Etiquette, Photography ethics

[sasha_feather]

It's been a long time since I've been this run down. I'm too tired to do much of anything, including reading, and Facebook games are not loading. So I suppose I'll write a post.

1. Is there an internet etiquette for quoting people from locked LJ/DW discussions, even if it's to another locked post? My gut feeling is not to do it without express permission, even if nearly all the people involved are mutual friends.

The reason I ask is because we have a good/frustrating/thought-provoking discussion of fanfic going on in mystickeeper's journal, in a locked post. I want to talk about it more, in my own space, maybe even in a public post, and I'm wondering if/how to quote and attribute people. Maybe I'll just say my own piece and have done, but that ignores giving credit whereg it's due. It's the push and pull between privacy and attribution, which I have struggled with before. And the only way through it is to get over myself and ask people straight out, I suppose.

[eta: mystickeeper unlocked the post, and it is here.]

2. I can write a post about photography ethics even with my brain half turned off, I think, because I've thought about it a lot.

If there's a way to be grateful for something horrible that happened, a silver lining in my own experience of a bad event, then the WisCon troll incident forced me to take a hard look at a couple of my own issues: taking photos of people, posting said photos, and body image issues in general. Body image issues I've written about elsewhere, and that's outside the scope of this post.

The issue: taking photos of people in public places, or semi-public places. Related issue: posting said photos on the internet.

Someone who was on my f-list does this in what became apparent to me was an assholish and entitled way of doing things. I left and a comment and then defriended him, when it became apparent he didn't take my objections seriously. I also sought opinions via email from a few friends.

antarcticlust said:
"It may be legal, but is it really ethical to take photos of people if they tell you they don't want to be photographed? The photographer Michael Hutchinson described it as an exchange - a person in a photograph is a living being, not an object, and so there has to be some kind of relationship between the photographer and the photographed. Whether it's ethical is clearly subjective (like all issues of ethics), but I know that a lot (most?) photographers will respect the wishes of someone NOT to have their photograph taken if they express it. I know some that offer their contact info and free prints in exchange for their being a subject, as a way of saying thanks and diffusing the situation.

"So yes, it's legal, unless you're photographing children and putting them on the web - that can be sticky. Or taking photos of women in Pakistan, or any other number of places where it IS illegal (or culturally frowned upon). [The photographer] can't legally use the photographs for commercial purposes without a model release, which is a separate issue entirely."

My standard is clearly higher than that of the law. I like taking pictures, but overall in life, my actions ideally are motivated by compassion, empathy, and treating others as I would wish to be treated. As opposed to entitlement, and getting the photo I want at the expense of the person photographed. People are ends in themselves, not a means to an end: in this case the end being a good photo.

But, as in point number 1: I don't always seek express permission. I sometimes just go with my gut, I read body language, or I put the impetus on the person being photographed to express their displeasure. And this still makes me a little bit uncomfortable. Not everyone has the same body language, and not everyone is comfortable expressing displeasure or asking after the fact to have the photo deleted or locked.

Sometimes I ask outright, especially new people, "are you OK with me taking (and/or posting) photos?" Sometimes people are surprised when I ask this.

jesse_the_k told me about a system at some conference or other where there were many people present who were not neurotypical, and thus didn't have the same body language and social skills as neurotypicals. At the conference they used a system of stickers on name badges to express whether or not it was OK for people to take photos. This system is better, but it only works at a place where people wear badges, not out on the public street or at parties.

The whole issue of linking identities to photos complicates it again.

Comments

[trouble]

I suppose you could ask people who made comments if you could quote them. *shrug*

[sasha_feather]

Yeah, I think that is the only way to do it. Which... I sort of want to reference the *entire* conversation, so I find it slightly frustrating. But I'll get over that I guess.

[wrdnrd]

The fiction/fanfiction discussion on mystickeeper's journal isn't locked. I'm un-logged-in to LJ right now but i can still see it.

[wrdnrd]

Wow, up to 86 comments. The comment thread has been fascinating!!

I hope you make a follow-up post of your own. I really want to hear more of your thoughts on the subject!

[sasha_feather]

She unlocked it after I made this post (see comments on lj).

Thanks, I think I will-- I think about fanfic a lot and I've just been stewing over this one.

[wrdnrd]

Oh, that's an interesting ethical question itself -- making a private post suddenly public! Tho' reading comments on your LJ i see that mystickeeper suspected that most people commenting in the post would be comfortable with it being made public since she knows them and knows they talk about fanfic publicly anyway.

What i find especially interesting about the comments on mystickeeper's fiction/fanfiction post is that the comment thread turned so tense. I did think that antarcticlust was being a little inflammatory, tho' entirely unintentionally. It's interesting to think about why fanfiction can be such a tense, inflammatory subject to discuss -- even among people who occasionally read it and bear it no ill will overall.

Speaking of photos and privacy. There was a big case here in Seattle about 7 years or so ago that went all the way up to the state's supreme court. A man had been taking pics up women's skirts at Pike Place Market. The victims claimed it was a violation of privacy; the perp claimed it was a public place and it was okay. The ruling of the WA supreme court was interesting: they acknowledged that as state law was written, the perp was right that his pics fell under laws about public space, but they ALSO noted that the law was hideously written if it allowed someone to take pics up women's skirts (for example) and they strongly urged the legislature to fix it.

What *i* said at the time was this: No matter where i am in public, my skirt is always a private space!!! Sheesh! How badly does a law have to be written to make my skirt *public*?!

[sasha_feather]

What i find especially interesting about the comments on mystickeeper's fiction/fanfiction post is that the comment thread turned so tense.

That is what is bothering me about it still, especially because I am good friends (and neighbors!) with antarcticlust. I was trying to get at that with my further-down comment about emotional needs. I also think there is something to the "insidious bias" that I mentioned--that people can unintentionally say anti-fanfic things even while they profess not to judge it. But I don't want to pick on or pile on my friend, either, you know? Even though I really *do* want to pick apart her arguments, because it's an argument I care about.

OK, about the Pike's Place incident: HOLY SHITE. Of course a woman's skirt is always a private place!! Were there any women on that supreme court? Because this is why we need people like Sotomayor on the national supreme court. This is why identity politics matter. I realize I'm probably preaching to the choir.

Autreat's system

[jesse_the_k]

Archivist me swooping from the Rhinelander Public Library to say: the annual conference by and for autistic people (as opposed to parents) is called "Autreat." Their coded badges offer info about desired interaction level ( and can be modified during the con). Red = no interaction, please; yellow = willing to be part of conversation; green = willing to entertain strangers. As an NT, I found these categories illuminating.

I proposed a variation on this system for W33, and I think it would be useful for any semi-public event which intersects with its member's notion of "safe space:"

red = no photo
yellow = always ask
green = snap away (pix always welcome)

Given WisCon's historical allergy to badge decoration, this didn't fly. I think it would be wonderful if a default guideline was "no pix", with a color required to give permission. That way the photo would document the OK, since it would contain the yellow or green dot

Re: Autreat's system

[sasha_feather]

Thank you for clarifying. It seems like a good system to me! Maybe it needs more time or a harder sell to get through to the ConCom.

Re: Autreat's system

[wrdnrd]

pink = Cabell, PLEASE PHOTOGRAPH! ;)

I thought the badge ribbon scheme for photographs was brilliant, especially in light of the troll incident from the previous year. I was very sorry the concom overrode it simply out of historical allergy to badge decoration. I'd love to see them reconsider it as part of their ongoing improvements in providing safe space.

Re: Autreat's system

[sasha_feather]

pink = Cabell, PLEASE PHOTOGRAPH!

Bwahahaha!!

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

I only locked it because I was talking about what I want to be when I grow up. If you want me to unlock it, I can do that. I don't think anybody who commented would mind (I'd send a mass e-mail letting them know).

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

As a follow-up, I made the entry public.

I don't think anyone who left comments will mind; people who talked about writing fanfiction already post about it in their journals under the same names, so I think we're okay. If you feel weird about it, you could still PM people and double-check. Again, if you want to quote anything I said, go ahead.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

OK! Thanks!

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

I love your point about being motivated by compassion. I think that's my problem with [the photographer]'s attidude - some people can be really proprietary. Just having a camera and the law at your disposal doesn't mean you should take whatever photos you want.

And: some people don't say NO to being photographed, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're okay with it - they just might not be okay with saying no. It makes me think of vito_excalibur's post about hugging, and how my reaction was basically, "Okay, I'm going to screw up and hug people because that's my nature. My job is to try and read body language better, but also to be the kind of person that it's okay to say no to."

Going with your gut - reading people, getting out of your head and into someone else's, being compassionate - that's the real trick to so many of these interactions. It's a difficult skill for people to acquire, and it's one that always develops.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

That is a good comparison! We all make mistakes sometimes, but it's good if we're willing to listen and learn from those mistakes and try to do better.

[xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com]

Your mention of hugging reminds me of what I said to a friend's husband once - he's a nice enough guy, but kind of creeps me out a little. Some other friends and I were headed to their house for dinner, and I was last in the door; he hugged the first person in and moved towards the second, who said (reasonably), "I'd hug you but I've got this giant salad in my hands." He took the salad, set it on the table, and hugged her. Then he turned to me. I immediately said, "I'd hug you but I have boundary issues and don't like being touched," and everyone laughed AND he left me alone. :)

Re: photography

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

Understandable.

[xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com]

Two anecdotes:

First, I used to work for an alt newspaper (similar to the Isthmus - in fact we ripped off the Annual Manual from them -but not as good). One day while going through the photo files I found a whole bunch of pictures a staff photographer had taken at Rochester Pride. No names on the images, but I recognized about three people in one of the pictures. I went to the E-in-C with this and explained that I didn't think it was appropriate to have stock photographs of an event like Pride, where the politics of being identified as attending can have serious personal and professional consequences. I then noted that one of the people in the photograph was not out to his family and, for reasons that aren't relevant here, genuinely felt he couldn't be. The editor told me that Pride was held in a public place and that the paper was free to take and print photographs of anyone it wished. She refused to discuss consequences.

Second, a few years ago I attended "Diva Days," an outdoors weekend for women run by REI (I hated it). Part of the registration form included a photo release - not a separate form, but rather one line crammed at the end of the usual release from liability - that would have allowed REI to use photographs of attendees for any promotional purpose at any REI branch - not just locally, but nationally. I refused to sign. The woman taking the forms said, "then you can't register." I said, "Fine. Then I want my money back, because I never would have come if I'd known you could use my face." The woman told me I was making a big deal out of nothing, and I said, sharply, "This is a women's weekend. You do not know anything about the lives of these women - you may have women here who have been assaulted, who have had to file for restraining orders, who have been stalked. If you print a photograph of someone without their knowledge and put even so much as their location in the caption, you may be putting her at risk." The registration lady called over the coordinator; I rehashed all that, and the coordinator said I could register, but that it was MY responsibility to stay out of everyone's photographs.

Both these situations made me ill to think that any organization believes it has a "right" to use a picture of someone for their own purposes.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm glad you spoke up in both instances.

but that it was MY responsibility to stay out of everyone's photographs.

I imagine you artfully and gracefully dodging cameras all day! Sheesh, how is that even possible?!

[xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com]

I know, right? And there was nothing artful about it - I just held my hand in front of my face and said, "Sorry, I didn't sign the photo waiver," and if/when anyone asked me why, I answered honestly.

[linaerys.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're feeling so run down lately.

I like what antarcticlust had to say.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

Thanks. <3

[owlface1.livejournal.com]

i always think about the folks who get caught on camera for the regular "omg look how obese america is!" segment on the news. how would those people feel if they recognized their body (which they certainly could) as being "the bad example"?

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

That bugs me too. Not to mention the headless photos--it's dehumanizing.