© 2011 schofneh

The Ethics of Street Photography

I was reading a post on Strobist about Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s court battle in which he narrowly escaped paying monetary damages for publishing a photo of a rabbi surreptitiously shot in Times Square in New York. The photo, below, is quite gorgeous. diCorcia used off camera strobes to illuminate passers by, and had a successful show until Nussenzweig (the rabbi) decided to sue him.

This made me think about my original idea for my final project, one that I had to defend in class in much the same way that diCorcia had to defend his work in court. I planned to take photographs of individuals riding the night bus, and it didn’t go over very well. Every time I told my project idea to someone, they raised their eyebrows and said, “Won’t you get in trouble?” orĀ  “Isn’t that against the law?” I informed them that it’s a public space and that I didn’t think that I’d have any problems.

In this society that is saturated with closed circuit cameras and people snapping photos with their cell phones left and right, why it is considered wrong to photograph someone without their knowledge? Perhaps it’s the idea that the photographer is profiting off their image without them seeing a penny that bothers people? I accepted long ago that if I go out in public that I am giving up my right to privacy. Why hasn’t everyone else?

My idea, to take photos on the bus, is slightly different than diCorcia’s. I don’t see how someone would think that a public bus with a surveillence camera would be considered private property, or an improper place to take photographs. Though I chose a different topic and medium for my final project I have not abandoned the project, and don’t plan to anytime soon.

Below are two photos from ongoing series, “The Night Bus.”

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>