The Moral, Ethical Self and The Full Frame

The Moral, Ethical Self and The Full Frame

A large majority of photos taken for newspapers exploit tragedies in to today’s age, photographers probably get paid a lot more for an image that is over whelming and full of tragedy. It makes you question the photographer’s morals and ethical beliefs for a sum of money.

It is understandable that if we as the public did not see these kinds of images we would not actually know what is going on in the world and wouldn’t believe the severity of situations in other countries (giving that video didn’t exist). We would have to go by the description of newspaper stories and probably artist’s drawings and paintings, like how they did many years ago before photography came about. I don’t think that it would raise as much awareness because a story with description would not be as hard hitting as an image that can say more than words. The only ethical reason for taking such photos of tragedy, starvation and war would be for the photographer wanting to raise awareness of what is going on in the world, the unethical thoughts behind it would be many photographers taking the same picture and gathering around like a wake of vultures preying on their next meal.

A good example of how ethics and morals come in to play (or DON’T come in to play) when taking a photograph, is an image that was taken of a young 15 year old girl called Fabienne Cherisma, who had been shot dead by police for stealing, the first image is taken by photographer Paul Hanson, who said about the image, that his reason for taking the photograph was “For me, Fabienne’s death and her story is a poignant reminder of the need for a society to have basic security – with or without a disaster.” I can understand from a viewing perspective that it is important to see images like this in order to raise awareness of wrong doings in the world and to make people question why humans behave in this way and do such horrible things to one another.

The next image makes you think about the bigger picture and the full frame as well as the ethical decisions of the photographers taking the photos.  This image was taken by Nathan Webber, of the photographers gathered around poor Fabienne’s body snapping pictures to report back to the masses.

I think this image is a very good example of tragedies being exploited for the purpose of being able to sell a few newspapers and getting paid. It shows the full frame and really makes you think about when an image is taken and what’s actually going on outside the frame of the shot. I think this shot greatly violates the human rights of the girl because they are gathered around like vultures taking pictures of her lifeless body, I don’t think that when they were stood there taking these pictures, were any of them thinking, ‘if this was my child I wouldn’t want a load of photographers gathered around exploiting the death of my baby just to sell some papers or win an award’

I can understand that with regards to shooting an image, a photojournalist is going to shoot images of something that fits their brief for the assignment they are on and they aren’t going shoot images with loads of things that distract from the main subject. So this will always effect what the photographer is shooting as well as what we are seeing, we can’t always see the full frame because of course, that’s not what sells images and newspapers.

Whist researching I came across another debate on the ethics and morals in photography, the news publication The New York Post had put on the front cover ‘DOOMED: Pushed on the track, this man is about to die'. The photographer R Umar Abbassi snapped the photograph of the victim as he had been pushed on to the subway track instead of helping the man as a train was coming towards him, he snapped a picture instead claiming that he was attempting to get the train drivers attention with the flash from his camera, he claimed he was too far away to help the man and unfortunately the oncoming train took the man’s life.

To me this image shows that the photographer had enough time to frame the picture up so that he got only the train and the man struggling to pull himself up in the shot. If he really was just trying to get the attention of the driver of the train then the image would not have been so well framed, the shot would have been all over the place and probably showing other people standing on the side lines, but yet the shot is in focus and is well framed to show the train and the man.

I think this really crosses the line in what is ethically and morally correct. The man could have easily saved or helped the man stuck on the train line, instead he chose to take a photo, frame it up accordingly and then sell the image to the New York Post, also the NYP are equally as to blame for exploiting the tragedy with the way they presented the image on the front cover with the headline caption. It makes me think about what drives us as humans to feel the need to exploit such tragedies all just so that a newspaper publication can sell some new papers and for the photographer to make a quick buck. Not only has this image sparked a big debate on the unethical decision of the photographer for taking the picture but also for the way that the newspaper has presented it – in such a cold and disrespectful way. Again no thought was given to how the poor victim’s family would have felt about this. There is a big difference between trying to raise awareness of tragic events around the world and people just flat out exploiting other peoples misfortunes and trauma.