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01/26/2005 10:26:44 PM · #1 |
Greetings....
Part of my assignments at local sporting events is to shoot 'fan art' of some sort. I didn't have a fan art assignment tonight, but as I enjoy shooting candids of fans, I shoot them anyway.
Example of what NOT to provide to the Newspaper
This photo has humor in its own strange way, but it makes the people in the photo look 'bad' and puts them up for ridicule. It's ok for me to have this photo in my personal portfolio, and I did for my PaD and added it to my "My Town" series as well.
How would YOU feel if you were one of the two people in this photo and it appeared in public print?
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01/26/2005 10:29:36 PM · #2 |
| I think it is a great photo. If they felt ok about being seen in a very public place like that then I don't see how a web site is all that different. |
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01/26/2005 10:31:24 PM · #3 |
It seems that if they wanted the fans to actually obey the signs they would have turned them around the other way.
Which of course would have screwed up this wonderful photo opertunity altogether.
Message edited by author 2005-01-26 22:32:05.
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01/26/2005 10:33:54 PM · #4 |
| Public place. No expectation of privacy. How can they complain ... unless they get arrested (unlikely) or you get arrested (also unlikely that they would complain) or you get fired (somewhat more likely) for violating terms of reference for your gig. |
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01/26/2005 10:34:54 PM · #5 |
Hmmm...doesn't look like they're hanging from the railings, just resting on them. The sign's there to stop people actually hanging from them, and weighting it in a way that it's not designed to support in that position.
I'm being difficult, yes. |
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01/26/2005 10:35:15 PM · #6 |
| Well, of course I wouldn't be one of the two people in that picture! But if they wanted to sit there, posing nicely under the sign, they must be ready for whatever comes next. Sure. Print it and run it! |
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01/26/2005 10:37:21 PM · #7 |
Actually...it's not a 'public' place per se, in that admission was charged etc. There are more limited rights for photographing individuals in a place such as that.
Originally posted by Digital Quixote:
Public place. No expectation of privacy. How can they complain ... unless they get arrested (unlikely) or you get arrested (also unlikely that they would complain) or you get fired (somewhat more likely) for violating terms of reference for your gig. |
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01/26/2005 10:41:26 PM · #8 |
1. Yes, I could have submitted the photo to the newspaper and run it in tomorrow's edition.
2. A sporting event held in an arena where tickets are sold is 'public' enough that there is no expectation of privacy legally.
3. Running this photo, in my opinion, would be unethical.
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01/26/2005 10:48:31 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by nsbca7:
It seems that if they wanted the fans to actually obey the signs they would have turned them around the other way.
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That's a VERY good point!!!
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01/26/2005 10:49:30 PM · #10 |
That sign has the same text on both sides :)
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01/26/2005 10:58:10 PM · #11 |
I disagree that this would be unquestionably unethical, given the context. It's really not so simple as 'ethical' or not. Ethics are placed in the context of a set of morals and your responsibility to an imposed (self or otherwise) code. You have to consider which role you're playing. The presumption that you're putting people in a negative light is showing your bias as a reporter, which isn't that great for impartiality if you're running a news piece. The guilt (as you see it) of a third party is entirely irrelevant if you're simply reporting on events. I'm not sure that was what you were doing, but interpretation is usually left up to the viewer in news pieces. This isn't typically the case anymore, as we're increasingly conditioned to accept editorials as news.
As far as the public vs. private space, I was more referring to the rights associated with thw owner of the property, and their (possible) issues with potentially liable happenings in the building, like allowing people to watch in unsafe seating etc. I'm no lawyer, but I do know that there are different sets of issues on private and semi-private property.
Message edited by author 2005-01-26 22:59:21. |
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01/26/2005 11:00:20 PM · #12 |
Here's the twist to this story which I am leading up to in this thread :)
There were two games at the college tonight... The women played first (which was the game I covered) and then the men followed.
I shot this photo during the men's game after I was finished and 'off duty'. Another staff photographer was shooting the men's game.
Our local newspaper started a new feature today. It's called "Reader Photo of the Day".
I submitted this photo to that contest :)
I took it as an observer at the ball game on my own time, just like any other photography enthusiast may have done.
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01/26/2005 11:03:06 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by jimmythefish:
I disagree that this would be unquestionably unethical, given the context. It's really not so simple as 'ethical' or not. Ethics are placed in the context of a set of morals and your responsibility to an imposed (self or otherwise) code. You have to consider which role you're playing. The presumption that you're putting people in a negative light is showing your bias as a reporter, which isn't that great for impartiality if you're running a news piece. The guilt (as you see it) of a third party is entirely irrelevant if you're simply reporting on events. I'm not sure that was what you were doing, but interpretation is usually left up to the viewer in news pieces. This isn't typically the case anymore, as we're increasingly conditioned to accept editorials as news.
As far as the public vs. private space, I was more referring to the rights associated with thw owner of the property, and their (possible) issues with potentially liable happenings in the building, like allowing people to watch in unsafe seating etc. I'm no lawyer, but I do know that there are different sets of issues on private and semi-private property. |
The main reason I didn't submit this photo with my action shot was simply because the photo was uninteresting in any aspect other than the humor of the sign. The sign being where it is makes those guys look silly :)
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01/26/2005 11:04:13 PM · #14 |
| Yes, but uninteresting or irrelevant is fundamentally different than unethical. |
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01/26/2005 11:07:02 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by jimmythefish:
Yes, but uninteresting or irrelevant is fundamentally different than unethical. |
I agree, but I think in this case, the only reason to run the photo is because it makes them look stupid. They aren't doing the sorts of things I look for in fan photos to run as support for basketball games.
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01/26/2005 11:12:48 PM · #16 |
(Preface: I'm not being difficult, and I agree on principle. I just like a discussion...)
True, but, again, the title of the thread was an example of ethics in journalism, which this isn't. This is an example of your ethics as a person interested in not making anyone look stupid. I agree that there's no reason to run this, but the reason isn't that it's unethical. The reason is that it has no good story behind it, and it's at best pointing out a minor, ambiguous infraction which may or may not make them look stupid. Personally, I don't think it makes them look particularly stupid. You could replace that sign with 'no idiots here' and it'd make them look like idiots by association. This is done all the time, everywhere.
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01/26/2005 11:17:56 PM · #17 |
Originally posted by jimmythefish:
(Preface: I'm not being difficult, and I agree on principle. I just like a discussion...)
True, but, again, the title of the thread was an example of ethics in journalism, which this isn't. This is an example of your ethics as a person interested in not making anyone look stupid. I agree that there's no reason to run this, but the reason isn't that it's unethical. The reason is that it has no good story behind it, and it's at best pointing out a minor, ambiguous infraction which may or may not make them look stupid. Personally, I don't think it makes them look particularly stupid. You could replace that sign with 'no idiots here' and it'd make them look like idiots by association. This is done all the time, everywhere. |
Point taken :)
I have been in a discussion with one of the other staff photographers at the newspaper about this photo tonight and he is telling me the same thing you are. He actually said I should have run it... lol
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01/26/2005 11:23:05 PM · #18 |
| Heh...I just spent a term being lectured to on ethics in professional practice, so forgive me for being verbose. Good luck with the reader photo contest on any account. |
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01/26/2005 11:25:45 PM · #19 |
I think there can be an ethical issue here, but it's more dependent on the editorial staff of the paper and how they use it, and in what context. Had they put it next to a story about fans doing illegal things at sporting events, eg., then I may have minded, but then again, as has been pointed out earlier, there is no expectation of privacy in a public venue such as this.
Had the paper printed this picture for the purpose of lighthearted humor, then I would not have minded being in the picture. |
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01/26/2005 11:49:13 PM · #20 |
I don't think publishing such a picture would have hurt anyone's feelings and thus would not have been unethical. This is mere levity and would not be the same as publishing one of somebody digging their butt or eating a booger. Publishing something like that, unless it was someone like G. W. Bush doing it, would be considered unethical.
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01/27/2005 12:34:47 AM · #21 |
| Had the rail given way under their weight (and you had caught a shot of them falling) thereby halting the game for a few minutes, (bringing thier leaning on the rail to the status of a very minor news item) would you have felt it was OK to run the picture? |
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01/27/2005 12:47:19 AM · #22 |
people that age would usually be more excited to be in the paper, and appear as a goofball anyways. If that was me I would just be laughing the next day, not embarrassed. It was good of you to take into consideration all possibilities though. Had I taken this photo I don't know if I would have stopped from submitting it.
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01/27/2005 02:31:08 AM · #23 |
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
Had the rail given way under their weight (and you had caught a shot of them falling) thereby halting the game for a few minutes, (bringing thier leaning on the rail to the status of a very minor news item) would you have felt it was OK to run the picture? |
No. I don't think that supports the story that my photos were accompanying. The writer, however, would have probably mentioned the event since it would have affected the play of the game.
In theory, it would have been impossible for me to catch that shot anyway. If I was assigned to the game, my camera would have been pointed at the game and I would have never seen the event through my lens. When I'm photographing a game, my eye doesn't come away from the viewfinder very often. I follow the ball, even when it's on the other end of the court. I don't even review my photos on the LCD until there is a time out or another break in the play.
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01/27/2005 02:56:17 AM · #24 |
Originally posted by petrakka:
people that age would usually be more excited to be in the paper, and appear as a goofball anyways. If that was me I would just be laughing the next day, not embarrassed. It was good of you to take into consideration all possibilities though. Had I taken this photo I don't know if I would have stopped from submitting it. |
This is probably true. When I talked to them, they were indeed happy with the idea of possibly having their photo in the paper. When I introduced myself to them, I told them that I had been shooting some photos of 'fans' and they had been included. At this point, I asked them for their names and what class they were in. According to my newspaper editor, when I tell someone I'm photographing for the paper and they give me their names, the photos are fair game for printing.
The question still remains though... As a photographer or writer, we have the last call on what the viewer/reader sees. The photo I posted in this thread is not the 'best' example of the point I'm trying to make, but it's one of the few like it that I have.
Another Example
I had the opportunity to publish this photo during football season, but I did not even show it to the newspaper staff. I made this judgement call on my own. The photo is funny and I still laugh every time I look at it. I could have published it as some of the feature art that accompanies football stories in the fall. This photo makes this kid look funny and it actually misrepresents him. He's not cross-eyed. I snapped several more of him where he looks perfectly normal. I believe that printing this photo would have had a really negative impact on this person. Whether it ACTUALLY would have or not, who knows. He may be the kind of person who would laugh along with his friends and foes who ridiculed him over it, but he may have been totally opposite as well. What if this kid is already on the edge? What if he is suffering an overbearing amount of ridicule already? He's obviously a candidate for ridicule.
Let's consider the absolute worst case scenario... What if this kid went homocidal or suicidal from the ridicule he received from this photo being published? Whose fault is it? I would feel terribly guilty over it. I would also expect a lawsuit. I don't know what the outcome of it would be, but I'm sure it would happen.
The idea I'm trying to get across and the questions I'm trying to ask involve the 'ethics' surrounding photojournalism. Just because something is 'legal' doesn't always mean its the right thing to do. A photojournalist gains notariety by producing images that have impact... Even if the impact is negative. In many cases, exploitation of pain and suffering is what has given most of the notable photojournalists a big name in the business. What made James Nachtwey famous? There are many more like him. When you think of 'photojournalism' what types of images come to mind first? For me, it's stuff like war, hunger, pain and suffering, et al. How many of you, who are not sports shooters, can name 3 or 4 famous sports photographers without looking them up? Dorthea Lange's most famous photograph is "Migrant Mother." Its a simple portrait, but it is playing on the 'downtrodden' nature of the subject.
I may be rambling here but these are thoughts that I have... I'm not saying it's wrong to do what these people do. What I'm saying is that it's wrong to do it unnecessarily. I don't want to take an opportunity to gain notariety at the expense of a person or group of people when the photo itself doesn't have some other outstanding quality about it.
Wow.. it's late here... good night :)
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01/27/2005 03:28:07 AM · #25 |
John;
Thoughts on Tuba-Boy
This is a hysterical photograph at a sort of gross level, I don't actually think the cross-eyed part's the main thing, though it doesn't hurt. The really funny part is that the tuba is a gross, "obese" instrument and the kid's a gross, obese kid. The way his chin strap is compressing the flesh of his cheeks really hammers the point home.
Now, IF you were to publish this image (which you've told us you didn't) the only possible reason it would get printed is because it's a lampoon; it's making fun of someone, giving us laughs at his expense. There are several kinds of lampoons, some less objectionable than others; a photo that shows a normal individual taking a pratfall on ice is a "universal" lampoon, and fairly unobjectionable. But put that person on crutches, with one leg, and it gets a lot more objectionable...
In any event, the only reason this is funny, in the end, is because the kid looks like a tuba. So in my opinion you made the right call here; why put him up for ridicule like that?
Thoughts on Nachtwey
With very few exceptions, the "great" photographers who stick in our minds are "witnesses", which is indeed what Nachtwey calls himself. Adams was a witness for the wilderness. Lange and Walker Evans were witnesses for the poverty and despair of their times. Cartier Bresson was a witness of the ordinary in all its subtle manifestations. Nachtwey is a witness for man's inhumanity to man. Witnessing is a noble calling IMO.
I'm suprised you didn't mention Diane Arbus, a witness of the bizarre. And the interesting thing about her is, without exception, her subjects posed willingly. Many accused her of "exploiting" them, but I don't think that's a fair word to apply to any witness, anywhere.
Back to Nachtwey; he is doing something that simply has to be done. That he has attained fame and (presumably) wealth from it is neither here nor there. I don't think in any way he can be accused of "exploitation", because his subjects themselves are the victims of mass, grotesque exploitation by a power-mad world that doesn't care one fig about them, and it seems quite clear, from his images, that he does care, and cares passionately.
The history of photojournalism is a history of witnessing, and photojournalism has arguably done more to raise human awareness of the plight of our brothers than anything ever did in the history of the planet. Before photojournalists, we suffered alone and ignored. With the advent of photography, and particularly "portable" photography, the world began to share our suffering. Take Robert Capra; his photos were absolutely integral to educating the average, insulated American about what we were fighting for, and what price we paid, in WWII.
Is there any plausible ethical system that would deny the absolute necessity of publishing, for example, the horrific images brought back from the liberated concentration camps of Nazi Germany? Any individual in one of those images might feel humiliated by the exposure of his or her suffering and debasement, but surely the greater good, by far, was served by exposing these camps?
I'm rambling on. Clearly, this is a topic I feel strongly about...
Robt.
Message edited by author 2005-01-27 03:31:17.
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