A point that I made earlier that I would like to revisit is the notion of the photo being defined by the homelessness of the subject.
Many claim that street photography is what it is, and these people are in public and therefore subject to be photographed. I agree, and I think most would. What calls the issue into question is whether the picture is defined by the homelessness. This is the case when the photographer is trying to impress others with his sensitivity to the plight of the homeless, or when the photographer is making photos according to what seems to be a fad of photographing people when they are unhappy. It is the case when the photographer hopes to make a photo that will be seen as relevant, so as to impress judges in a photo contest. It is the case when a photographer is trying to impress his boss or future boss (within his portfolio) with his street photography skills. It is the case when trying to manipulate the guilt of gallery viewers. There are other scenarios where the photographer is purposely seeking a homeless subject, but these provide a few examples.
In these cases, each photographer has a moral obligation to examine his motives and intentions, and then make a decision that is morally defensible. One test of that motive being defensible is that when the photographer's motives are challenged, he has an articulate and well-considered response. To me, asserting that scenes are the street are in the public domain, so get stuffed, (however politely worded) does not rise to that standard.
There are many, many examples where the subject's demeanor and appearance reveals a range of effects of and responses to the human condition, and these are the best reasons to photograph people in different situations than our own. But I can find no justification for identifying such subjects as being homeless, and photos that portray them as obviously homeless (such as in their cardboard refrigerator box on the grate in the Washington Mall), aren't pictures of their humanity but rather more like pictures of animals at the zoo. It takes a very clear and thoughtful sense of morality to navigate those situations, it seems to me. Those that might have the verbal caption, "Look at that homeless bum in the cardboard box" aren't much better than photos of aboriginal people engaging in what seem to us primitive customs with the caption, "Look at those naked savages."
When I see a photo of a person that does NOT demonstrate that he or she is homeless, then why identify them as such? Without providing a name or a means of response, the argument that it is done for their benefit seems hollow.
Dorothea Lange documenting scenes for the government presents a special case. One is that the people in those scenes should 1.) know who she is working for, 2.) know what the purpose of her photography is, and 3.) have some expectation that the photographs depict their actual condition. Migrant Mother may fail on all three counts, based on the complaints of the subject and her descendants. The subject in question complained that the photograph presented them as being in a different situation than they actually were, and that Lange manipulated the pose to one reflecting pain and suffering against the character of the people involved. That is, of course, only one side of the story and we'll never know it completely. But it seems to me that documentary photos for the government or the media have a special obligation to present things as they are, and not to further any stated or unstated agenda.
Photojournalism is another special case, but there are plenty of moral pitfalls to be avoided there, too. Those ethics get debated ad infinitum, but I don't think they usually apply in cases where photographers who are not photojournalists are pretending to be as a hobby of for their own selfish motives.
What is legal is not the same thing as what is moral, though I don't think the latter needs to be dictated by anyone in authority. That doesn't mean the morality of it cannot be argued, however, using the arts of persuasion.
I once learned this the hard way. While in college, I was using a borrowed medium-format camera of high quality to go out and make pictures that I hoped to enter in a photo contest. I was in Houston, and driving around the Houston Ship Channel looking for industrial subjects (one doesn't have to look hard there, at least in the days before security concerns). One plant's workers were on strike, and there were picketers at the gate. I asked them if I could photograph them, and made a picture of a union picketer standing next to his son of perhaps 11 or 12, who was holding the sign. As I was going back to the car, several union fellows drove up in a hurry, and demanded to know who I was making pictures for. I was already in the driver's seat, and didn't like the look of them, and being a college-student-idiot I shouted "the paper" and drove off. I received a call the next day from a person who refused to identify himself asking which paper I was photographing for. They had clearly found a way to identify me from my vehicle plates, and that startled me quite a lot. But it also demonstrated to me why it is so important to know your motives and lay them out honestly and completely. Fact is, I didn't think the truth was good enough, and that should have been ringing moral bells in my conscience.
Rick "thinking the word 'homeless' in the caption or image title is often what causes the problem" Denney
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Originally Posted by Denis Pleic
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