Photographic ethics

[susan_langford]

<p>I am writing a dissertation concerning photographic ethics. Susan Santog says we should not take photographs of distress or war. Yet Journalists continue to take this sort of image. Some Photographic Journalists later use these images as works of art and may reproduce them in books or display them in Exhibitions. I believe we should be able to view these images in context but is it morally right that they can be used as art without the permission of the people within that photograph. What rights do they have. Any help would be greatly appreciated. </p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Ouch! As if it were not tough enough already, you have also raised the question of getting permission.</p>

<p>The entire issue reminds me of a photo that ran in T<em>he New York Times </em>in the early 1990s. Two Jewish women were being led away naked by two German soldiers, their eyes as wide with fear as any as I have ever seen. Orthodox rabbis objected to the potrayal of the undraped forms, but the <em>Times</em> editors felt that the more compelling interest lay in demonstrating the horrors of the Holocaust, not to mention the reality of it (which some were and still are denying).</p>

<p>I do not have any easy rules on this one. It is certain that getting permission is often not even possible. I am certainly glad that we do have records of many atrocities. Routine pictures of persons who are aged, suffering, or deformed present more problematic cases, I think. I have no easy rules there, either.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[susan_langford]

<p>Hi, I am not talking about permission to print the photographs in newspapers but of the photographers to use them for art, is it ethical. I strongly believe Journalists should take these pictures to inform us of the horrors being inflicted, name and shame the perpetrators. Thankyou for your quick response I will research this photo. This is the kind of information I need, thankyou<br>

Sue</p>

[daverhaas]

<p>Another dilemma is that these photos are often taken in "editorial" or "News" situations to begin with. </p>

<p>Personally - I have issues with "news" photographers turning around and pedaling their photos to whomever wants a copy. Of course I have the same problem with newspapers / media doing that too.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

[Brad_]

>>> I believe we should be able to view these images in context but is it morally right that they can be

used as art without the permission of the people within that photograph. What rights do they have.

 

In general, permission is not required for using non-war subjects photographed in public in a fine-art, or, in a

journalistic context. With respect to "rights," I can't see how that would be any different.

 

Also, "rights" and "ethics" are very different concepts. Perhaps that would be a good place to start...

[Matt Laur]

<p>Art is communication. Showing photographs as such is just a subset of that. People who do street photography - as art for art's sake - aren't any different than a PJ who sees (or indeed <em>plans</em>) a second use for her images.<br /><br />The issue here is the distinction between showing images as art/expression and putting them to <em>commercial use</em> (as in, on the cover of an NGO's fund-raising brochure, or in an ad by a company that donates goods and services to refugee relief, etc). You do need a subject's permission to use their likeness for promotion (as in advertisement, or implied endorsement of a point of view in some sort of advocacy communication). But as art for art's sake? Different territory. The real moral entanglements are found in the specific communications, not in the fact <em>of</em> communication outside of news publishing.</p>

[john_a5]

<p>I couldn't help but visualize a Saturday Night Live skit where photographers are getting releases signed during a fire fight in Fallujah......</p>

<p>Seriously, ethics and bad taste are something personal and there is always a lot of disagreement on these things. What is legal, showing the work, might be the bottom line.</p>

<p>When I took my son to look at colleges, we stopped in at the Eastman House in Rochester, NY. The show at the time was photographs of war (don't remember the title, 10 years ago). The images were powerful and although my son never showed a lot of interest in photo shows, it was obvious how profoundly he was affected by the images. I was glad we got to see the work, which was truly amazing.</p>

<p>Bottom line, each person has to make certain decisions regarding how things sit with them and often until you are in a specific situation you don't know what you would do. The issues are more complicated than we often understand.</p>

[noreen]

<p>Do we need permission of the victims of the Spanish Civil War before we can consider Picasso's <em>Guernica</em> as art, as something other than a graphic statement against war?</p>

[zoewiseman]

<p>There's a photographer who's made quite a profit by going to famine and war torn regions and photographing children dying, not for news services, not to raise awareness, but to further his career. Ethically, to me, it's a tad bit deplorable. It isn't illegal, usually it's children starving in far off lands who never know their likeness is being used to further the career of a photographer. <br>

Now the majority of these images are being used to bring awareness to a situation so that help finds a way to their cause. Or so that the Paris Hilton's of the world understand what war is. The reality of war and the reality of famine or suffering is something that the world needs to see. Apathy is something to be fought for most of the journalists that venture to suffering. Yet, there are still those who go to use it for their own profit. And those people should be shunned, in my eyes. <br>

There are even "workshops" set up in places like India to make money to teach photographers how to "ethically" photograph suffering. I get a bad taste in my mouth when I think of that. </p>

[indraneel]

<p>Are we better off blindfolding ourselves and imagine living in a perfect world? The strong prey upon the weak, that is how the world was designed to be.</p>

<p>For every viewpoint there's one on the other side. Just like journalism can never really be neutral, neither can a dissertation concerning photographic ethics. Choose a viewpoint that comes closest to your heart and argue for it.</p>

<p>I'd rather a photographer go to some remote location to bring back images to benefit their career than not go there at all. I'd rather a photographer go to a Mumbai slum for a photo "workshop" than not go at all. At least that person will see, and maybe feel, something important... and hopefully from the images others will too.</p>

[je ne regrette rien]

<p>Yesterday I read a quote by a war journalist. It read something like</p>

<p>"<em>I can't focus with tears in my eyes. I save my tears for later, when I look and edit my photos</em>".</p>

<p>It is also not as plain as Zoe Wiseman puts it, even if she might be right. Personally I would rather blame the schools who teach you to "shoot ethically" because it's <em><strong>them </strong></em>who make the real money.</p>

<p>I don't think we can always equal the documentation of death, pain, suffering, or even of the human life in general as plain <em><strong>exploitation</strong></em>.</p>

<p>On the one hand there is the need - and maybe the right - to document what is happening. Not only for narrative or documentary purposes, but also to expose facts.</p>

<p>On the other hand there is the need to protect the individual from the exposure of what he/she is or does.</p>

<p>To find our path, we need to consider different situations and different purposes</p>

<ol>

<li>there is the war photojournalist who wants to document and is exposed to the situations documented. Journalists are killed, you know, in Libya, in Bangkok, as happened in Vietnam;</li>

<li>Images of the massacres in Rwanda, the famine in Darfur, the civil war in Somalia. Pictures are far more telling than any written report. I tend to believe that photos are needed to show the public opinion what is happening and to raise awareness. The journalistic coverage of the Vietnam war was extremely important to mobilise public opinion;</li>

<li>Imaged of distressed people: similar reasoning. It is important to show that there is distress, suffering, death, to make the public opinion aware;</li>

<li>Somebody exposed to bombs, gunfire, disease, famine, might not care much of a camera recording;</li>

<li>To some extent there is a "general interest" in documenting these situations. And I have the feeling that the majority of photographers is driven by a genuine interest in the situations they document and that they are "inside" these situations. It's not staying comfortably "at the side of the field of action", but living these situations and taking the associated risks.</li>

</ol>

<p>I wonder whether there is any photojournalist getting rich on such activities.</p>

<p>Then there are other situations, such as street photography, where the purpose is personal interest and the "general interest" probably much weaker. Bruce Gilden says "I have no ethics" when the shoots his flashlight at passer-bys on NYC streets.</p>

<p>Do I exploit people when I take photos like <a href="../photo/6999694">this</a>, <a href="../photo/11974762">this</a>, or <a href="../photo/12450178">this</a>? I don't know if I do, for sure I don't make any money. Maybe my <em><strong>vanity</strong></em>, or my <em><strong>greed </strong></em>for images come into play.</p>

<p>Ethics is very personal, my personal ethical attitude is <em><strong>to be</strong></em> and <em><strong>stay </strong></em>in the photographic situation, being committed to it and facing the risk of being challenged. People must have the right to say "<em>I don't want to be photographed</em>".</p>

<p>Photographing should be, in my opinion, a form of <em><strong>interactive communication</strong></em> between the one who photographs and the one who is photographed.</p>

<p>A suggestion for your essay: after setting up your "research framework", showing different situations and purposes you want to describe and analyse, look for interviews.</p>

<p>My opinion is that this is a very subjective and situation-dependent issue and you can solve it interacting with people actually coping with the matter.</p>

<p>BTW: <em>Bruce Gilden says "I have no ethics" but this is not entirely true. In fact he is so close that he takes the risk of being challenged. I think I read somewhere that he was also hit by one of his subjects, and this might be ethical.</em></p>

[susan_langford]

<p>These answers have raised a lot more questions that I will research, thankyou for the responses. I have researched the Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange, which saved thousands of lives by its publication, Florence Owen Thompson, although she knew the photograph was taken was very unhappy about it being used. Researching The Rwandian Genocide the photographs did not stop this massacre, why was this. <br>

Thankyou all for the time you have taken to write your responses, hopefully I will have more on this subject.</p>

[je ne regrette rien]

<blockquote>the Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange, which saved thousands of lives by its publication, Florence Owen Thompson, although she knew the photograph was taken was very unhappy about it being used.</blockquote>

<p>Photographs are a means of communication. In the case of the "Migrant Mother" its publication served a more general interest, even if in contrast with the particular interest of Florence Owen Thompson. Did Dorothea Lange disregard ethics? Probably yes, since she did not keep the promise to keep the photo private. Was there other reasoning on ethics? Who knows?</p>

<p>Documenting and communicating not necessarily solves a problem: not in Somalia, not in Rwanda, not in Syria. But it's not the photographer's task to solve the problems documented.</p>

<p>It's the public opinion who is responsible to care and to ask for action.</p>

[J.W. Wall]

<blockquote>

<p> The Rwandian Genocide the photographs did not stop this massacre, why was this. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's a political issue, isn't it? <br>

I have a difficult time thinking of war photographers in the same vein as paparazzi. Still, there is an element of recording events in both, is there not?</p>

[Art X Photography]

<p>"There's a photographer who's made quite a profit by going to famine and war torn regions and photographing children dying, not for news services, not to raise awareness, but to further his career. Ethically, to me, it's a tad bit deplorable"....<br>

"Now the majority of these images are being used to bring awareness to a situation so that help finds a way to their cause." (<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=398598">Zoe Wiseman</a>)<br>

Although I can see your argument and appreciate what your suggesting in the first part of what you say, I also use the second part of your quote to cancel out that reasoning, Zoe.<br>

Awareness in any form can only serve to highlight important issues rather than hide them. If the 'deplorable' intent with which these images are highlighted is one such method then perhaps they're not so deplorable after all, as a thought.<br>

Susan, the use of the term 'art' be it depicting photojournalism or any other genre of photography is very much subjective even collectively subjective, at best. If those small groups happen to be influential members of the media then yes that influence is far reaching. The morality or ethical argument you apply can equally be applied to street photography of a homeless man/ woman or child, a fashion victim walking down the street, or any other photograph taken in the public domain. That said, what permission are you referring to. How does one gain permission in the context you apply? Equally, how does one gain permission in street photography or any other image taken in the public arena. If in fact you're referring to the photographers permission then I suspect that permission is granted otherwise the images would not be used<br>

The exhibitions of art you refer to often come about to highlight the career of the photographer more so than to use distress and war to make money or for 'artistic' (again subjective interpretation) reasons, or they are used to highlight a subject matter and provide perspective in a series of images (as I see it)<br>

You also suggest that when these images are used to highlight or name and shame in the media that that then is acceptable (if i understand your premise correctly) but I would argue much like Zoe has suggested that the intent of the photographer may not be as altruistic as the editor would like us to think. Speaking of editors and the like, there's a fair argument to suggest they're pushing their own agenda as well with what they publish and offer up to their audience.<br>

IMHO, photography as a hobby or a living will always be at odds with itself. The purists will always argue that the digital age killed photography, the moralists will argue photojournalism lost its soul due to capitalism, and the age old argument of whether an image has stopped being an image due to photoshop will rage for a while yet.<br>

At the end of the day you make a fair point as does everyone else in this thread but I wouldn't necessarily negate the end result of photojournalism to make the world aware even if the intent of the photographer isn't always pure. Applying an artistic interpretation will always be a matter of opinion.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>Photographers take these photos because there is a kind of voyeurism in the people who look at these photos. Who doesn't slow down when passing an accident along the side of the road to see what's gojng on? If you want to write a dissertation about the ethics of photographers, you would be remiss leaving out the instincts of the viewer to want to see these photos.</p>

[susan_langford]

<p>I know we are all voyeuristic but hate seeing violence and have in the past stepped in to protect someone. I would never harm someone or something on purpose yet I view these images. My anger rises at what some humans can inflict on another living person or creature. My tutor asks me why I was so interested in the Rwandan Genocide, my answer was guilt. The tutor replied that I should find something deeper about myself concerning this subject. I remember seeing the scenes on TV which upset me greatly but I did not do anything about it. My research has shown me the situation was more complicted than I first understood. What concerns me is that I saw the images but failed to do anything. <br>

All your comments have raised other issues and these are greatly appreciated.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p>With regard to ethics, I would make a distinction between the classic historical position of the photojournalist and the contemporary one:<br /> Traditionally, the photojournalist sees him/herself as a witness to history. This process occurs in two superficially different but essentially identical ways:<br /> 1) Publication in media shortly after the event in question<br /> 2) Publication as works in art galleries, history and other reference books at various later times.<br /> If we consider one of the major historical events of the 20^th century, the Nazis’ final solution involving the murder of over 6 million people in concentration camps, we see how crucial this function as a witness to history is – as long as the photographs exist, holocaust deniers can instantly be proved to be liars, notwithstanding that the pictures show extreme distress and suffering. Obtaining the permission of the depicted persons would of course be impossible, what is crucial (and what happens in almost all cases) is that the photographers concerned behave in a professional and principled manner. Difficulties arise in cases such as that of Oliviero Toscani and his notorious Benetton campaign, in which he employs a multi-layered post-modernist slant – he shows, for example, an image of a dying AIDS patient as part of a campaign to sell sweaters, which looks like the ultimate in crass insensitivity and commercial exploitation, but in fact use of the image had been cleared with the deceased’s family.<br /> Even in this classic scenario, ethic and commerce are strange bedfellows – for example, it is said that Sebastiao Salgado was able to undertake his vast high-principled monograph “Workers” partly from his earnings from pictures of Ronald Reagon being shot by John Hinckley, which SS did as a routine White House roster assignment.</p>

<p>The contemporary position of the photojournalist is vastly different – the main dilemma here is not “Should I photograph suffering?” but “Should I tolerate being embedded with armed forces on one side of a conflict in such a way that makes balanced reporting almost impossible, notwithstanding that this may be the only way I can get anywhere near the conflict in question?” Ever since the Vietnam War, military staff colleges have taught young officers that tight control of media workers is essential and that they must never allow reporters to wander freely as they did in Vietnam. This is the other side of the ethical question – the countless images of pain and suffering that are never made.</p>

<p>Finally, a short observation – many working and former working photographers such as myself feel that Susan Sontag’s understanding of the process of actually making photographs is … less than perfect. But judge this for yourself!</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Look at the photographs taken on 9/11 and the following days, and while many will voice concerns about things photographed, police lines crossed, body parts and people jumping to their deaths photographed, I am glad all those pictures were made, and wish many more had been. It was pure history, ongoing in real-time and without these pictures, it would have been lost forever, as are all the pictures not taken. </p>

<p> </p>

[michaellinder]

<p>Photography raises consciousness and spurs people to take action. These are good reasons why a photographer shoots a photograph of a naked woman screaming in agony after being burned with napalm.</p>

[indraneel]

<blockquote>

<p>What concerns me is that I saw the images but failed to do anything.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That may not be entirely right. Every experience, however tiny, will have an effect on a person's future decisions and actions. It may not be a huge action or decision, and it may not be immediate, but it will be there nevertheless. Without the experience, there would not be even that. Those images might not help anyone in Rwanda, but if you're better prepared and in a position to do anything about the next genocide, you will remember those images.</p>

[clgriffin]

<p>Speaking for the profession, in which I was a minor player, if we didn't go, you wouldn't know.</p>

<p>Steve McCurry's National Geo cover shot of the Afghan Girl, so famous all you have to do is Google Afghan Girl, is the best example I know of. It served the purpose of highlighting the plight of refugees and it has been on the walls of many galleries, including a show at our local Southeast Museum of Photography.</p>

<p>We all know about it and many, many people around the world have seen it. The plight of women in Afghanistan has been linked to the image, although she was not exactly in Afghanistan at the time. And what did the fame of this image do for her or to her specifically?</p>

<p>Nothing.</p>

<p> Her life went on as it did for thousands of other Afghan women in the same situation. You can see much information in the followup features listed at any search site.</p>

<p>Good luck in your paper, but your worries about the privacy of the subject is just another way of advocating censorship.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>your worries about the privacy of the subject is just another way of advocating censorship.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No, it's not. The worries of the OP are a concern about a photographer's responsibility to the subjects he or she shoots, a laudable concern. Doesn't mean it should stop anyone from taking a picture, especially not of something that needs to be shown. But considering one's subjects is never a bad thing and has little to do with censorship.</p>

<p>A photographer's deciding, for whatever reason, not to take or not to show a photo, is NOT censorship. Even if the subject were to ask you not to take or show their picture, that wouldn't be censorship. It would be a request.</p>

[clgriffin]

<p>Well, Fred, I read her question with regard to such images being treated as art. As you must understand by now, what is art is pretty damned subjective.</p>

<p>People wanting to advocate sensitivity towards the subject may be humanitarian or altruistic, but it also leads to the "should we" or "should we not" debate in which the people on one side who would rather not, see nothing wrong with denying the people who would.</p>

<p>Am I stepping on your toes?</p>

[susan_langford]

<p>Thankyou to every one who has contributed to these questions. It has opened up my paper to many questions, more than I could ever hoped for. I do not believe in censorship, if a photograph helps one person then it has done its job. I was concerned about the use of the photograph used in art. Your answers have changed my opinion concerning this. Sometimes we need reminding of what certain human beings are capable of. Thankyou, any other comments would be appreciated</p>