FrankS
Registered User
You're right. Consensus was not the correct word.
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boffen
Established
As long as you would remove the picture from public upon request of the subject, I don't find it morally questionable regardless of shooting technique. There are certain cases where I would find it morally questionable to publish a photograph of someone, e.g. if the situation shows your subject in a particularly unflattering manner. I just ask myself whether or not I'd let someone else use that picture if I was the subject.
daninjc
Well-known
The Meaness
Well-known
back alley
IMAGES
i asked a priest, a rabbi and a boy scout and they all said it was ok!
Benjamin Marks
Veteran
Can I turn this around: What moral principle do you fear is being violated?
I don't think it reasonable, with all of the state-run and corporate observation and recording of public spaces, to assume that you can walk on the streets with a right to the photons bouncing off your body. In a public place? Why?
I don't think it reasonable, with all of the state-run and corporate observation and recording of public spaces, to assume that you can walk on the streets with a right to the photons bouncing off your body. In a public place? Why?
daninjc
Well-known
andredossantos
Well-known
Candid street/people photography isn't really my main photographic interest but if I see something interesting I'll go for it. Generally, I find hip shots don't work a lot and I'm NOT a fan of the wide angle horizon tilted to all hell hip shots. Just MHO. I do think its possible to previzualize once you are used to a certain focal length so it's definitely possible to get results doing hip shots. Anyway, with the example below, I was sitting on the train about 3 feet from the woman and her forlorn expression is what I noticed. There wouldve been no way for me to capture that if I brought the camera up to my face. So, I scale focused @ 1.2 (is was the 35mm Nokton) and shot from my lap. I was surprised the focus
was accurate. Now, whether it's a good photo: Like I said, people aren't my main interest, but this is by far the most popular photo on my Flickr page, so people definitely respond to it.
Untitled by andre dos santos, on Flickr
was accurate. Now, whether it's a good photo: Like I said, people aren't my main interest, but this is by far the most popular photo on my Flickr page, so people definitely respond to it.
Untitled by andre dos santos, on Flickr
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Pablito
coco frío
shooting from the hip is hip.
mathomas
Well-known
Rick Waldroup
Well-known
I shoot from the hip every now and then. It can be a useful way of shooting in certain conditions. There is certainly nothing cowardly or immoral about it. Here a few.
Green_Blue
Established
Maybe if you used some sort of preference utilitarianism framework it might be arguable that the preference in this case is a right to privacy/publication without consent and then you would weigh up if the gross utility from those preferences would outweigh the individual's enjoyment of artistic expression.
Although ultimately you end up with a consequentialist balancing act with no clear answer.
RayPA
Ignore It (It'll go away)
I consider hip-shooting to be a term indicative of any type of shooting that does not involve using/looking through the viewfinder. When I hip-shoot, I rarely put the camera at my hip, because the point of view it renders is that of a small child. I prefer to shoot with the camera somewhere between my chin and my chest and often held near either shoulder, but I'll use any position necessary. If you're familiar with the focal length, you can compose a shoot accurately without using the VF.
There's nothing wrong with it. It's a great technique to use, and every photographer should get comfortable using it.
/
There's nothing wrong with it. It's a great technique to use, and every photographer should get comfortable using it.
/
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andersju
Well-known
I loved this type of shooting a few years ago.
And I love this quote by Gueorgui Pinkhassov of Magnum, from Magnum Stories:
"Good photos have come when I least controlled the situation. The process reminds me more of fishing than it does of shooting. I look through the lens; I create my composition – banal, boring. Get tired, get distracted – click and success. As though the photographic angels, upon whom it all depends, had begged, 'Don't look through the lens, let us work in peace.' Sometimes I have not even recognized my own photographs."
dreilly
Chillin' in Geneva
I don't think it's immoral and my feeling is that if people don't want to be photographed, they should stop reflecting photons. Photons are free. Nobody owns them, that would be a very strange form of ownership... I can arrange molecules that absorb light on a page and make a likeness of a person without them noticing, I just need a sketch pad, pencil and a little subtlety. Is that wrong? What if I can draw in a photorealistic style? Why would photography be different?
But then I think, well, what about the intent of the photographer? Does it matter what the usage is? I think in that case it does. Say, if you were photographing people to watch their movements and find out where they live...so that makes the photography part of criminal intent. But that's very little of photography and very hard to judge.
I think that German law is ridiculously excessive, not least of which because it gives special privileges to "journalists" who have some kind of right that non-journalists don't. As an independent journalist, that really burns me and I think it's wrong. What makes those two shots presented by the OP not journalism? They aren't published by anybody? Well, they are, by the photographer. They don't show things of journalistic interest? Why not? Don't they speak to the human condition? Are they not documentary, and what makes that not journalism. The disturbing conclusion is that they are not journalism because our OP is not professional, ie, not paid by someone who can judge his work legitimate and worthy of being shown. I have problems with this!
Lots of people are photographed 1000s of times a day by security cameras and they don't complain. Is that wrong? Lots of people would say no, its not, I guess because it's some "official" organization doing the photographing and anyway, only the guilty need fear, right? In fact I do find that wrong, not so much for what it's doing (essentially the same thing as a hip-shooting street photographer) but for the intent, which is to spy, pry and control.
I think there are lots of shots that can't be gotten by direct intervention in a scene. Some of those are on this thread, and there is a literalism and spontaneity to those shots that I really like.
Morality aside, I don't do much shooting like this. I try to use my photography to interact with people and the world around me, to push myself to be more outgoing. I use journalism the same way. In general I think consent is a nice thing to do and it gives the photographer a chance to interact with someone they don't know. I don't think it's a moral necessity but a nicety.
Last night I was shooting a restaurant and one of the servers asked not to be photographed. Pretty much totally against what I was trying to do, which was to document the restaurant in action. But I respected her wishes, not because I thought she was in her rights (I didn't), but because she asked and I could get away with it and still tell the story I needed to tell. I felt good about that, and so did she. She was the nicest to me during the shoot, too. So there is a consideration I have for the other person...will my photography (or restraint of it) humanize or dehumanize that person? If I know it's the latter, then that reflects on my intent.
I'd like the security agencies to ask the same thing.
But then I think, well, what about the intent of the photographer? Does it matter what the usage is? I think in that case it does. Say, if you were photographing people to watch their movements and find out where they live...so that makes the photography part of criminal intent. But that's very little of photography and very hard to judge.
I think that German law is ridiculously excessive, not least of which because it gives special privileges to "journalists" who have some kind of right that non-journalists don't. As an independent journalist, that really burns me and I think it's wrong. What makes those two shots presented by the OP not journalism? They aren't published by anybody? Well, they are, by the photographer. They don't show things of journalistic interest? Why not? Don't they speak to the human condition? Are they not documentary, and what makes that not journalism. The disturbing conclusion is that they are not journalism because our OP is not professional, ie, not paid by someone who can judge his work legitimate and worthy of being shown. I have problems with this!
Lots of people are photographed 1000s of times a day by security cameras and they don't complain. Is that wrong? Lots of people would say no, its not, I guess because it's some "official" organization doing the photographing and anyway, only the guilty need fear, right? In fact I do find that wrong, not so much for what it's doing (essentially the same thing as a hip-shooting street photographer) but for the intent, which is to spy, pry and control.
I think there are lots of shots that can't be gotten by direct intervention in a scene. Some of those are on this thread, and there is a literalism and spontaneity to those shots that I really like.
Morality aside, I don't do much shooting like this. I try to use my photography to interact with people and the world around me, to push myself to be more outgoing. I use journalism the same way. In general I think consent is a nice thing to do and it gives the photographer a chance to interact with someone they don't know. I don't think it's a moral necessity but a nicety.
Last night I was shooting a restaurant and one of the servers asked not to be photographed. Pretty much totally against what I was trying to do, which was to document the restaurant in action. But I respected her wishes, not because I thought she was in her rights (I didn't), but because she asked and I could get away with it and still tell the story I needed to tell. I felt good about that, and so did she. She was the nicest to me during the shoot, too. So there is a consideration I have for the other person...will my photography (or restraint of it) humanize or dehumanize that person? If I know it's the latter, then that reflects on my intent.
I'd like the security agencies to ask the same thing.
Jason Sprenger
Well-known
A photograph is an image left by light projected onto a light sensitive surface just as happens with an eye. If an eye can behold a thing morally, when is a camera beholding the same subject immoral?
Is it moral to demand that people not look at you on a public avenue? Certainly, not. It is impertinent and beyond the right of an individual to make such a demand. A camera does not change this situation.
Of course, laws may say otherwise. Laws say many things, some of which are moral, and some of which are something very much different from moral.
Is it moral to demand that people not look at you on a public avenue? Certainly, not. It is impertinent and beyond the right of an individual to make such a demand. A camera does not change this situation.
Of course, laws may say otherwise. Laws say many things, some of which are moral, and some of which are something very much different from moral.
farlymac
PF McFarland
After looking at the two photos posted by the originator of this thread, I've got one question.
Just how freaking tall are you? Those were shot from the hip?
Okay, it was two questions.
PF
Just how freaking tall are you? Those were shot from the hip?
Okay, it was two questions.
PF
Neare
Well-known
Morals and your own confidence are two separate things.
Unless your 'own' morals are against taking photos of people... then maybe quit photography?
Unless your 'own' morals are against taking photos of people... then maybe quit photography?
ampguy
Veteran
How about using the Golden Rule as guidance? How do you feel about others sneakily photographing you and your friend/family, then posting the images on the internet?
Juan Valdenebro
Truth is beauty
I feel they're in their own right to do both things if the photographs were taken in a public place.
Cheers,
Juan