have been easy to go medical, again, I didn't want to do that.
So on the fly decisions are easy to make; they are part of your own character, and the call you make your nature coming through.
I don't know much about you, but I suspect you have not personally experienced these photographic situations and are writing from theory.
Rob
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I do own a camera, and I do take photographs with it from time to time. I am, therefore, confronted from time to time with the same ethical problems. I am not photographing the catastrophe in Yemen or anything of that sort, and I do not publish on a global or even national stage so the impacts of my decisions are, for the most part, minuscule.
In addition, yep, I have a fairly firm grasp of the theory.
Make of that what you will.
ETA: But if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Given the frequency with which, just as a single facet of the issue, we see scandals in photojournalistic contests, awards, and so on, we are left to conclude that either (or both):
- the world of photojournalism is populated largely with sociopaths
- this is actually pretty hard
The first is actually the tack taken all too often. Souvid Datta is just a bad seed, he's just evil. So is Steve McCurry. So is Hossein Fatemi. And Giovanni Troilo. And Paul Hansen. And. And. Golly, this list is getting pretty long. But, since it's "easy" and it's just your character coming through, the only explanation is that these guys are all just Bad People.
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I do own a camera, and I do take photographs with it from time to time. I am, therefore, confronted from time to time with the same ethical problems. I am not photographing the catastrophe in Yemen or anything of that sort, and I do not publish on a global or even national stage so the impacts of my decisions are, for the most part, minuscule.
In addition, yep, I have a fairly firm grasp of the theory.
Make of that what you will.
ETA: But if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Given the frequency with which, just as a single facet of the issue, we see scandals in photojournalistic contests, awards, and so on, we are left to conclude that either (or both):
- the world of photojournalism is populated largely with sociopaths
- this is actually pretty hard
The first is actually the tack taken all too often. Souvid Datta is just a bad seed, he's just evil. So is Steve McCurry. So is Hossein Fatemi. And Giovanni Troilo. And Paul Hansen. And. And. Golly, this list is getting pretty long. But, since it's "easy" and it's just your character coming through, the only explanation is that these guys are all just Bad People.
Well, I wouldn't malign anybody not a politician that easily, even obliquely, and especially not in public. I'd also draw a distinction between photojournalists whom I believe to be a dying breed, and the paparazzo pack which certainly appears to be a growing one. That the latter may be true is more a reflection of the market, of the people who buy the magazines that indulge in pix of starlets sans pants climbing clumsily out of low vehicles. That those climbers exists is no surprise: money corrupts, as does the quest for it, and when your looks are your only value, you gotta work fast before you lose 'em. So you see, the old Hollywood star system wasn't so bad after all: fresh meat counted, but you'd have been slung out on your ear for getting that sort of news coverage, not that Photoplay would have used it, but others would. I can imagine Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons and Walter Winchell all having a synchronised seizure had they had to print such stuff. Of course shit went down, but in private, to surface years and years later in biographies.
Anyway, it's bad policy to take a few rotten apples and characterise an entire family of fruit as spoiled.
Of course, if you want to venture into the world of "art" photography, then you may have a point of sorts; I have no love for sacrilege in a tank of urine, whether or not I believe in a specific religion. Sexual perversions are not my bag either, and depictions of same neither. So really, I have quite an easy time of it in these matters: if it's beautiful, then I shall probably enjoy looking at it, and at the very least, won't feel offended. So yeah, it probably is just "your character coming through".
But if we are to play a version of the blame game, I'd level my shotgun at the Photoshop-mad PR people that have created the situation where actors/actresses are dehumanised and turned to wax. Who remembers any of those cover shots after ten minutes? Who, who has seen them, will ever forget the many (Magnum) Marilyn shots on the set of The Misfits, or in Avedon's studio at the end of a session when the psychological armour of the acting veil fell down, and she was revealed open, vulnerable and just a woman in distress in a world that was eating her alive?
Some pictures can be tough, cruel even, but they can show beauty at the same time.
Rob
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But Rob, it's not just a few bad apples. It's a huge percentage of the population that has difficulty. Google "world press photo scandal" and jump back in amazement, it turns out that "World Press Photo" is synonymous with scandal, with prize-winners being turfed out constantly, with finalists being disqualified in huge swathes literally every year, and so on. Similar problems exist in other areas, everything from unsavory accusations in fashion work to professional baby photographers accused of using unsafe practices.
When experts in the field say they have trouble with it sometimes, and when loads of others from amateurs to experts seem to demonstrably have trouble doing it, isn't that pretty much the definition of "it's hard"? (this is true regardless of what "it" is)
And if it's hard, does it not behoove us (if we deem it important), to make some effort to help people be better at it?
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Omer, I realize that your presence on LuLa's forums is now entirely devoted to attacking my front page pieces, so replying to you is likely fruitless. Still, allow me to quote from the first paragraph of my recent piece:
"We’re seeing a lot of commentaries triggered by the Souvid Datta episode, where he is accused of both photographing unethically, and of passing off collaged and plagiarized material as his own."
There are two issues with Datta, one is plagiarism, and the other is working in an unethical fashion. I am frankly uninterested in the first.
While it's clear that you disagree with my piece, and with everything else I write, simply saying "No, ethics is easy you are wrong" isn't really a reply, it's just an opinion.
Andrew, you flatter yourself. Secondly, I'm not attacking, just correcting, though obviously we disagree on what "correcting" means. However, since you've appointed yourself as the lance in what I can only describe as a fatuous and quixotic crusade to purge the photography community of "evil" (your word,) or at least to unmask that evil which you believe is skulking deep in the bowels of the photography universe, I guess addressing you directly seems appropriate.
"Evil" is a serious word that should be reserved for the likes of the Iraqi commanders who ordered the gas attack on village of Halabja. Using it to describe greediness within a photography contest is ridiculous. Your hyperbole only serves to point out your juvenile and misguided effort. If you want to do something worthwhile, surely there must be something more important than pointing out, again, Steve McCurry's missteps.
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Well, Omer, anyone can look at your posting history here and draw their own conclusions.
Given that you've completely misread, as far as I can tell, my usage of the word "evil" in this thread, I find it difficult to take your attempts to correct me very seriously. I am specifically arguing against characterizations like "evil" for people like Souvid Datta and Steve McCurry. Perhaps you mean my usage of the word somewhere else at another time, I suppose, which would not be the first time you have made such vague allusions.
I feel no need to get into a pissing match with you, let these remarks stand as my last words on the subject. I shan't be replying to any further remarks you may choose to make, but of course, you should feel free to carry on.
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Well, Omer, anyone can look at your posting history here and draw their own conclusions.
Given that you've completely misread, as far as I can tell, my usage of the word "evil" in this thread, I find it difficult to take your attempts to correct me very seriously. I am specifically arguing against characterizations like "evil" for people like Souvid Datta and Steve McCurry. Perhaps you mean my usage of the word somewhere else at another time, I suppose, which would not be the first time you have made such vague allusions.
I feel no need to get into a pissing match with you, let these remarks stand as my last words on the subject. I shan't be replying to any further remarks you may choose to make, but of course, you should feel free to carry on.
Yes, I did misread the “evil” reference. I apologize for that.
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Ladies and Gentlemen...
This whole issue/situation hardly limits itself to photography. The 2016 Oxford Dictionary "word of the year" is "post-truth."
Postmodern philosophy, and post-postmodern philosophy reduces societal life to competing meta narratives, none of which are "true" but merely utilitarian struggles for power and dominance.
Basically, "my story can beat up your story." And with the loss of consensus on morals, leaving everything both relative and an exercise in personal preference, I hope no one is holding their breath waiting for a resurgence of honor and ethics in any public pursuit.
Rand
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Ladies and Gentlemen...
This whole issue/situation hardly limits itself to photography. The 2016 Oxford Dictionary "word of the year" is "post-truth."
Postmodern philosophy, and post-postmodern philosophy reduces societal life to competing meta narratives, none of which are "true" but merely utilitarian struggles for power and dominance.
Basically, "my story can beat up your story." And with the loss of consensus on morals, leaving everything both relative and an exercise in personal preference, I hope no one is holding their breath waiting for a resurgence of honor and ethics in any public pursuit.
Rand
Competing narratives and diverging reality make creating an exercise in expected criticism which in turn reduces criticism's impact, at least for me.
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Andrew,
Thank you for taking the time on what I think is a well-though and well-written article.
I don't understand this statement:
"The photographer on the ground is being asked, essentially, to make ferociously complicated choices that do not have clear answers, on the fly."
While it applies to the act of taking the photo, I don't see how it applies to publishing the photo. I bet we all have photos in our boxes of slides that, in our own judgement, should not be shared to the public for ethical reasons. We took the photo "on the fly" but sometime later realized it should not be shared. It seems to me there is plenty of time to evaluate ethical issues prior to publishing.
Or are you saying the act of taking what is viewed as an "unethical" photo is itself unethical, regardless of whether the photographer chooses to publish?
As for doctoring an ethical photo into an unethical photo, I would argue the same: that is not done "on the fly," at least in your examples.
Dave
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Ladies and Gentlemen...
This whole issue/situation hardly limits itself to photography. The 2016 Oxford Dictionary "word of the year" is "post-truth."
Postmodern philosophy, and post-postmodern philosophy reduces societal life to competing meta narratives, none of which are "true" but merely utilitarian struggles for power and dominance.
Basically, "my story can beat up your story." And with the loss of consensus on morals, leaving everything both relative and an exercise in personal preference, I hope no one is holding their breath waiting for a resurgence of honor and ethics in any public pursuit.
Rand
Remember the phrase "I know it when I see it?" Ethics and morals have long been a gray area, but for the most part have been kept within the "envelope" for the allowance of communal civility, either by religion, opportunism or basic survival. Undoubtedly it is more complicated but persecution, in whatever flavor you choose, stems from fear of the unknown. I'm not a nihilist or anarchist, but I well understand that what Americans have long believed were morals and ethics benefited white anglo-saxon protestant men almost exclusively. Me included. The apprehension in regards towards the seeming break up of order in photography is nostalgic hand wringing. What does trouble me is the call to order that has actually reached the ACLU, meaning a new, narrower (or wider, depending on the slant,) interpretation of the First Amendment is beginning to take shape.
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Good questions, Dave!
There is definitely a school of thought that says certain photographs should not even be shot, and the logic is generally that the situation being documented is so deplorable that the photographer should put down the camera and intervene. I'm not sure where I stand on that issue, personally.
Regardless of that, it still partakes of the same problems "fixing it in post" always does, you could have been shooting something else, you could have taken a better picture instead of that one, and there's always the possibility of error, permitting the "unfixed" portfolio to escape too far.
Either way, though, some better grounding in ethics helps, both in the shooting and in the (submitting for) publication.
Just so we're further clear: I don't mean a grounding in ethics in the sense of taking several semesters of Philosophy. I'm imagining more of a corporate ethics training slide deck, which basically looks like:
Sue is shooting a soap box derby event when a firetruck crashes through the crowd, crushing a small child
Does Sue 1) photograph the dead child 2) photograph the truck 3) drop her camera to assist?
with ensuing discussion of the various options. Repeat for another dozen scenarios, with intervening relevant instruction text. The idea is not to Teach People Ethics, really, but to get them thinking about ethics, and to familiarize them with what accepted standards are for situations they might find themselves in.
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Competing narratives and diverging reality make creating an exercise in expected criticism which in turn reduces criticism's impact, at least for me.
Sure thing. When nothing is objectively (or even by consensus) good or bad, art or junk, one can live in any world of one's own choosing and think little of anyone else's "truth." Fortunately, most people can't live consistently in post-modern nonsense (even if they hold it philosophically), and they will recognize something intrinsically good (like your work, for instance) and appreciate it.
Rand
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But you are still, basically, depending on moral standards and standings.
My instinct says don't shoot the questionable image. Why would you, unless for the hope of making money out of something a bit heavy for normal consumption? The call on what the snapper thinks normal is his own to make, not that of any group or collective conditioning. He is already collectively conditioned to one degree or another; applying a prescribed set of trade moral concepts is even worse and ultimately more confusing for anyone.
You can't honestly submit stuff you are secretly ashamed of having shot, yet allow the final publishing decision rest with someone else. That's responsibilty-dodging in a most depressing manner, cowardice, even.
If instinct tells you there's a big question mark hanging over your actions, don't take 'em. If instinct tells you nothing, this thread will mean zero to you, so it's academic.
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Remember the phrase "I know it when I see it?" Ethics and morals have long been a gray area, but for the most part have been kept within the "envelope" for the allowance of communal civility, either by religion, opportunism or basic survival. Undoubtedly it is more complicated but persecution, in whatever flavor you choose, stems from fear of the unknown. I'm not a nihilist or anarchist, but I well understand that what Americans have long believed were morals and ethics benefited white anglo-saxon protestant men almost exclusively. Me included. The apprehension in regards towards the seeming break up of order in photography is nostalgic hand wringing. What does trouble me is the call to order that has actually reached the ACLU, meaning a new, narrower (or wider, depending on the slant,) interpretation of the First Amendment is beginning to take shape.
Yup... pretty much. The interesting thing about the American experiment is that while what you say above is largely true, it isn't "all of the truth." There was/is enough aspirational language in the founding documents and thinking of those white males, "all men are created equal and endowed by their creator" - that kind of language - which became a springboard for broadening what may well have been a more narrow sense of it into something more, and more inclusive and more just. But, as you rightly say, we're breaking new ground as we suffer from the loss of any consensus, or even the notion that there might be such a thing as consensus based in appeal to any sort of transcendent values.
If my understanding of history is any indication, we're in for some "interesting times," and headed toward one sort of totalitarianism or another. The particular flavor won't matter much, I don't think. Any of the flavors available are toxic to liberty. I think there will, perhaps, be a "middle phase" where western affluence and military might will provide a buffer from the real world outside the west for a while. But even that seems to be fading more quickly than I would have anticipated twenty or so years ago.
Rand
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Sure thing. When nothing is objectively (or even by consensus) good or bad, art or junk, one can live in any world of one's own choosing and think little of anyone else's "truth." Fortunately, most people can't live consistently in post-modern nonsense (even if they hold it philosophically), and they will recognize something intrinsically good (like your work, for instance) and appreciate it.
Rand
Thank you Rand. Postmodernism has both positive and negative aspects. It is certainly a challenging world to live in, although its fun aspect encourages one to pursue.
For me, and in regards to this discussion, a seminal moment was Roland Barthes' statement that 'today's society practices divided disources and makes use of different languages that do not coordinate well.' (La société actuelle pratique des discours divisés, utilise des langages très different qui ne communiquent pas bien.), in an audio interview by Jacques Chancel --Radioscopie-- in 1975 I believe.
The presence of these divided discourses means that one cannot be accountable to all of them. While some are relevant to our work, others are not. Deciding which ones are and are not is up to us. Paying attention to who is talking (or writing, photographing, etc.) is therefore primordial. It certainly reduces the relative importance of criticism. What matters is criticism relevant to our discourse, not criticism per se. A lot can be answered with a smile because it is simply irrelevant.
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Sue is shooting a soap box derby event when a firetruck crashes through the crowd, crushing a small child
Does Sue 1) photograph the dead child 2) photograph the truck 3) drop her camera to assist?
If Sue works for someone and that someone (be it a person or entity) has provided guidelines, Sue should follow those guidelines if applicable.
If the guidelines are not applicable or if Sue is working (or not working, as the case may be for an amateur) for herself, then "any of the above" are reasonable and acceptable depending upon which ethical lens you decide to view the situation. If Sue wants to be ethical in the case of making her own choice, she should try to maintain consistency with previous ethical decisions in terms of the appropriate lens, but it's also possible that she might view the situation as substantially different to anything she's encountered before and therefore requires a different view (or the incident and the choices themselves cause a change in view/lens for Sue).
Of course, she could so all 3 or a combination of any 2, just doing each to a lesser degree than if done exclusively.
There's a scene in the movie We Were Soldiers in which a journalist is declining a weapon being offered by the veteran sergeant who has issue a general order to "defend yourselves" as the company faces being overrun - he says he's a "non combatant" and the sergeant's response is something like "no such thing today".
Very few people actually effectively believe in an absolute morality or a permanently consistent ethical lens. We adapt to circumstance, driven by all sorts of things from imagine to ego to survival and others. The best you can really hope for is to be comfortable with your decisions after you make them, understanding all the factors that drive them (and so not beating yourself up too much).
As you say, it's about trying to teach people that there are choices and that dilemmas exist and sometimes you need to follow guidance and other times it's up to you - and that all choices have consequences, intended or otherwise.
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"Sue is shooting a soap box derby event when a firetruck crashes through the crowd, crushing a small child
Does Sue 1) photograph the dead child 2) photograph the truck 3) drop her camera to assist?"
Hypotheticals mean little. I'll give you an example: there's an annual event here where the folks go to the Formentor peninsula, chop down the straightest, tallest pine they can spot, get it into the sea and then tow it across the bay to the Port of Pollensa. The intention is to erect it in the square, shaved, and have people attempt to reach the top. One year, my wife and I were watching the trunk being taken from the beach, through a gap in the low wall separating beach from the pedestrianised walk area (disaster, but that's something else). There was the usual crush of watching crowd, kids at the front, excited parents behind them.
As the log itself was about to be dragged through the gap, the rope attached to it and being tugged by the team on the walkway, was running across the vertical edge of the low wall and at an angle of about sixty degrees. As the team stopped pulling, the rope went slack, and a child put its body up against that edge to get a better view, just as the rope was being taken up and tightened again. I stood there, frozen, watching a disaster about to unfold, a child crushed to death between a wall and a heavy rope. Fortunately, others were more reactive and screamed at the haulers to stop, and the kid was safe. That they could make their warning cries heard above the din of cheering was a minor miracle of its own.
Moral: if your Sue had my reactions, she'd do none of your suggested alternatives. There lies the folly of unreal situation planning. I'd always thought myself pretty quick to react to things. I was wrong.
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The point of the exercise, Rob, is not to debate the physical prowess or capability of Sue (we could just as well debate whether she had the technical capacity to take a reasonable photograph). The exercise is an intellectual one designed to demonstrate multiple options when most people will say there is only one based on their own, current, ethical lens (even if they don't realise they have one).
Hypotheticals are how you learn there's more to something than at first meets your eye. You can't literally put people into such dilemmas for them to experience, so you lead them through these mental exercises instead.
Yes, Sue might freeze and do nothing, but in so doing she's not required to make a decision, to apply an ethical lens, or to test her own moral understanding and beliefs and so there's no point. The question isn't whether or not someone is capable of making a choice in a given scenario - it's that, assuming they can, do they understand the options, implications, and broader context of a dilemma?
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The point of the exercise, Rob, is not to debate the physical prowess or capability of Sue (we could just as well debate whether she had the technical capacity to take a reasonable photograph). The exercise is an intellectual one designed to demonstrate multiple options when most people will say there is only one based on their own, current, ethical lens (even if they don't realise they have one).
Hypotheticals are how you learn there's more to something than at first meets your eye. You can't literally put people into such dilemmas for them to experience, so you lead them through these mental exercises instead.
Yes, Sue might freeze and do nothing, but in so doing she's not required to make a decision, to apply an ethical lens, or to test her own moral understanding and beliefs and so there's no point. The question isn't whether or not someone is capable of making a choice in a given scenario - it's that, assuming they can, do they understand the options, implications, and broader context of a dilemma?
Clearly so, but it doesn't remove the huge flaw present in such debates that slide ever more into the realms of the absurd when folks seek to put ideas forward while endowing them with more worth than they ever really have, if only, and when, these notions lack any clear way of coming to definitive conclusions, one way or the other.
If you go back to the original proposition, you see that it's always going to remain within the remit of unpredictable human reaction and morality, both imponderables with no chance of allowing a clear resolution or conclusion beyond the individual's choice at that moment, which may or may not be the same on another day. In other words, it's just a little bit of entertainment with which to pass the time when there's nothing else to do. But taken so seriously...
Anyway, whether or not people understand the implications within a moment of critical decision is no guarantee of a good choice. As the old Scots saying goes: a standing cock has no conscience.
So much for hoping that carefully considered logic will save anyone from moments of risk!
Understanding the idea behind a topic is not to imply that it automatically brings with it some chance of arriving at a broader, ethical resolution to the general conduct of people within the publishing industries, which I think is what we may be on about here. Hollywood had to contend with the Hayes (?) Office, and Playboy was constantly taken to task by several Leagues of Decency and hell knows what other, self-appointed and broadly too powerful pressure groups whose actions affected many people not of the same spiritual persuasions. Just like today's problems, then, but perhaps without beheadings.
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My example with Sue was twice over hypothetical, being a hypothetical example of the sort of hypothetical case one finds in training materials, and should not be taken seriously since I threw it together in 10 seconds to illustrate the general flavor of the thing.
Ethics training, as far as this goes, is a solved problem. It does not make people into philosophers, or saints. In the case of the training I received at HP annually, mainly what it did was remind me that bribes can sometimes be a bit subtle, and what kinds of things the company considered to be sexual harassment.
None of it was rocket science, it was all, in a way, obvious. But the point is to remind us of those obvious things that, in the moment, we might lose track of.
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My example with Sue was twice over hypothetical, being a hypothetical example of the sort of hypothetical case one finds in training materials, and should not be taken seriously since I threw it together in 10 seconds to illustrate the general flavor of the thing.
Ethics training, as far as this goes, is a solved problem. It does not make people into philosophers, or saints. In the case of the training I received at HP annually, mainly what it did was remind me that bribes can sometimes be a bit subtle, and what kinds of things the company considered to be sexual harassment.
None of it was rocket science, it was all, in a way, obvious. But the point is to remind us of those obvious things that, in the moment, we might lose track of.
;-)
Rob
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In short, Rob, whilst broader and deeper understanding of subjects does not guarantee a better result, it does tend to help.
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In short, Rob, whilst broader and deeper understanding of subjects does not guarantee a better result, it does tend to help.
This afternoon I have to return to the hospital for a further eye examination. I was also hit by another dose of sciatica three days ago, and will have to hobble from the car to the eye-department walking at a body angle of perhaps seventy-five painful degrees.
I have had this quite often - since my twenties, in fact - and have also suffered from eye problems for at least about five years.
I have a fairly deep understanding of both conditions, and I can assure you, it doesn't help, not one friggin' jot!
But then again, those ain't hypothetical. Hypos are like art: they may or they may not be.
;-)
Rob
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Andrew, thank you for the excellent article.
I'll just come to the straw-man proposal. I've experienced two forms of this sort of ethics training.
The first was when working in a mathematics department, and it was regarding sexual harassment of students. One of my colleagues asked a particularly curly question: suppose a student broke into his office trying to steal an exam paper, and opening the lecturer's brief-case, encountered nude photos of his wife (taken with consent, implicitly). The thief is offended, and complains of harassment.
According to the instructor, s/he would have a case. The purpose of the course was simply legal, in order that the university could absolve itself of any responsibility by being able to say "we provided training by a recognised authority."
The second was by correspondence with the US NIH: this is a condition for obtaining grant funding. It is also essentially legal, but it involves demonstrating an understanding of the various rules and principles of ethical research (which sadly do not exclude data dredging, but that's off-topic).
So the first was useless because it gave no idea how to act, only that pretty much any action was potentially wrong. The second was much better, since even if the rules were somewhat arbitrary, it was clear what could and couldn't be done. Rather as one should not confuse what is just and what is legal, it avoided getting into arguments about what the researcher could justify as ethical in his/her own moral universe.
The question then is how does an ethical certification avoid the first situation, in the absence of clear principles that are essential to the second? Simply telling people that it's complex and they should be aware of the situation does seem to me very helpful... do we really believe that McCurry just hadn't realised he was creating a fantasy version of India?
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This afternoon I have to return to the hospital for a further eye examination. I was also hit by another dose of sciatica three days ago, and will have to hobble from the car to the eye-department walking at a body angle of perhaps seventy-five painful degrees.
I have had this quite often - since my twenties, in fact - and have also suffered from eye problems for at least about five years.
I have a fairly deep understanding of both conditions, and I can assure you, it doesn't help, not one friggin' jot!
But then again, those ain't hypothetical. Hypos are like art: they may or they may not be.
;-)
Rob
Meh, that's less than ideal :( Hope you get some improvement. Staying vaguely on topic - I bet experience and understand does help, though, because you know what it is and how to deal with it. Otherwise unexplained pain can be, quite a pain...
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Documentary photography has been around since the dawn of the technology (and let's also not forget 'documentary painting'). The issue of what and how to photograph it are pretty much the sole province of the photographer though he/she may have received directions from the sponsor (e.g., newspaper or magazine). The other side of the equation that I've not seen touched on is the role of the sponsor who selects an image(s) from what the photographer has captured for publication. These are not the 'self-published' types as the Smith Minimata series. Some of what gets published in indelible in our minds as with the well known pictures from the Vietnam war but a lot is just forgotten.
What are we to make of Edward Curtis's pictures of American Indians? Are these ethical? What about Diane Arbus's disturbing images (which I think are largely documentary)? While I am sympathetic to what was proposed in the article, I don't think it will work particularly in these days of the Internet where it is so easy to "publish."
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Meh, that's less than ideal :( Hope you get some improvement. Staying vaguely on topic - I bet experience and understand does help, though, because you know what it is and how to deal with it. Otherwise unexplained pain can be, quite a pain...
Now there I won't contradict. But it isn't my morals I'd have to question just the oh! so weak flesh! Morals are far more complicated beasts, and often vary according to what I consider to be situation ethics.
An example might be (clearly hypothetical):
1. you're shooting a model somewhere quiet, and during a chance moment of close proximity you have the opportunity "accidently" to touch in some region that you should not be touching, in circumstances where it would not be clear whether you had chanced your arm or not. Do you do it or refrain?
2. You are at a party and the booze or whatever they use these days is flowing - or better yet, has flowed - freely, and the same person is close to you again, as high as you might be, and you are faced with the same dilemma: to touch or not.
Now, in either case, if you opt to touch, is there a moral difference beyond a possible breach of "professional etiquette" in instance 1, and taking advantage of the effects of stimulants, assuming that olde playing fielde is level in instance 2, because you are both a bit the worse for wear?
In the second case, if you were cold sober then I'd look upon it as a bit of opportunism provided by both the ambience and the self-inflicted state of the other person, so would the touch be worthy of prosecution or simply be a case of 'what the hell did anyone expect at such a gathering?' and thus it's all right?
Rob
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. . .
The presence of these divided discourses means that one cannot be accountable to all of them. While some are relevant to our work, others are not. Deciding which ones are and are not is up to us. Paying attention to who is talking (or writing, photographing, etc.) is therefore primordial. It certainly reduces the relative importance of criticism. What matters is criticism relevant to our discourse, not criticism per se. A lot can be answered with a smile because it is simply irrelevant.
Well said! While I think that the "world" is going to hell in a hand-basket philosophically and in social reality - those of us in artistic pursuits can legitimately have our own compass (which I would argue appeals to the transcendent whether we even recognize that or not) to guide our efforts - and which make them immune to irrelevant criticism and allow the "smile." Or, even to consider the criticism on its merits based on our own compass and not one being foisted from some "other" perspective.
Rand
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Well said! While I think that the "world" is going to hell in a hand-basket philosophically and in social reality - those of us in artistic pursuits can legitimately have our own compass (which I would argue appeals to the transcendent whether we even recognize that or not) to guide our efforts - and which make them immune to irrelevant criticism and allow the "smile." Or, even to consider the criticism on its merits based on our own compass and not one being foisted from some "other" perspective.
Rand
That would seem to depend on whether your artwork is intended for sale or simply as self-indulgence. If the former, then I think your compass has to point to where there's a non-hostile population, for otherwise, you are sailing onto a reef that'll rip the bottom out of your ship, and if you avoid that, you'll still end up in the cooking pot.
Perspectives - as in not soley one's own - do have a merit, but if the work to which they may be applied is simply for yourself, then I agree with you: dance to any old (or new) drum that turns you on.
Rob
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so would the touch be worthy of prosecution or simply be a case of 'what the hell did anyone expect at such a gathering?' and thus it's all right?
Would you force someone to drink a coffee or cup of tea just because they're in a café or would you ask or offer or wait for them to ask? Why do we ever think it's different when it comes to touching other people?
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Well said! While I think that the "world" is going to hell in a hand-basket philosophically and in social reality - those of us in artistic pursuits can legitimately have our own compass (which I would argue appeals to the transcendent whether we even recognize that or not) to guide our efforts - and which make them immune to irrelevant criticism and allow the "smile." Or, even to consider the criticism on its merits based on our own compass and not one being foisted from some "other" perspective.
Rand
Thank you Rand. My approach has been shaped originally by selling my work and later by being active on social media. In both instances criticism comes from any direction, informed or not, and one has to filter it or else decide that one's life wil be dedicated to trying to explain your work to people whose minds are made up and don't want to be bothered by the facts.
Interestingly this is the case whether the work is offensive or not. Selling at the Grand Canyon and talking to millions of people over the years (the South Rim gets 5 million visitors a year) has taught me that even something as non-offensive as landscapes can generate extreme criticism. Art is a polarized activity and this polarization comes out no matter what the subject is. While the majority of people have the proper attitude some will come at you with a variety of 'excited motivations' to which the best response is to smile.
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That would seem to depend on whether your artwork is intended for sale or simply as self-indulgence. If the former, then I think your compass has to point to where there's a non-hostile population, for otherwise, you are sailing onto a reef that'll rip the bottom out of your ship, and if you avoid that, you'll still end up in the cooking pot.
Perspectives - as in not soley one's own - do have a merit, but if the work to which they may be applied is simply for yourself, then I agree with you: dance to any old (or new) drum that turns you on.
Rob
Rob,
Given your career and perspective re "photography for client," I don't disagree with you at all. Well said. My orientation is to photography as personal expression.
In Alain's case, people appreciate his work and purchase it, which is like frosting on the cake. In my case, it is strictly for my own love of doing it. Even my printing business is based on my love of the effort/process in making fine prints that express that the photographer wants. There's certainly no real money in it. LOL But, I'm able to do it "on my own terms."
Rand
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I am not sure if I am fully able to agree with you Andrew, even though I always enjoy reading whatever you write, as it is always thought provoking and well presented, but...
The problem as I see it, is that reality and any questions of morality associated with the truthfulness or otherwise of its representation, or even whether a particular subject should be photographed at all, is always only going to be limited by what we as individuals find acceptable or not. I don't think we can draw an agreed line of acceptability or apply a moral limitation on anything, other than what we as a society agree to have enforced on our behalf by the blunt and inflexible instrument of the law.
I also think what Alain is saying is more akin to what the majority of photographers think, that the world should not judge our work by how truthfully it represents reality, but rather by how much they enjoy looking at our artistic view of reality based on the inspiration it gives us.
Dave
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Would you force someone to drink a coffee or cup of tea just because they're in a café or would you ask or offer or wait for them to ask? Why do we ever think it's different when it comes to touching other people?
C'mon, you know that's disingenuous rubbish or, worse, a thinly veiled insult to my intelligence.
In a café, minds are, one has to assume, unfrazzled by alcohol or drugs; the predator playground I described does not exist. If it does, then there's a good chance you must be in Amsterdam. Which obviously explains the canals.
Rob
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or even whether a particular subject should be photographed at all,
... and there the real question is, according to whom ? Whether something should be seen or hidden is a matter of opinion, just ask Edward Snowden.
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C'mon, you know that's disingenuous rubbish or, worse, a thinly veiled insult to my intelligence.
In a café, minds are, one has to assume, unfrazzled by alcohol or drugs; the predator playground I described does not exist. If it does, then there's a good chance you must be in Amsterdam. Which obviously explains the canals.
No, Rob. That's the thing. We all get to control the amount of whatever we put into our systems. If we knowingly do that, it's not an excuse to do something that you couldn't/shouldn't do if you hadn't. Does that means it never happens? Of course not - quite the contrary - but it shouldn't.
Whenever we start a discussion by making excuses for certain behaviour, we're already acknowledging that the behaviour is unacceptable (else why would we be making excuses for it?).
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No, Rob. That's the thing. We all get to control the amount of whatever we put into our systems. If we knowingly do that, it's not an excuse to do something that you couldn't/shouldn't do if you hadn't. Does that means it never happens? Of course not - quite the contrary - but it shouldn't.
Whenever we start a discussion by making excuses for certain behaviour, we're already acknowledging that the behaviour is unacceptable (else why would we be making excuses for it?).
Almost unacceptable, in some circumstances, but not always. And therein the question marks. Yes, you are absolutely right that a defensive attitude indicates guilt - or does it? It could as easily reflect uncertainty because the weight/value of the deed depends largely on the reaction to it. If the person approached reacts positively you are home and dry, but should that person's reaction swing to the negative, for the same deed, where are you? It simply isn't possible to have wonderful rules when the field within which you hope to apply them remains fluid.
Rob
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Whenever we start a discussion by making excuses for certain behaviour, we're already acknowledging that the behaviour is unacceptable (else why would we be making excuses for it?).
Note that most discussions of nudity in art start out by trying to separate nudity from sex:
"No, it's not that I experience pleasant sensations looking at naked young women, they just happened to be the best symbolic representations of the four temperaments (or whatever)"
So sex is unacceptable?
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Note that most discussions of nudity in art start out by trying to separate nudity from sex:
"No, it's not that I experience pleasant sensations looking at naked young women, they just happened to be the best symbolic representations of the four temperaments (or whatever)"
So sex is unacceptable?
If she were 25 and I as I am today, yes!
Who, beyond a nutter, seeks humiliation?
But I jest; there's the old one about the guy with a tiny member going into a brothel and the woman he picks laughing:
"Who's that supposed to satisfy," she laughs.
"Me," says John.
So even there one can't be sure of anything.
Personally, if I'm claiming anything, I'm not claiming tiny, just a bit weary and somewhat jaded. But with a sciatica attack, it all becomes academic in the extreme.
;-)
Rob
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I hesitated long whether to join the discussion, partly because I'm afraid my english isn't good enough to express my thoughts, so please be indulgent if something might sound awkwardly.
Basically I believe the process of how somebody gets an photo-journalist or -artist in this special field is part of the reason why we see, what we see. It seems so me, there're not only lessons about ethics missing, but in spite those people who are pushed or simply get the chance to study, are those who prove they have no problems crossing some ethic borders. If you apply at some school it's still a good way to get somewhere if you show something that is at least questionable in this respect. Basically it's about to show off with how tough you are. The tougher the better. Until it snaps of course (which is what also lead to this article, I guess).
The training you get, is even supporting this. You ought not be cowardly. Do it, take the shot. Remember the photo of the assassin of that Russian diplomat in Istanbul? Interesting discussion afterwards, also ... what I wanted to say is, that this is what they are get trained to. For sure this is pretty much the opposite of "ethical considerations". The whole process of selection and training is going in the other direction, in loosing them. It's rather about "Where is the next shock-photo?". Just for exposure. How can one really wonder sometimes it gets a bit too hot? Just look at the portfolios of those young and emerging photographers. It's so much about: "See, I dare this!"
(As a side note: I applied for a course many years ago and got told politely that I'm too much of a coward for this, because I worried how the people in front of the camera felt. Probably they were right. People accepted for the training were pushed to photograph people without their consent or in not very positive circumstances. Quite a bit of the training was about loosing inhibitions.)
I know this is not leading to a solution, and I do not have one. But I wanted to point out the existing structures are exactly the opposite of what is suggested and I don't think it's possible to just implement anything on top that is so contradictory.
(I hope it's possible to understand what I mean, for native speakers ...)
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Farbschlurf,
Your English is fine, and certainly more than good enough for the purposes of what we all have to say here.
I don't know anything about such educational institutions, but if they are as you describe, then I think they are doing the right thing by their students. Unlike those colleges that offer courses in photography that promote self-expression, art, the construction of installation dreams and flights of fantasy, these young people seem to be being shown how to make a living in today's world where the very lowest common denominator is what sells print and drives "Likes". It's all about earning a crust and survival, doing successfully what you have chosen as your job.
These students may end up being able to make a living out of the sick world in which we all, whether we realise what's going down all around us or not, have to live. There seems to be no good or bad anymore; everything goes and the more rude or offensive people act - or perhaps are - the more impact they make.
Just look at the music tv shows - if you can. In the days when music videos first appeared, there used to be a lot of visual imagination and even the music was listenable. I stopped watching intentionally some years ago when it became a constant stream of inter-racial sexual conquest promotion, with a massive lump of misogyny thrown in. I like women; I do not enjoy seeing them treated like scum, even if they allow themselves to look that way for the sake of a video. It was the same reason that made me stop buying Playboy after many years, when it, in my opinion, lost the plot and went into direct competition with the rubbish titles. So yeah, maybe we all do have that little man up there in our heads who whispers no, this ain't for you; get out now whilst you still can and know the differences.
Anyway, even if we are just talking to ourselves here, I find it more rewarding than telling some other guy how to reframe his pictures. At least this makes one think. Living alone can tend to make you want to give that up too, as yet just one more bother to face when you get up in the morning.
;-)
Rob
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Note that most discussions of nudity in art start out by trying to separate nudity from sex:
"No, it's not that I experience pleasant sensations looking at naked young women, they just happened to be the best symbolic representations of the four temperaments (or whatever)"
So sex is unacceptable?
Not really an ideal analogy, unless you're talking about forcing it on someone. If you want to get a model who is of age and willingly consents to modelling and if the viewers of your art are of age and willingly consenting to viewing, there's no issue. We're talking about deliberately doing something without first obtaining consent in the potential hope that it might lead to something else. If that's the best form of communication you have, you have a problem.
There are so many ways to signal an intent and receive confirmation, quite apart from the direct conversation which may seem too difficult, that it's just not acceptable to ever force it on anyone. This isn't a difficult concept.
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Almost unacceptable, in some circumstances, but not always. And therein the question marks. Yes, you are absolutely right that a defensive attitude indicates guilt - or does it? It could as easily reflect uncertainty because the weight/value of the deed depends largely on the reaction to it. If the person approached reacts positively you are home and dry, but should that person's reaction swing to the negative, for the same deed, where are you? It simply isn't possible to have wonderful rules when the field within which you hope to apply them remains fluid.
Signal your intent. Directly ask. Make it clear but don't do anything until you have affirmation. Simple.
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I've come to this thread late. But I was wondering how much a caption or the accompanying text in an essay with many photos distort the original meaning of the photo(s) or the photographer's intent? A picture of a lone polar bear on a single floating ice flow in an otherwise empty sea could be an indication of how global warming is endangering the species. Or it could be just a late spring shot of a polar bear moving from one area to another with the assistance of a flow. The caption defines the picture. While the photographer's intent may be honest, the editor who uses his picture may not.
So by extension, we have to check the ethics of those who present the pictures as well as the photographer. They may play a larger roll than the shooter.
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Signal your intent. Directly ask. Make it clear but don't do anything until you have affirmation. Simple.
It's been my experience that life doesn't always function on that simplistic level; so much more is conveyed via expression, proximity and general conduct than by words, which unless uttered by the mouth of a seasoned scriptwriter (with a plan, and thus defeating this topic, which deals with the unexpected situation rather than the planned) able to remain on his own message, will inevitably force an issue and thus a reaction from the other person that may be in direct contradiction to that person's actual wish, in that a sense of "what's expected from a nice person" may well force out, and thus deny, a more adventurous desire and response that societal expectations might frown upon.
"Excuse me, my dear, you look wonderful tonight. I want to give you an affectionate peck on the cheek as we dance; may I do that? Of course, I'd like to take this further, if I may, and go on to have an impromptu breakfast with you."
The chances of any such Romeo - outwith the world of a 40s movie - getting lucky strike me as pretty slim, and those of any sighing Juliet none the better! Some things should/could never be done via the direct, verbal approach unless you are perhaps speaking of boffins or robots, of course, for whom I'm sure some code of conduct has been written, thoughfully, into the general scheme of things... for the rest of us, short of making it a commercial transaction in lieu of a delightful experience, I think nature holds the best tricks up her expensive sleeve; I think it's where PC may have been born, not up that sleeve, but in the confusion of too much introspection.
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Signal your intent - not say it, Rob.
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Signal your intent - not say it, Rob.
Well, I could send and read semaphore once... morse was ever beyond me, though. I could only react visually to things unspoken and, if anything, it goes to reassert my belief that had I been born into a world of digital photography and its hardware I would never have felt the least attraction to it...
;-)
Rob
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Signal your intent. Directly ask. Make it clear but don't do anything until you have affirmation. Simple.
Phil is right on this point. the issue that Rob raised is not unique to photographers but is present in many other male/female interactions that can take place in the work place, at a college party, or in a bar/pub. I suspect we are confusing 'ethical photography', how the image is used with what is proper behavior in terms of 'taking advantage of someone'.
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Phil is right on this point. the issue that Rob raised is not unique to photographers but is present in many other male/female interactions that can take place in the work place, at a college party, or in a bar/pub. I suspect we are confusing 'ethical photography', how the image is used with what is proper behavior in terms of 'taking advantage of someone'.
Exactly. Apart from my regular job, I'm also a trained first aider (have been for over 30 years), and I regularly need to consider such interactions, whether the person is fully cognisant to make a decision or not, are they a minor, are there other cultural considerations, what is the seriousness or threat of the injury, is there implied consent etc. etc., and even where it might seem obvious that consent would be given, you still ask if possible. Case in point on Friday with a female colleague with a suspected spider bite on her neck. I still asked before examining, even though she requested assistance. It is respectful, it builds trust and confidence, and it's just plain the right thing to do!
Today, driving to work, a cyclist was on the side of the road with some people around. I stopped. He's had a head on with another cyclist. One a school kid and the other a retiree. Retiree can't feel below his waist. It could be extremely serious. Before doing any examination, before getting people to hold him to stop any possible movement, I still asked him if it was OK to treat him. The school kid, there is legally implied consent because he's a minor - but he was 15 or 16 and completely cognisant so I asked him. If he'd refused I would have let it be given the ambulance was on the way - he had no apparent serious injuries so why force something if he had objected? He was fine with me doing a basic check, and the ambos confirmed all was well. The older gentlemen hopefully has only a temporary issue.
Point is, make every effort to gain consent, regardless of the situation.
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All very well and good, Phil, but your first aid examples are hardly much to do with sensitive areas such as romance/imaginary sexual assault, with the later two especially having such nebulous borders as to render male/female interaction almost taboo, leading to extermination of the species - were some people allowed to rule the roost. Perhaps it was to thwart such minds that nature gave the male such a strong - albeit blinding - sexual drive.
I believe that you have simply created a straw woman argument - just to be different - and exactly the diversionary example with which the non-thinking reader will automatically sympathise, just as would any divorce lawyer with female client try to achieve. Regarding the lady with the assumed spider bite - did you catch the spider - did you get to see one - did you not later suspect something else was being played out to which you could well have been oblivious? Are you a dermatologist capable of distinguishing bites of spider from those of bedbug, mosquito or horsefly? Of all these factors I have no more idea than anyone else not present, which just shows you how difficult these things can be, especially in a court of law; and if there was nobody else around, no independent witness, then even more of a delightful little riddle if no assault case comes from it! Delightful, of course, would depend on the condition of the person with the "bite". "I still asked before examining, even though she requested assistance. It is respectful, it builds trust and confidence, and it's just plain the right thing to do!" Phil, you could hardly rip her shirt off without asking, with or without witnesses, could you? Even I might suspect anyone doing that was being a little less than altruistic, with or without spider extant! And at the very least, should witnesses be present, you were simply covering your own legal ass! As for the young cyclist - I don't imagine you had to squeeze his genitals to make sure his back wasn't broken, did you? So why would there still be a need to say anything other than to declare a professional ability/science you may have to help? (In my own case, I'd have seized the opportunity to tell those cyclists what a boody menace they are on Mallorcan roads, and that they should be bannished to velodromes where, as they have just proven, they can enjoy their inability to avoid one another, never mind interact sensibly with motorised vehicles!)
"Point is, make every effort to gain consent, regardless of the situation." Indeed, and I'm sure that's a clever thing to do in this litigious society which we are becoming. even outwith the States.
But it's not designed (this mindset) to propagate the species, any more than is rape. What it is is society ever more a victim of contemporary socially PC mores.
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I think I was unclear about my point.
Such people - those in need, who are exhibiting palpable anxiety about something that has just happened to them - are extremely vulnerable. It would take almost no effort to take some form of advantage of them and even less effort to take no advantage, do everything perfectly appropriately, but fail to remember to ask and not assume. That is the point. There is no excuse for not asking, either spoken or through some other manner, before doing anything. A sexual drive cannot be an excuse for doing something to someone without permission.
As to ripping off shirts? An unbreathing casualty who needs CPR and application of an AED? Yep, that shirt/top/whatever is coming off. If they're conscious and suspected to be experiencing a cardiac event, though, they're going to be asked before putting the AED on to monitor them. In both cases, non-essential people are removed and if there's an alternative (a female first aider, for example) then that's the path that going to be taken.
The species will propagate just fine based on consent.
Oh, and, she had caught the spider, killed it, and wrapped it in a tissue - being a black spider, which in Australia automatically means treating like a snake bite because it can mean a neurotoxin which travels via the lymphatic system as just snake venom does, that was actually quite good if it had turned out to indeed be venomous and a penetrating bite (which it wasn't - confirmed by a doctor later).
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I think I was unclear about my point.
Such people - those in need, who are exhibiting palpable anxiety about something that has just happened to them - are extremely vulnerable. It would take almost no effort to take some form of advantage of them and even less effort to take no advantage, do everything perfectly appropriately, but fail to remember to ask and not assume. That is the point. There is no excuse for not asking, either spoken or through some other manner, before doing anything. A sexual drive cannot be an excuse for doing something to someone without permission.
As to ripping off shirts? An unbreathing casualty who needs CPR and application of an AED? Yep, that shirt/top/whatever is coming off. If they're conscious and suspected to be experiencing a cardiac event, though, they're going to be asked before putting the AED on to monitor them. In both cases, non-essential people are removed and if there's an alternative (a female first aider, for example) then that's the path that going to be taken.
The species will propagate just fine based on consent.
Oh, and, she had caught the spider, killed it, and wrapped it in a tissue - being a black spider, which in Australia automatically means treating like a snake bite because it can mean a neurotoxin which travels via the lymphatic system as just snake venom does, that was actually quite good if it had turned out to indeed be venomous and a penetrating bite (which it wasn't - confirmed by a doctor later).
"Oh, and, she had caught the spider, killed it, and wrapped it in a tissue - being a black spider, which in Australia automatically means treating like a snake bite because it can mean a neurotoxin which travels via the lymphatic system as just snake venom does, that was actually quite good if it had turned out to indeed be venomous and a penetrating bite (which it wasn't - confirmed by a doctor later)."
She couldn't have been too worried if she'd had time to do all those things! What it does prove though, is that everyone living in dangerous lands should carry at all times a clean jam jar and thin sheet of stiff board. That way, the poor insects would remain identifiable and even, should they prove to be harmless, released back into the wild. I have a thing about spiders - especially the ones here that I think are called wolf spìders - bodies like almonds - and they wander around on their own, rather than hang about in webs. Though I dislike them with intensity, I have no wish to kill them unless they appear on the wall at night, and I don't want to go out and find the big flat broom onto which I would otherwise coax them prior to launching 'em into the field.
The big problem with finding them indoors at night is that there are two alternatives: be in an area where you can manipulate jar and card without losing the creature behind furniture if it falls off the wall, not always preventable if your access is difficult; if access is difficult, then you are faced with the choice of bashing them with a shoe and thus staining the wall, or sitting quietly watching until they move into a silly place (from their perspective) and then use the jar. The problem with the waiting game is that spiders can be quite intelligent: they simply stay still and try to outwait/outwit you.
I have a frend who lives in Oz and he once wrote, with reference to going out on shoots into the wilds, that everything in Oz that moves wants to kill you. I do think he was referring to the non-human kingdom, but somebody broke into his wheels and stole his photo-gear, so I can't be sure about that anymore.
My granddaughter, a brand new doctor, spent a few weeks in Oz and she loved it, except for the very high cost of everything that a supermarket stocks, especially drinking water. She ignored the screens on the window one night, and was surprised to discover, later, a couple of large arachnids on the wall; she got rid of them, but I don't know if she had a jam jar. You can take the girl out of Glasgow...
;-)
Rob
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How can you have ethical photography (journalist) when you don't have ethical media? If the media is corrupt do you expect that the photographers working for them won't be?
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How can you have ethical photography (journalist) when you don't have ethical media? If the media is corrupt do you expect that the photographers working for them won't be?
I quote myself:
"I don't know anything about such educational institutions, but if they are as you describe, then I think they are doing the right thing by their students. Unlike those colleges that offer courses in photography that promote self-expression, art, the construction of installation dreams and flights of fantasy, these young people seem to be being shown how to make a living in today's world where the very lowest common denominator is what sells print and drives "Likes". It's all about earning a crust and survival, doing successfully what you have chosen as your job."
You are absolutely right. And I'd wager that the same media is quite helpful in the promotion of "art" too. It takes a pot at some of the awards, to be fair to it, but the attention paid some artists - including snappers - is rather a nice thing for them, don't you think?
Who pretended it was a clean world? Where survival and a good living standard is on the line...
;-)
Rob
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Thank you all for the excellent discussion! In general, I have no pat answers to any of the questions posed!
These things are difficult, and the answers are fluid. It depends on context, on time, on many factors. The difference between good, useful, training and terrible pointless training is noted -- my only proposal here is the one to start up many certifications and allow "the market" to decide. This assumes that the editors and publishers and contest-runners will leab toward the good ones rather than the easy ones, and in order for that to happen, they need to be themselves of
good and ethical spirit. Possibly because they've read some discussions like this one recently. One can dream.
A real world (?) example, which describes what Souvid Datta allegedly faced: A 16 year old prostitute asks that he tell her story, including photographing her at the work of her job. There is no family in the picture, what there is either has or would disown her. She is underage, but there is no equivalent of a parent, no one who can give or without consent legally. She is literally the most adult person around, and is legally too young to give consent. What does the photographer do?
There is no easy answer here. UNICEF guidelines for reporting on children betray their western assumptions by telling you to defer to the parent, or whoever is around in that role. It's easy to shout at Datta after the fact, but if we assume he is telling his story truthfully, there is no denying that he was a young man
thrust into an extremely difficult choice, and was probably completely ill-equipped to make good choices.
He might have made the same choices after being thoroughly trained, but at any rate he'd have perhaps made them for better reasons.
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Excellent points re the consent issue...
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Yes, there are no absolutes one way or the other - only best guesses if a person of good intent, or a playground for mischief if of the opposite bent.
But I have enjoyed the debate, and feel quite relieved that it passed without any verbal violence and with a fair amount of fun in the air. Assuming, of course, that it has passed!
Rob
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My passive +1. ;)
-Dave-
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But you are still, basically, depending on moral standards and standings.
My instinct says don't shoot the questionable image. Why would you, unless for the hope of making money out of something a bit heavy for normal consumption? The call on what the snapper thinks normal is his own to make, not that of any group or collective conditioning. He is already collectively conditioned to one degree or another; applying a prescribed set of trade moral concepts is even worse and ultimately more confusing for anyone.
You can't honestly submit stuff you are secretly ashamed of having shot, yet allow the final publishing decision rest with someone else. That's responsibilty-dodging in a most depressing manner, cowardice, even.
If instinct tells you there's a big question mark hanging over your actions, don't take 'em. If instinct tells you nothing, this thread will mean zero to you, so it's academic.
Well I think perhaps we have all day dreamed of somehow having our own immortal Zapruder film or shots, though not necessarily of tragedy but rather as photos such as ETBEs landing or flying overhead in formations by the thousands. Or the miraculous rescue of an individual or animal that is in peril.
I really felt Andrew's article should have been published on the Online Photographer since Mike Johnson has written very similar pieces in the past and is hyper-enamored of the topic.
I would have felt better if the article had focused on a image appropriator such as Richard Prince and discussed the merits of his thefts and whether the work qualifies as Art (with a capital A). At any rate photographers that fix, spindle, mutilate, alter, or create in post either digitally or analog isn't really an issue of ethics for me unless the photo is intended to ruin someone, group, or corporate entity.
So of course that is my opinion just like the aforementioned article echos Molitor's opinions. Andrew is a wantabe A.D. Coleman or similar, for the most part I don't find his insights unique or original. But the 1st Amendment gives him the right to express his thoughts regardless of their clarity or benefit.
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I'm all in favor of any piece that raises questions and provokes thought. The views, whatever they are, of the piece's author are secondary to this.
-Dave-
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I'm a wannabee Susan Sontag, actually!
She is handily dead, and therefore not available to comment on contemporary photography. By dismissing everyone currently alive as on the wrong track entirely, I arrange the field to be clear for my own humble efforts.
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Rather fascinating topic
I’ll probably muddy the water a little more.
I think largely there one main issue.
Intent.
1: Intent, photojournalism is different from a lot of other photography disciplines and there is little leeway and I believe that is as it should be. It is meant to be reporting fact not fiction.
Interestingly to me it opens up the question of Art v Photography.
The winner of one of our major photography portrait awards documented he spent 40 hours in Photoshop. I have an issue with that, are we looking at a photograph or art? If you take 5 minutes to take a photo and 40 hours as a pro with good experience are we looking at a photo or art.
I would expect a pro to get it mostly right in camera and therefore 40 hours to me becomes art, and as such should be entered into an art show and maybe not a photography contest, despite it being a sensational photo. I see photojournalists that take stunning photos daily.
The only thing they are legally allowed to do is basically dodge and burn….Meaning only what you could do in a darkroom, there is no 40 hours and they are stunning photos because they know their craft.
If a photojournalist stages a photo then the question is it truth or art?
2: As for deliberately misleading or using other peoples published work….well I would expect everyone hear would have a similar opinion, so nuff said.
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The only thing they are legally allowed to do is basically dodge and burn….
Sounds like the artist in question broke the shackles that were holding back his inspiration and creativity. Congratulations to him!