Photographing people in compromised conditions

<p>The following pertains to Street Photography.<br /> We have all seen these photographs which depict people in compromised conditions.<br /> The photo of a drunken on the floor, the homeless carrying all his belonging in a supermarket cart, and so on.<br /> In those situations where the individual's face is recognizable would you take the shot and publish?<br /> Or would you feel that it is morally improper to photograph individuals in such conditions?</p>

<p>When it happens I'll decide. Only then will all the facts be known.</p>

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<p>would you take the shot and publish?</p>

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<p>Publish where? Under what circumstances, to what end? Is it part of a written piece? Is it an editorial scold? Is do-gooder "awareness raising?" Are you making art, submitting to the local news web site, or what? What's the context?<br /><br />No context from you, no way to answer the question. Except to refer to the hundreds (thousands?) of other threads on this site that examine the same question.</p>

<p>More important of course are the questions as to whether it would be art, whether or not it's Kitsch, whether to use color or B+W and how would I feel about it...</p>

<p>Very well, I'll do my research. Thanks for the responses.</p>

<p>Dani,</p>

<p>Please don't take some of the responses to be representative of PN members as a whole. We've been encouraged to be welcoming and friendly and some of the responses so far have instead been sarcastic and personally demeaning to you. I can't and won't apologize for anyone else, but rest assured there's nothing wrong with your questions or the fact you're curious or interested in starting dialogues. As participation and conversation on PN seems to be waning lately, your recent activity could be seen as a breath of fresh air. As always, those who don't think the questions are of value need not participate in the threads you choose to start.</p>

<p>As a general rule, I don't take photos of homeless people on the street because I afford them the kind of privacy I would anyone who was in their home. It happens that they are living on the street, so they don't have the luxury of privacy that a home would afford, so I just respect that privacy even though they are in public. I say, a general rule, because there have been exceptions and may be in the future. There have been people I've shot where I'd have no way of knowing whether they're homeless or not, as part of a wider street scene. </p>

<p>So, for me, it's not quite a case-by-case basis. I have a strong predilection against doing so, but can imagine some exceptions. That likely could make me inconsistent, but I can live with it. I'm not perfect.</p>

<p>It's interesting you couch the question in "morality," which it often is and I understand. I find it easier to see it as just being neighborly and not make too big a moral deal of it.</p>

<p>One important thing to consider: When we're in our homes, we have some reasonable expectation of privacy. People can't lawfully stand outside our windows and photograph us, let alone march into our bedrooms and do it. So when people have no homes, do they forfeit all right to privacy? Perhaps when we're standing on their streets, we're really standing in their homes, and affording them some privacy is the decent thing to do.</p>

<p>Dani, I invite you to view this thread made 11 years ago, notably the very last post by Hugh Hill who was once homeless and now helps the homeless in part through photography: <br>

<a href="/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=004P1Q">http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=004P1Q</a></p>

<p>I don't do that kind of photography. Many other photographers do. They apparently don't feel compelled not to. I think if you explore the various threads running at any given time, you may find that some photographer's ways of doing things make you happy and others will make you very unhappy. As a profession or avocation, etc., it's not unique in that way. </p>

<p>Life is a compromised position. Time and our choices are measured in units of intention. Every moment, every action or omission, every snap of the shutter or hesitation, offers a new opportunity for grace, failure, or nothing at all.</p>

<p>And never, ever, put your lucky coin in your pocket where it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.</p>

<p>Be sure to buy my book, "Zen Anarchy and the Absurdity Avesta" coming soon to Amazon.</p>

<p>Thank you all.<br>

Michael-Thanks for pointing out to me the thread on the subject from 2003.<br>

My question has been answered, and on my end this thread is closed.</p>

So we don't get to find out what you were asking about?

<p>Michael, that was a great thread. I read through it entirely. In addition to suggesting people read Hugh Hill's final post, I would suggest that they look at his photography of the homeless and, much more importantly, read what he posts of their stories. I'm humbled, because as much as I would like to do work of that caliber, I realize it would not be possible. I have known enough people in my life to appreciate what Hill points out, that people of all socioeconomic and educational backgrounds, often some very high-functioning people (doctors, lawyers, scientists), can end up on the streets. I've seen it myself. It's sobering and frightening.</p>

<p>Wow, Mike, thanks for finding that old thread on this issue. There were several follow up posts I'd never read, particularly from folks who'd personally experienced homelessness and substance abuse problems. That may be the liveliest, most diverse, interesting and constructive debate I've read on the issue of photographing "the homeless".</p>

<p>Interesting, also, that nothing has changed. I still feel the same way about it as I did then. I still see exactly the same opinions, pro and con, expressed everywhere online. If anything has changed, it's that the same debates over the same issue now seem somewhat less constructive on the whole: louder and more gratuitously insulting and profane reactionary voices - and more of them - overwhelming the more introspective perspectives and nuanced debates. Where it once required hip waders, now you need chest waders to navigate the same morass, and industrial strength filters. But the core messages are the same. Plus insta-filters and tonemapping.</p>

<p>That thread left a deep impression at the time, and made me wonder why homeless folks are always the subject of discussion when there are more interesting photo opportunities like the mafia, biker gangs, or drug dealers and pimps in action. </p>

<p>Probably because "the homeless" sounds like "the harmless" to folks who'd like to dabble risk-free in street photography.</p>

<p>There are documentary photographers and photojournalists who've done projects on organized crime, bikers, gangs, drugs and prostitution. I doubt any of 'em began by asking generalized how-to questions on web discussion forums. They probably began by talking with other folks locally - editors, cops, social workers, nurses, neighbors, friends of friends who introduced them to other friends of friends. They began with a desire to tell a story about interesting human beings, not idle curiosity about how a human shipwreck sleeping under cardboard juxtaposed ironically against a mattress ad might look in a photograph uploaded to Flickr or Facebook for likes.</p>

<p>A local photographer whose Facebook posts I actually enjoy is most comfortable within his niche of the downtown's affluent and well-employed elite, and also does excellent human interest photos of local community support groups for kids whose immediate family members have died (siblings, parents) and other groups. He's a good guy and means well. But he's out of his element once he leaves the safety of downtown and reaches the neighborhoods of less affluent folks on the fringes of society. It shows in his unintentionally absurd tendencies to resort to the telephoto lens and photograph them from afar, through chain link fences, while describing each in a sequence of photos as if he's on safari hunting for exotic wild game - the "poor people". But I won't criticize him personally or on his FB page because he continually surprises me with his compassion and knack for getting great candid photos of all kinds of people when he's inside his comfort zone. </p>

<p>In that respect I'm no different - I just happen to regard the more affluent folks I see downtown with the same bemused detachment, as a sort of quarry whom I photograph out of idle curiosity, or because they simply look like fabulous exotic creatures - peacocks, flamingos, orchids and hothouse flowers - and my only motivation was to capture that moment, without regard to whether it might be considered voyeurism.</p>

>>> If anything has changed, it's that the same debates over the same issue now seem somewhat less

constructive on the whole: louder and more gratuitously insulting and profane reactionary voices...

 

As an aside, for sure... Most exchanges now are about responding with gotchas and scoring points. Extra

points are available for the smarmy put-down, obliquely (trying to) make someone feel small, or expressing

faux outrage. My feeling is that few views are reconsidered in the end.

<p>The essence of capture is the only difference between a photograph and the human eye, and brain. If you have sex in your bedroom in front of an open window and someone sees it, that's not an invasion of privacy. But what if the viewer photographs it and shares the images with thousands of people? Nothing changes. Things viewable by someone else are not private and photography doesn't change it.</p>

<p>Perhaps I shouldn't have been facetious with my last comment. :-) </p>

<p>But yes, motive and comfort zone is everything. </p>

<p>Well the world has changed and we may have to bend our scruples around the way it is and not what it used to be. As observers and eager beaver photographers.<br /> Just last week I had my camera at a restaurant table in Waikiki. An outdoor restaurant with my wife with me. I saw this, gee whiz, totally adorable little girl, about five, sitting with her "auntie" at a nearby table. She was folding her napkin and sitting so prim and alert and picture perfect that my hand with the camera rose instinctively. My wife gently said, " No, don't ,Gerry." It was hard but she has more innate sensitivity about these things. It is a different world. And our sensitivities may have to re tune the dial. A new world calls for a new way to navigate our street and restaurant shooting, a little more thought at the least. I will read that other thread, Michael later on. Just wanted to broach the subject of social change on whole people privacy business. Stranger's children of course is just one dramatic example. And no, I did not want to go over, talk to them first, and interrupt their family brunch. The magic moment would have passed.</p>

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<p>"Things viewable by someone else are not private and photography doesn't change it."</p>

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<p>I wonder. In some respects photography does seem to alter events, similarly to the observer effect (not the uncertainty principle) described in connection with physics and even some mundane tasks (checking tire air pressure, measuring the temperature, etc.).<br>

<br>

Yesterday a Canadian friend sent me a link to an article about 1950s street photographer <a href="http://www.torontolife.com/informer/toronto-culture/2014/01/15/lutz-dille-toronto-street-photography/">Lutz Dille</a>. In <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Lutz+Dille&safe=off&rlz=1C1LENN_enUS490US490&espv=210&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=PUjZUrDqM8TlsASC6oDQCA&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ">Dille's more extensive portfolio</a>, I noticed a certain almost undefinable sense that was common years ago: a certain disregard for the camera, even among people who knew they were being photographed.</p>

<p>Nowadays I notice when I'm out snapping pix in public that many people, particularly my age or younger, seem very camera conscious. Not camera shy. Quite the opposite. They carry themselves as if they are fully aware of being the stars in their own movies, or their own TV reality shows. It's an effect I've seen in my mom's high school snapshot album - all these teenaged guys and gals so acutely aware of the camera and posing like Hollywood stars. Hell, they even looked like movie stars - the hair styles, clothing, everything was so stylized and carefully cultivated. But I see the same thing to an even greater extent among folks nowadays even when they're not specifically aware of being photographed. It's as if they know they're under constant surveillance and want to appear just-so.</p>

<p><strong>Lex:</strong> <em>"They carry themselves as if they are fully aware of being the stars in their own movies"</em></p>

<p>I'm so glad you mentioned that, Lex. I've actually been noticing that for years, though I agree that the extent has become quite a bit greater. Since I was kid, I've been fascinated by people "posing" even when they weren't supposed to be and weren't aware of my watching eyes. Guys smoking on street corners, when I was a kid, was one of my favorites. They all had a certain flare and seemed to have the gestures down almost to a science. Then there were the lovers in parks. The way they held hands and the way they sometimes looked lovingly and longingly and oh so romantically into each others' eyes. Very Hollywood, almost to the point of camp sometime. I literally remember where I was sitting when I came to the realization that women elegantly cross their legs one way and men a little less elegantly and more stiffly and squarely cross their legs another way. Same with carrying books. I used to envy the girls in sixth grade getting to carry their books with both arms folded in front of them, while we guys had to carry them in one arm against our side.</p>

<p>So, I think in addition to photography, culture, movies, books, and inherited roles drive how we act in public and in private to a certain extent. I know that's greatly affected how and why I photograph, which is often about capturing telling gestures and even very overt and intentional poses and personas we all adopt.</p>

<p>I've just been going through my parents old snapshots from the 40s. There seemed actually to be quite an awareness of the camera though with a much more subtle and often more elegant effect and result. They seemed to have a much more "natural" affinity for posing and even framing and composition. That, or the oldness and history of the pictures is getting to me. And of course these were mostly posed pictures as opposed to street or candid shots. It may be that years ago there was disregard for the camera. It may also be a bit less self-consciousness when in front of one.</p>

<p>I'm alway leery of photographing people who are simply going about their business in public (well, from a balcony, I did once take a nice cleavage shot of a girl on the street, but I felt guilty about it!). I don't think being out in public typically gives permission to be photographed, and some are quite sensitive about it. I especially don't like the idea of photographing people who are in unfortunate situations (as interpreted by me) unless I'm doing so in an attempt to improve their situation, though sometimes it might be difficult to resist a particulary intriguing hair style or clothing combination.</p>

<p>But if you really want to photograph interesting folk, leave the streets and head to the nearest Walmart. Some of them are just begging to be the subject of your next coffee-table book.</p>

<p>I once photographed Sonny Bono getting his Rolls Royce washed in an ordinary car wash. He was with a tall, long legged young lady who looked a lot like Cher but was not (this one was a redhead) and Sonny and Cher had just split up. Sonny did not mind, he knew that being of interest to the public through photographs put millions of dollars into his pocket. Hence the Rolls.<br>

I took another photo, of Sonny and Cher in the late 1960s, when they were flat broke and almost homeless. They would call for a rented limo and have the driver stop at a fast food place and buy them some food and beverages and put it onto their limo tab -- to hopefully be paid later. They were too broke to buy the fast food themselves. The point is every situation is different and the same people can be in far different circumstances at different times. It takes judgment and common sense.</p>

<p>I've often been troubled by this question myself. I once photographed a wino slumped on a park-bench, bottle still clutched in hand, but barely conscious. Having processed the film and printed it up I felt the picture had no aesthetic merit and merely victimised the subject. I have never displayed that photograph anywhere. There are situations where a photograph might do some good, but this is an argument to the 'summum bonum', the greater good, and I doubt that in the instant anyone of us can say whether that would be the case. I think the important thing is to get the picture and then decide.</p>