Overcome by the scene

Has anyone else ever had a great scene unfold before you,and been so

moved by subject and the circumstances,that out of respect you had to

pass up the great shot(perhaps the shot of your lifetime)?

I've missed some outstanding shots when I was too much a part of the scene or it developed too quickly for me to capture it. I haven't rationalized it as being "out of respect"--it was simply a lack of focus or competence. I don't beat myself up about it, though; sometimes being a part of the scene is more important that capturing it on film.

Mike, thanks for the speedy reply. I should have gave a little better explanation of the particular situation I was in. At the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, a Veteran in a wheelchair who had lost his legs. This gentleman was dressed,as many do at this special place, in camouflage clothes. Just as I saw him, he reached up as high as he could to touch his buddie's name.As he reached,my camera was ready,he was at the perfect distance,as I started to raise the camera I felt a little ashamed, like I was interfering in something that I had no right to do..I had to turn around for a moment.

Yes, and that is the difference between being a competent photographer and a great one

I understand taking the photo,I am sure I would have.When I am looking thru the viewfinder of my camera I am seperated from the scene in front of me.This can be both a good thing and a bad thing. It keeps you focused(no pun intended ) on what you are seeing,and gets you ready for what might happen next. I also removes you from the world around you . I have been in riots where having a reporter watching around you, while you shot is all that kept your head from being bashed in.I once arrived at a scene, and since the fire dept was not there yet ,left the cameras in the car and started mouth to mouth on a drowned baby.After the fire dept arrived, I went to my car got my cameras and started taking photos. The photo is in my photojournalism folder. There was a photographer at our paper, who's name was Tim Rogers.Tim was going home from work one night when he came across a accident.Instead of taking photos of a woman trapped in a car he held her hand while she died.I don't think Tim ever regreted not taking the photo, and has always had my respect for doing what he did.Sometimes you balance being sensitive enough to see a photo ,with using the judgement of not shooting it.

"Yes, and that is the difference between being a competent photographer and a great one"

 

One difference maybe. Not 'the' difference.

 

It is also the difference between a cheapskate voyeur and a human with some kind of respect for what others have been through.

 

Didn't a whole country have this debate when their princess was incarcerated in a vehicle wreckage?

I was in New York during the September 11 nightmare. I didn't take a single shot. I couldn't.

Yes Randy, I know what you mean. What the commentator said during the Hindenburg crash, "Oh, the humanity."

James Jenoptik wrote

 

Quote "Yes, and that is the difference between being a competent photographer and a great one"

 

One difference maybe. Not 'the' difference.

 

It is also the difference between a cheapskate voyeur and a human with some kind of respect for what others have been through.

 

Didn't a whole country have this debate when their princess was incarcerated in a vehicle wreckage. Unquote

 

The great editorial photographers, PJs to you Americans, such as Don McCullin and James Nachtwey to name just two, can still have empathy with the subject and great personal tact, but still remain detached and focused on the job in hand and take the quintessential image that other less gifted photographers would become too emotionally involved in the event and fail to capture.

 

McCullin and many other renowned people photographers, Salgado is another have become profoundly effected by the things that they have witnessed during their careers but have not lost their humanity.

 

Of course there are cretins in the trade, as James says, but they are not the topic of this thread.

On September 11th I was in Central London, I'm afraid I did want to record peoples reactions to what was unfolding on the other side of the Atlantic. I hope that that doesn't make me a ghoul, but I felt at the time (and now) that there had to be a record of how the events of that affected people who had no direct involvement. On the train home I forced my self to write it down. But the crowds looking at TV pictures through shop windows, the shock and disbelief was something that could only be told properly with pictures.

 

If every photographer (and moving picture cameraman) looked at events from the Hindenberg, to 9/11 and said "I can't record that", then the record - both horror and heroism - is lost. I don't agree that being able to go on taking pictures is the mark of greatness: it is a professional attitude which isn't the same thing. News cameras reporting has produced reactions to things (the 1984 Ethopian famine being the one which stays in my memory, because of live aid, or the Napalmed 5 year old in vietnam) where if the photographer had felt the need to respect the victims nothing would have happened.

 

As for the Veteran, would he have felt disreptected if his photo had been taken ? This long after it happened he is still living with the consquences in multiple ways, would the picture that illustrated that have been so insulting to him ?

 

BTW I've passed on a couple of good shots (not shot-of-a-lifetime ones) because taking them somehow didn't feel proper, so I can sympathize. One can beleive that getting the shot and deciding later is best, but sometimes that belief doesn't get the shutter finger to move.

I've got to say this: I honestly believe James O'Neill is right, there just has to be people to record such images, it's just to important not to be done. Jim, you are a very wise person.

Perhaps there are those who can separate themselves from the action unfolding before them and can record the event without any afterthought. Does that make the person more a "competent photographer" or a "heartless ghoul"? Who really knows what goes on inside the next person? We are fortunate, in some ways, that there are those who can record tragedies (for the sake of historical documentation); such as the Holocaust, the world wars and other conflicts, and atrocities that would have gone unnoticed to the world. Some of those that have recorded tragedies have suffered for their actions in the form of nightmares, others have not (or they claim not to).

 

There are some that are simply unable to take photos of such events. I fall into the second category. Some call it sensitivity others call it weak of heart... who knows, who cares! The bottom line is that I cannot.

 

I live in NY and was home during 9/11, with both cameras fully loaded; I used to work in the post office next to the Twin Towers when they were being constructed, and I knew someone who worked there during the construction. Guess what? To this very day, I have not gone near the site and I have no intention of ever going there... I prefer to believe that I do not have a morbid curiousity. I also respect those who lost loved ones. I cannot do what others were able to do (document, for whatever reason) but I cannot pass judgement on them for what I am unable/unwilling to do, and I don't pretend to know what their personal intentions are/were.

 

I've been in situations where I had my camera in hand and there were also some "celebrities" present; they looked at my camera and I simply put the lens cap on continued about my business. What did I get? A smile. A nod of acknowledgement. A friendly wave of the hand. I prefer to remember those moments than to share the images of a celebrities. But, that's ME, of course and I cannot judge someone else for having a difference of opinion or intent.

Erin, the difference is that photojournalists do it as a job, whereas others do it privately. They have the justification to intrude; the need to document.

Some of the best/most-reknowned documentary photographer in history were not photojournalists. I don't agree that only photojournalists have a right to document (or that getting a paycheck automatically justifies intrusive behavior).

It's happened to me, but i want to relate a funny situation I witnessed this summer. I was staying at this Tibetan temple, and one day a kid from the East coast (of china) comes wandering up the road. He's an art student and expresses his disapproval with the cloudy weather as soon as we meet. I tell him that it's been this way for a week now and there's nothing to be done about it. Anyway, there's a lot to appreciate with or without the sun. But he's the kind of person that comes to a place looking for the shot he saw in last week's travel magazine. So...

The next morning I meet him on my way to fetch water from the well and he's all excited. "Today there's a sky burial. This is what I've been waiting for."

"Well, you can't take photos of it." I say, "It's forbidden." He says that one of the Lamas said he could. "Well, you asked the wrong Lama." I said right back. "But you can have a try." Later that morning one of the Lamas came up to my room and asked if I was going to the sky burial (like it was a football game or something). I said no, but then later decided that I would wander over and see how things were getting on. WHen I went over the weather was still overcast and I said that I didn't think the vulchers would come. The crowd of tourists who had driven in from a local hostel stood over by a shed waiting anyway. The art student was with them. They had cameras, video cameras, whatever, all ready and waiting. I went over to a grassy area several meters from where the body of the deceased was laying, and I myself laid back in the grass staring in the directions from which the birds were expected. One by one they started to come, spiraling down towards us. I layed there until about 40 or 50 had flown down, and then at some point lifted myself up to see how the tourists were taking it. They stood completely dumbfounded, jaws dropped, not moving, not speaking. Their cameras and video recorders? Like lead weights pulling thier arms towards the ground they just hung there. Not a shot taken.

"They stood completely dumbfounded, jaws dropped, not moving, not speaking. Their cameras and video recorders? Like lead weights pulling thier arms towards the ground they just hung there. Not a shot taken."

 

Pussies.

Yeah Jim, i am forever missing great shots. my problem is not the fear of disrespect, but

a lame, lame camera bag that takes twenty minutes to open.

Yeah, I hear that Tobas...My camrea bag is old, outdated, oversized, and an olde pain in

the ass!

yo - thanks McG - i really feel like my bag is holding me back ........or maybe im making

excuses - maybe i am afraid of confrontation.

Tobas, Papa needs a brand new bag.

>>>sometimes being a part of the scene is more important that capturing it on film.<<<

 

Mike, I love that you said that! Sometimes when I'm on a fun outting with my family I have to remind myself of that. And sometimes I've missed out on the "now" because I've been too much into making the memory.