Etiquette, Photography ethics
Aug. 20th, 2009 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sasha_featherIt'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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
