Shooting from the hip = morally questionable?

[mahleu]

It really comes down to the question: Is it immoral to take a photo of someone without their knowledge.

Whether you shoot from the hip, from the shadows with a quiet camera or with a telephoto lens, it's normally a case of trying to get a natural picture without getting a scowl.

It's always going to be a vague line which I think hinges mostly on the photographers intent. I don't want the people in my photos looking at the camera, I prefer people to look as they would if they were not being photographed.

 

[Chris101]

She looks a bit surprised and judging from the hight of the barrier you took it from a quite low position.

you zoom in on the woman's expression, she looks angry and pissed. Possibly because some stranger is 10 feet away trying to pretend he's not taking a photo while he is.

I wonder when there will be a SPETA for ethical street photographers - Street Photographers for the Ethical Treatment About their subjects ...

Re: Chris101's photo ... I don't think she looks angry, just bewildered. She seems to be in the middle of a conversation with her friend and her brain is trying to figure out what's going on around her.

Regarding the morality of shooting from the hip, I don't think it's a big deal. Personally, I like it if the subject KNOWS that I'm taking a photo ... typically I never hide the fact that I'm carrying a camera around. I try to make it obvious.

I'll ask for permission if it's feasible or seems the better strategy -- but sometimes this is not always possible. Plus, asking permission can change the whole dynamic of the subject + scene, removing elements of spontaneity.
...

... Chris101's photo appears to be of a lady who was laughing or talking with her friend, then spotted Chris's camera, and her expression was just changing to a WTF/creep alert look.

Yup. I present as a creep. I'm old, overweight and not very attractive.

I shot this woman because she looked like someone I knew. She was animated, and not bad on the eyes. In other words, a good photographic subject. I knew that bringing the camera to my face would cause the "pose" reaction, which I did not want. I was in line at the Hoover Dam tour and she stuck out because she seemed to be eternally right opposite me in the many turn maze of stantions leading to the entrance to the tour. And as I said she resembled an acquaintance, so I shot her.

Regarding the height of the shot, my M4P was below waist level, being attached by only one lug. I have since rectified that, realizing that hanging it by a single lug would eventually lead to lug failure!

In any event, I shoot liberally from the hip, BUT I love to wait until I am discovered, because I find the eye contact at the moment of discovery is worth the wait:

http://homepage.mac.com/cheilman1/firstfriday/images/jenatchevront.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/cheilman1/statefair/images/01.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/cheilman1/statefair/images/05.jpg

 

[craygc]

This thread has become hilarious... some people just cant process information logically. Firstly, you need to think about what this genre of "street photography" is about; its about documenting society around you, and that often ranges from the strange and absurd to the down right funny. You often cannot capture that if you obviously appear to be photographing someone.

Street photographers aren't your enemy, perverts are, but many people here seem to associate camera with pervert - yet you're on RFF - and don't confuse an action with morality, they're different :bang:

While breaking the camera over your head...

You assume the guy with the camera wont retaliate; don't try that with me 😱

Do realise that 99.9% of people with a camera are not a threat to you or anyone else

Johor Baru, Malaysia...

Karachi, Pakistan...

 

[Tompas]

The series is titled:

"Adaptation"
The psychological process of adapting to a milieu and its consequence.
​

Wow -- great images!

And all of them are very good examples of pictures that could not have been made with the camera at one's eye.

 

[ampguy]

wow

wow

Perhaps she is your true soul mate. 🙄

...she stuck out because she seemed to be eternally right opposite me in the many turn maze of stantions leading to the entrance to the tour. ...

 

[Tompas]

To add another aspect to the discussion:

Since I've discovered social documentary/street photography to be my thing, I started to photograph not from the hip but off my belly or chest, camera hanging round my neck. (Can't post any examples since I'm in Germany; forbidden here.)

Now not only is this the only or at least the very much easier way to get the images I want (unposed, undisturbed, natural life in the streets) but I've found that can both react much faster to those little moments that I search AND frame my images better. Yes, I really think so.

I use 25 or 28mm lenses and by now I know how to frame without a finder pretty exactly -- it's far easier than I thought. Not using the viewfinder helps me to concentrate on looking, observing, finding those interesting and sometimes even beautiful moments and hitting the right moment. The camera is prepared, exposure and focus preset; nothing to be done but turning to the subject and pressing the shutter.

And I don't feel bad or 'immoral' about it. It's only a technique, and it's not that I'm steeling souls, is it?

 

[RedLion]

Greek Madonna

Greek Madonna

Thanks all for the comments on my "hip shots." There's one more thing I'd like to mention about some of the photos. After I took this one, I saw something unusual in the composition while reviewing it in Lightroom.

The mother and child, their gestures and expressions, and the large "Greek Gyros" sign in the background...

I then looked up the etymology of the work "Gyros"

The name comes from Greek γύρος ("turn") [...] Sometimes the spellings "yeeros", "yiros", or "year-o" are used to approximate the Greek pronunciation, giving /ˈjɪəroʊ(s)/ in English and leading further to the totally Americanized word "heros" for sandwiches made on a long piece of bread that are vaguely reminiscent of a rolled gyro.

Then it hit me .... This photo can be read iconographically .....

Greek Madonna, mother of the hero ?

As I began to look into the image for more clues....

At the extreme left of the photo is the word: AREPAS, which is a type of bread (Spanish). Bread is also the meaning of the word Bethlehem. (Bethlehem meaning "house of bread" in Hebrew). The birth place of the hero/savior.

On the child's tee shirt:

"Guess Jeans, Los Angeles"

Guess:
a. To predict (a result or an event) without sufficient information.
b. To assume, presume, or assert (a fact) without sufficient information.
​

Jeans:
Genoa--called "Gene" by sixteenth-century Europeans--was the first city to make denim cloth (see Denim) used for jeans. The pants were named after the city.
Genoa city in Italy, It. Genova, from L. Genua, perhaps from a PIE root meaning "curve, bend,"

Los Angeles.... Spanish for "The Angels"
​

"Guess Jeans, Los Angeles"=> future (difficult to predict) change/curve in the direction of Spirit (Angels).

So finally we have:

Greek Madonna, mother of the hero. Leaving Bethlehem behind and moving into an uncertain future. A hero whose future (task and direction) is known only to the Angels.

Then a friend mentioned that another way to interpret "Guess Jeans" could be as a pun for "Guess my Genes" - as in the uncertain paternity of the hero/savior.

I could NEVER have planned for or made this stuff up! Shooting on fleeting intuition sometimes results in images with subtexts and layers of potential meaning that one could never predict or plan for. And sometimes there isn't time to bring the camera up to face level and properly frame the situation.

And the "mother" is even wearing BLUE!

Joe

 

[ampguy]

another very nice photo

another very nice photo

but in my interpretation of it, the mother is in-process of rolling her eyes with the photographer nearby, and the kid just looks scared. Perhaps the lens looks like a gun to him.

Thanks all for the comments on my "hip shots." There's one more thing I'd like to mention about some of the photos. After I took this one, I saw something unusual in the composition while reviewing it in Lightroom.

The mother and child, their gestures and expressions, and the large "Greek Gyros" sign in the background...

I then looked up the etymology of the work "Gyros"

The name comes from Greek γύρος ("turn") [...] Sometimes the spellings "yeeros", "yiros", or "year-o" are used to approximate the Greek pronunciation, giving /ˈjɪəroʊ(s)/ in English and leading further to the totally Americanized word "heros" for sandwiches made on a long piece of bread that are vaguely reminiscent of a rolled gyro.

Then it hit me .... This photo can be read iconographically .....

Greek Madonna, mother of the hero ?

As I began to look into the image for more clues....

At the extreme left of the photo is the word: AREPAS, which is a type of bread (Spanish). Bread is also the meaning of the word Bethlehem. (Bethlehem meaning "house of bread" in Hebrew). The birth place of the hero/savior.

On the child's tee shirt:

"Guess Jeans, Los Angeles"

Guess:
a. To predict (a result or an event) without sufficient information.
b. To assume, presume, or assert (a fact) without sufficient information.
​

Jeans:
Genoa--called "Gene" by sixteenth-century Europeans--was the first city to make denim cloth (see Denim) used for jeans. The pants were named after the city.
Genoa city in Italy, It. Genova, from L. Genua, perhaps from a PIE root meaning "curve, bend,"

Los Angeles.... Spanish for "The Angels"
​

"Guess Jeans, Los Angeles"=> future (difficult to predict) change/curve in the direction of Spirit (Angels).

So finally we have:

Greek Madonna, mother of the hero. Leaving Bethlehem behind and moving into an uncertain future. A hero whose future (task and direction) is known only to the Angels.

Then a friend mentioned that another way to interpret "Guess Jeans" could be as a pun for "Guess my Genes" - as in the uncertain paternity of the hero/savior.

I could NEVER have planned for or made this stuff up! Shooting on fleeting intuition sometimes results in images with subtexts and layers of potential meaning that one could never predict or plan for. And sometimes there isn't time to bring the camera up to face level and properly frame the situation.

And the "mother" is even wearing BLUE!

Joe

 

[Colin Corneau]

Red Lion/Joe -- fantastic shots. I really loved seeing them -- very easy to spend some time staring at them. There's a lot there...my compliments.

 

[TXForester]

but in my interpretation of it, the mother is in-process of rolling her eyes with the photographer nearby

Maybe, but her head is tilted slightly down. Could be her head is tilted down as she is reaching down to her child's head, but her eyes are rolled up, not because of the photographer, but because she is looking where she is walking.

and the kid just looks scared. Perhaps the lens looks like a gun to him.

Not knowing the child, the gun comment is a stretch. The child may have had no exposure to guns in his short life. The child doesn't look like he is looking at the camera. His eyes face upwards and is probably looking at the photographer.

 

[sig]

Gun comment a stretch.... the madam leaving bethlehem is not at all a stretch.

I think: When in L.A. do not eat gyros, your eyes will go bad.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Thanks all for the comments on my "hip shots." There's one more thing I'd like to mention about some of the photos. After I took this one, I saw something unusual in the composition while reviewing it in Lightroom.

The mother and child, their gestures and expressions, and the large "Greek Gyros" sign in the background...

I then looked up the etymology of the work "Gyros"

The name comes from Greek γύρος ("turn") [...] Sometimes the spellings "yeeros", "yiros", or "year-o" are used to approximate the Greek pronunciation, giving /ˈjɪəroʊ(s)/ in English and leading further to the totally Americanized word "heros" for sandwiches made on a long piece of bread that are vaguely reminiscent of a rolled gyro.

Then it hit me .... This photo can be read iconographically .....

Greek Madonna, mother of the hero ?

As I began to look into the image for more clues....

At the extreme left of the photo is the word: AREPAS, which is a type of bread (Spanish). Bread is also the meaning of the word Bethlehem. (Bethlehem meaning "house of bread" in Hebrew). The birth place of the hero/savior.

On the child's tee shirt:

"Guess Jeans, Los Angeles"

Guess:
a. To predict (a result or an event) without sufficient information.
b. To assume, presume, or assert (a fact) without sufficient information.
​

Jeans:
Genoa--called "Gene" by sixteenth-century Europeans--was the first city to make denim cloth (see Denim) used for jeans. The pants were named after the city.
Genoa city in Italy, It. Genova, from L. Genua, perhaps from a PIE root meaning "curve, bend,"

Los Angeles.... Spanish for "The Angels"
​

"Guess Jeans, Los Angeles"=> future (difficult to predict) change/curve in the direction of Spirit (Angels).

So finally we have:

Greek Madonna, mother of the hero. Leaving Bethlehem behind and moving into an uncertain future. A hero whose future (task and direction) is known only to the Angels.

Then a friend mentioned that another way to interpret "Guess Jeans" could be as a pun for "Guess my Genes" - as in the uncertain paternity of the hero/savior.

I could NEVER have planned for or made this stuff up! Shooting on fleeting intuition sometimes results in images with subtexts and layers of potential meaning that one could never predict or plan for. And sometimes there isn't time to bring the camera up to face level and properly frame the situation.

And the "mother" is even wearing BLUE!

Joe

Dear Joe,

When are you planning to found your own religion? I understand there's good money in it, especially in California. "Making photo $$$"? And the rest!

Or too quote Brian in the eponymous Life of, albeit from memory: "All right, I am the ****ing messiah. Now **** off."

Great pictures, as I said before. GO TO ARLES. With work like that, an exhibition is all but guaranteed. Try Coffee Socks first.

Cheers,

R.

 

[TXForester]

Something that seems more important to me than the technique of taking a photo on the street (assuming we can agree street photography is ok) is the presentation of the photo.

I'm not talking solely about the photo being shown on the net, in a newspaper or magazine, but the text accompanying the photo. Our comments about the subjects in our photos, sometimes without context, often seems more important. Equally important are other's comments about our photos. What we say about our shots shows a lot about who we are and how we process what we see. It can also make a difference in the ethics of showing a particular photo.

We comment about people we don't know in situations we don't know. Is the picture of a guy in a public place having a good time with a beer in hand a person having innocent fun, or is he a lush? We don't know.

Is a person with a sour look on their face lost in thought, or upset at a photo being made of them? Unless the photographer can supply context, we don't know.

Our street photos may be benign, but our comments and those of people viewing our photos may be hurtful.

 

[charjohncarter]

Read 'Star Island' by Carl Hiaasen and you will have zero worries about the morality of 'shooting from the hip.'

 

[schofferhofer]

I was kind of surprised to find how many people are vocally against hip shooting. It's just a different technique to capture a scene.

I find that shooting from the eye gives an ugly effect because I like to get close and I'm 6'6", so all my shots look down on my subjects and it's a bit boring.

I also don't think hip shooting is 'creepy'. It's just a thing. A photographer can be creepy and he might shoot from the hip, yeah sure, but a technique can't be creepy itself.

And besides, shooting from the hip is fun. I don't think it's about having the courage to shoot from the eye at all. I know a few guys who shoot from the eye with a telephoto lens and then deride the use of hip shooting as 'cowardly' when it all seems a bit silly to me.

And candid shots of children, being, well, children, is one of the finest forms of street photography.

Agree with this tbh.

Well the idea is (for me) to capture emotion in street scenes. It's not difficult to understand the raw emotion which children exude, so I can understand why they're a popular target for street photographers. The emotion they feel is that much more evident.

Hey look here's a hip shot of some kids:


JCP110731-2 by Joshy Woshy, on Flickr

Obviously it's not great, but that's because I'm still learning. The point is, there's nothing sinister about it. And anyone who wants to take photos of children for any 'dubious' purpouses (I don't really even want to mention it tbh) isn't likely to risk doing it in public, are they?

 

[andredossantos]

Arepas are cornmeal pancakes, not bread!