Ethics and Photography

There are some who would argue that photographers have no ethics, and sadly there are a few that don't.

What or who we take photographs of, are to the majority, what or whom we wish to photograph. There are photographers who are paid, good money, to take photographs to discredit, embarrass or even hurt people, especially those in the public eye.

So what should we consider before we press the shutter button:

• Could anything be implied from the photograph that we take which is wrong. For example a vegetarian being photographed coming out of a butcher's shop, could imply that they are not a real vegetarian or someone being photographed with a member of parliament whom they dislike, in a way that suggests they support the persons and their policies.
• Another area of controversy is invasion of privacy. This would not just involve taking photographs through someone's window. If you were found with a 1000mm lens near to someone's private property you could find yourself explaining what you are doing there with such a powerful lens - bird watching would not be an acceptable excuse !
• Being too persistent when wanting to photograph someone. As the old saying goes, NO means NO !
• Claiming credit for other people's work is another area.

But even after the shutter button is pressed and the image captured there is still more than happen to the photograph than simple printing.

During my last course I did a post entitled Photoshoped Too Far, and in one part I wrote about a photographer who took some photographs in a war zone. In one photograph there was an American soldier watching as a man carried his child towards him, in another photograph the solider put his hand up to stop people.

The photographer later combined elements from the two photographs creating a new image where the soldier was putting up his hand to the man carrying his child, as if ordering him to stop. Once the photograph was proven to have been manipulated, and the photographer sacked, he was asked why he had created the photograph, the photographer responded that he felt the manipulated photograph was more interesting, even though it implied that the soldier was almost threatening the man with the child. Here two innocent photographs were combined to imply something very different from the reality that the photographer saw.