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Category: Ethics

  • Behind the LA Times’ decision to run a controversial photo with its coverage of the mass shooting in Monterey Park – Poynter

    Behind the LA Times’ decision to run a controversial photo with its coverage of the mass shooting in Monterey Park - Poynter

    Behind the LA Times’ decision to run a controversial photo with its coverage of the mass shooting in Monterey Park – Poynter

    The front page of Monday’s Los Angeles Times featured a photo of the shooter dead in his van.

    via Poynter: https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/los-angeles-times-front-page-newspaper-photo-mass-shooter/

    The photo, taken by Times staff photographer Allen J. Schaben, is not gory, and was taken from a distance. But the shooter is dead and the caption reads, “Officials investigate after the suspect died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Torrance on Sunday.” (If you want to see the front page of the Times, click here.)

  • LensCulture’s Street Photography Awards Spark Questions of Bias | PetaPixel

    LensCulture's Street Photography Awards Spark Questions of Bias

    LensCulture’s Street Photography Awards Spark Questions of Bias

    It raises questions of bias or impropriety.

    via PetaPixel: https://petapixel.com/2022/09/01/lenscultures-street-photography-awards-spark-questions-of-bias/

    Last week, LensCulture revealed the winners of its 2022 Street Photography Awards, including the top three series and top three single image winners. The competition is widely seen as the most prestigious street photography competition in the world. But less than a week later, the results of the awards have continued to instigate chatter, though not for the quality of the photos.

  • About those Ketanji Brown Jackson photos—what if the problem isn’t Annie Leibovitz? – TheGrio

    About those Ketanji Brown Jackson photos—what if the problem isn’t Annie Leibovitz?

    About those Ketanji Brown Jackson photos—what if the problem isn’t Annie Leibovitz?

    Images of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in Vogue’s September 2022 issue revived criticism of veteran photographer Leibovitz

    via TheGrio: https://thegrio.com/2022/08/19/ketanji-brown-jackson-photos-annie-leibovitz/

    OPINION: Images of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in Vogue’s September 2022 issue revived criticism of the veteran photographer—but is she solely to blame?

  • Would Showing Graphic Images of Mass Shootings Spur Action to Stop Them? | The New Yorker

    Would Showing Graphic Images of Mass Shootings Spur Action to Stop Them?

    Would Showing Graphic Images of Mass Shootings Spur Action to Stop Them?

    Returning to an old debate after the horrific killings in Uvalde, Texas.

    via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/would-showing-graphic-images-of-mass-shootings-spur-action-to-stop-them

    The root of their pain lay in the photographs’ gruesome specificity and its capacity to answer in precise detail questions that were too lurid to have occurred otherwise: how the bodies lay; how the dead faces were contorted; how the spatters of blood patterned the walls. Many in the courtroom, journalists and family members alike, averted their eyes. It seemed that the cumulative detail of those images could tell them little that they did not already know: nine people were dead for no other reason than the color of their skin.

  • From Sandy Hook to Uvalde, the Violent Images Never Seen – The New York Times

    From Sandy Hook to Uvalde, the Violent Images Never Seen

    From Sandy Hook to Uvalde, the Violent Images Never Seen

    Frustrated Americans ask whether the release of graphic photos of gun violence would lead to better policy. But which photos, and who decides?

    Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/30/us/politics/photos-uvalde.html

    “What makes this a challenging ethics call is that when you’re a photo editor, you never really do know which is the photograph that is going to seem exploitative, and what image will touch the conscience of people and move the needle on the debate.”

  • Magnum photographer defends images of teenage gang rape victim after humanitarian organisation removes them from website

    Magnum photographer defends images of teenage gang rape victim after humanitarian organisation removes them from website

    Magnum photographer defends images of teenage gang rape victim after humanitarian organisation removes them from website

    After controversy on social media surrounding Newsha Tavakolian’s photographs of East Congo, Médecins Sans Frontières announces internal review

    via The Art Newspaper – International art news and events: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/05/20/magnum-photographer-defends-images-of-teenage-gang-rape-victim-after-humanitarian-organisation-removes-them-from-website

    The celebrated Iranian photographer Newsha Tavakolian has defended herself against accusations of unethical practice after publishing a series of identifiable images of African teenage rape survivors made while on assignment for the international humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

  • AP Cancels NFT Sale Amid Criticisms it Would Be Profiting From Suffering | PetaPixel

    AP Cancels NFT Sale Amid Criticisms it Would Be Profiting From Suffering

    AP Cancels NFT Sale Amid Criticisms it Would Be Profiting From Suffering

    “Profiting from suffering”

    via PetaPixel: https://petapixel.com/2022/02/25/ap-cancels-nft-sale-amid-criticisms-it-would-be-profiting-from-suffering/

    After significant backlash, the Associated Press pulled plans to offer a video of a boat overcrowded with migrants as an NFT. The situation has called into question the ethics of selling photojournalism at all.

  • On the Depiction of Africans in Photo Contests – PhotoShelter Blog

    On the Depiction of Africans in Photo Contests
    For many years, the photo contest industry has contended with accusations of racism and classism for awarding and promoting “poverty porn.” Although many contests have worked to diversify their juries and tried to attract a broader field of entrants, barely a year goes by without a major issue or scandal.

  • Italian photographer dropped from prize after accusations he identified rape survivors in India without consent

    https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/10/19/photographer-dropped-from-prize-for-identifying-child-rape-victims
    By publishing full names alongside images, Marco Gualazzini stands accused of breaking child protection laws and putting his subjects in danger

  • More on Consent | Conscientious Photography Magazine

    https://cphmag.com/more-on-consent/
    There obviously is a topic here that extends beyond this particular case in question. Last year, I wrote an article about consent that focused on what I see as photographers’ obligations. It might be worthwhile, though, to approach the subject matter from the other side: from the vantage point of those find themselves on the other side of the camera.

  • Dancing with the gods of deception – Thoughts of a Bohemian

    Dancing with the gods of deception
    The latest and probably most potent existential rain dance is Magnum’s own Jonas Bendiksen Veles experiment. Using a mixture of AI, computer-generated content, real photos, and GPT 3, he put together what he hoped would be a self-destroying fake photo essay

  • Photojournalist Quits Canon Philippines Ambassadorship After Backlash | PetaPixel

    https://petapixel.com/2021/07/22/photojournalist-quits-canon-philippines-ambassadorship-after-backlash/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+petapixel+%28PetaPixel%29
    Photojournalist and new addition to the Canon Philippines “Crusaders of Light” ambassador program Jilson Tiu has called it quits after Canon failed to apologize for what he and many others viewed as a lack of diversity within its program.

  • The Ethics of Documenting Your Own Family | by Savannah Dodd | May, 2021 | Witness

    https://witness.worldpressphoto.org/the-ethics-of-documenting-your-own-family-7225ca8bd59a
    While turning the camera inward may alleviate ethical qualms about positionality, the influence of one’s identity on the way that we see (and thus represent) the world, photographing the people closest to us is not without ethical considerations of its own. As photojournalist and filmmaker, Amanda Mustard explains: “It’s a gift to have the perspective and personal experiences that allow access to important stories that may not be told with depth otherwise. But with greater depth comes the need for greater ethical care.”

  • Photojournalists under David Furst felt ‘set up to fail’ – Columbia Journalism Review

    https://www.cjr.org/special_report/david-furst-departure-photo-editor-new-york-times.php
    The New York Times quietly parted ways with international picture editor David Furst in April after an investigation into his treatment of colleagues and freelancers, leaving many at the paper asking why his departure had taken so long.

  • Opinion | Awards buoyed former New York Times editor who mistreated freelance photographers – The Washington Post

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/09/awards-buoyed-former-new-york-times-editor-who-mistreated-freelance-photographers/
    Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for the Times, told the Erik Wemple Blog via email in April, “David Furst is no longer with The New York Times. As a general matter of policy, we do not comment on personnel matters.” Pressed further, the Times refused to answer all but the most basic questions and didn’t grant an interview request with a manager to discuss standard practices for assigning and editing photojournalism, inviting emailed questions instead. The institutional reticence may stem from the public tussles of previous months on the personnel front: When it commented on the departures of freelance editor Lauren Wolfe and longtime science reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr., the newspaper dug deeper public-relations trenches for itself.

  • Western Films About Africa Are Neocolonial Even When They Try Not to Be

    Western Films About Africa Are Neocolonial Even When They Try Not to Be
    Sembène, meanwhile, offered an eviscerating criticism of both, famously accusing them of looking at Africans like insects. Sembène’s opening question to Rouch was: “Will European cinematographers, you for example, continue to make films about Africa once there are a lot of African cinematographers?” Regrettably, they do

  • New York Times Launches Prototype System to Combat Misinformation | PetaPixel

    https://petapixel.com/2021/05/06/new-york-times-launches-prototype-system-to-combat-misinformation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+petapixel+%28PetaPixel%29
    The New York Times R&D team has partnered up with the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) to create a prototype that gives readers transparency and authentication of news visuals in a continued attempt to reduce the spread of false information.

  • Podcast: A Retoucher Altered the Expression of Genocide Victims To Make Them Smile – PhotoShelter Blog

    Podcast: A Retoucher Altered the Expression of Genocide Victims To Make Them Smile
    In the mid- to late-70s, the Khmer Rouge committed a heinous genocide in Cambodia that killed 25% of its population. The government infamously photographed many of these victims at Tuol Seng, a school which was converted into a torture facility. Inexplicably, retoucher Matt Loughrey decided to colorize and alter the expression of some of the depicted victims of the Cambodian genocide into smiles, and as you might imagine, people were outraged.

  • David Alan Harvey Has Resigned From Magnum Photos

    https://petapixel.com/2021/03/18/david-alan-harvey-has-resigned-from-magnum-photos/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PetaPixel+%28PetaPixel%29
    Magnum’s announcement that it has been cleared of wrongdoing here was recently called into question. The organization should complete its review later this year.

  • No. 72 Benjamin Chesterton – 10 Frames Per Second

    http://10fps.net/no-72-benjamin-chesterton/
    We’re back after a long COVID hiatus. We’re kicking off a new season with Benjamin Chesterton, @duckrabbitblog on Twitter, and his open letter to Magnum concerning years of photographing child abuse and other controversies surrounding the iconic photo agency. Trigger Warning: sexual assault, child abuse. This is a harrowing episode. Read his letter to Magnum here. The Statement with over 600 signatures calling on Magnum Photos to demonstrate accountability can be read here.