Morals and Ethics

Throughout history the role of a photojournalist has been to educate the world via news imagery; it is a profession in which journalists make news-editorial images for print and screen (television and computer) media.

But is it Authentic Photography ???

Photojournalism today is under attack ever more so due to the rise and spread of computer technology that allows practically anyone to produce or manipulate visual messages in massive of numbers for a world wide audience. Even though manipulation was possible and could have been adhered to throughout the years within the darkroom, modern digital manipulation can not always be detected therefore raises further suspicion by the critics to actually believing is the photograph in question displaying a true representation of an event?

"But as long as photojournalists do not subtract or add parts of a picture's internal elements, almost any other manipulation (editing) once accomplished in a photographic darkroom is considered ethical for news-editorial purposes."

http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/photoethics.html

A visual journalist has to uphold a trusted responsibility to the public and employ that they are capturing and recording a true depiction of the subject in hand.

NPPA - The National Press Photographers Association is dedicated to the advancement of visual journalism, its creation, practice, training, editing and distribution, in all news media and works to promote its role as a vital public service.

I found the NPPA's website to be most helpful in my understanding of the morals and ethics surrounding photojournalism , below is their advised code of ethics;

1. Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects.
2. Resist being manipulated by staged photo opportunities.
3. Be complete and provide context when photographing or recording subjects. Avoid stereotyping individuals and groups. Recognize and work to avoid presenting one's own biases in the work.
4. Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see.
5. While photographing subjects do not intentionally contribute to, alter, or seek to alter or influence events.
6. Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.
7. Do not pay sources or subjects or reward them materially for information or participation.
8. Do not accept gifts, favors, or compensation from those who might seek to influence coverage.
9. Do not intentionally sabotage the efforts of other journalists.

Ideally, visual journalists should:

1. Strive to ensure that the public's business is conducted in public. Defend the rights of access for all journalists.
2. Think proactively, as a student of psychology, sociology, politics and art to develop a unique vision and presentation. Work with a voracious appetite for current events and contemporary visual media.
3. Strive for total and unrestricted access to subjects, recommend alternatives to shallow or rushed opportunities, seek a diversity of viewpoints, and work to show unpopular or unnoticed points of view.
4. Avoid political, civic and business involvements or other employment that compromise or give the appearance of compromising one's own journalistic independence.
5. Strive to be unobtrusive and humble in dealing with subjects.
6. Respect the integrity of the photographic moment.
7. Strive by example and influence to maintain the spirit and high standards expressed in this code. When confronted with situations in which the proper action is not clear, seek the counsel of those who exhibit the highest standards of the profession. Visual journalists should continuously study their craft and the ethics that guide it.

"But no matter how the tools of journalism change, fundamental ethical concerns still apply. Displaying violent, sensational images for economic reasons, violating a person's privacy before the judicial process can function, manipulating news-editorial pictures to alter their content, stereotyping individuals into pre-conceived categories and blurring the distinction between advertising and editorial messages were journalism concerns in 1895, are important topics in 1995 and will be carefully considered issues, no doubt, in 2095. Professionals, academics and students owe it to their readers to be sensitive to unethical practices that demean the profession and reduce the credibility of journalism."

http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/photoethics.html

Like the past, the future of ethics in photojournalism belongs to technology. Digital photography

casts new doubts on the process through which the photograph goes from camera to publication. More and more people are not only consuming photographic news media electronically, they are actively participating in news gathering, using mobile phone cameras. These “citizen journalists” are seeing their work in newspapers and magazines next to images by professional photojournalists. At the same time, editors are being inundated with photographs both during and after major news events, leaving them less time to make ethics decisions. All of these trends can only continue into the future.

http://web.mit.edu/drb/Public/PhotoThesis/

Photojournalism's Future?

After searching the internet I came across a website and discussion blog dedicated to the opinions surrounding photojournalism by David Campbell http://www.david-campbell.org/

I found his thorough research into the subject very informative which has given me a greater understanding into the subject, how photojournalism has changed since the 1970's and continues to be marketed around the globe.

Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen

Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen is a documentary photographer who resides in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, North East England. She is greatly focussed and dedicated to the attention of ordinary people within her social climate and has over the years documented different areas of Newcastle's community. In 1969, she co-founded the film and photography collection Amber whose archives are rooted in social documentary, built around long term engagements with working class and marginalized communities in the North of England.

http://www.amber-online.com/sections/about-us/pages/introduction

In 1981 Konttinen began to document a study of working class women, were she explored the dreams and realities of a group of mothers and daughters at a North Shields dancing school. This broader engagement of imagery, photographed between 1981 and 1988 of the mothers and daughters in and outside the dancing school, has given me further inspiration in regards to my photo story of contemporary freestyle dancing.

Konttinen states "Our film Keeping Time, screened on Channel 4 in 1983, began with a straightforward documentary approach to the activities of the Connell-Brown dancing school in North Shields, and ended up as a semi fictional diary of a girl growing up. I stayed on to take photographs: my second attempt at putting a finger on the troublesome, but compelling nucleus of female experience, with both personal and political echoes and implications. I was taken on a seven year journey of discovery by a group of mothers and daughters, whose lives I documented in and out of the dancing school. In 1985 we mounted the mammoth exhibition Step by Step in our gallery, and from there on it lumbered round the country. I took the material back and forth to the dancing school, changing it, scrapping it, re-shooting it, whilst listening to the experiences and comments of the mothers and daughters - and finally had the courage to shape it into a book. I hope it will continue to serve as a springboard for both critical and sympathetic examination of woman's lives within our society, and offer insight into our own dreams as well as each others"

Below are some of the images which I find inspiring and that I feel would relate more so to my photo story, some are accompanied with the text taken from the book Step by Step by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, published in 1989 by Bloodaxe Books and Amber/Slide

Emma, 1982

Dance display at Terminus Club North Shields, 1981

"She looks frightened there poor little devil!

I'm sure I used to be the more nervous . . . . but what I remember best is being so proud of her! Didn't matter that she couldn't dance - it was just seeing her there, you know what I mean . . . ."

Dance display at Terminus Club 1982

Presentation of certificates at Connell-Brown Dancing School, 1981

Lucrezia, 1982

MUM: Lucrezia's started modelling class!

LUCREZIA: I didn't want to go. It's dead boring . . .

MUM: They had to carry her onto the catwalk the first time! But it does them good, it gives them confidence!

Ella used to drag her feet, and look at her now! She looks like a model, she walks like a model, she walks with her head tall! You got good remarks . . . . What did Miss Brown say?

LUCREZIA: She said I was being meself, and that's all we can expect from the first time!

Connell-Brown Dancing School, 1986

She intended the study as an attempt at putting a finger on the troublesome nucleus of female experience, hoping it would act as a springboard for both critical and sympathetic examination of women’s lives within our society. The resulting photographs interspersed with excerpts from conversations offers an unusual, intimate and engaging insight into the life of a working-class community.

The realities of unemployment, poverty, divorce, hard work, are interwoven with the fun and excitement of the dancing school: run-down terraces and tower blocks are juxtaposed with tutus. Various themes develop from the words and pictures: the importance of home and family, the hard-headed yet often humorous resilience with which difficulties are faced, the importance of the school as a female community, the women’s robust combination of romanticism and pragmatism.

http://www.amber-online.com/exhibitions/step-by-step

The Past Reveals the Present - Competitive Dancing

I was originally going to carry on with bringing a contemporary picture story from related history surrounding the famous people that have emerged from Rugby school since its origins however after considering the fact that distance and time would be against me I decided to change my subject.

It is now my intention to tell a picture story of a contemporary competitive freestyle dancing competition and show how this style of dancing has originated from past dance forms.

As I was unsure, due to all the hearsay in regards to my rights to being freely able to photograph children in a public place and knowing that photography is not usually permitted at competitions, unless just photographing the award ceremony, I decided to email David Pollard, owner of Dance Force Studio's in Lower Darwen, to see if there would be any problems with me turning up at a competition with all of my photography gear and taking pictures of the children dancing.

"Hi David,

As you may be aware I am studying Photographic Media at University and my new brief is 'Photojournalism'. My lecturer agrees that it would be an excellent idea to document a Dance Competition that my daughter participates in therefore was thinking of documenting this Sunday's British Competition held at Winter Gardens, Blackpool.

My only worry is of course that events such as these do not allow people just to randomly start taking pictures therefore I was wondering if you wouldn't mind forwarding me on the organisers details from the ADFP , not sure if it is Anna Jones? . . so I can discuss with her if it is ok for me to freely take photographs at this event if she makes all the competitors and parents know of my reasons?

Thanks for your help

Joanne"

David's reply "hi joanne , just speak to anna on sunday and make her aware of the situation , i'm sure she won't have a problem with it"

To further settle my mind I decided to search the web in regards to laws about photographing children http://www.urban75.org/photos/photographers-rights-street-shooting.html

Photographing children

There are no laws against taking photos of children, but someone taking an unhealthy interest can rightly expect to attract unwelcome attention from the authorities (and quite probably passers by) pretty sharpish.

Be also mindful that if you're taking pictures in areas where dodgy folks, drug dealers and ne'er do wells may be in view, they're unlikely to be pleased with the attention and probably won't be bothered about the niceties of the law in their response.

If someone asks you to stop take pictures of them, it's generally a good idea to do so.

Update: According to this blog, Home Office Minister Tony McNulty MP has commented on the current legal situation regarding privacy.

"There is no legal restriction on photography in public places, and there is no presumption of privacy for individuals in a public place.

It is for the Chief Constable to ensure that Officers and Police Community Support Officers are acting appropriately with regards to photography in public places, and any queries regarding this should be addressed to the Chief Constable.

However decisions may be made locally to restrict photography, for example to protect children. Any questions on such local decisions should also be addressed to the force concerned."

So after my discussion with Anna Jones, the event organiser in the morning of the competition, she gladly announced my presence to the room full of parents and stated if anyone did not approve of me taking photographs of their children to approach the stage and let her know . . . luckily that did not happen!

Below are my digital contact sheets from my shoot at the Winter Gardens, documenting the British Freestyle Championships on 10th October 2010. I photographed the event with my Canon 50D using a 50mm lens however changed my lens to a 200mm telephoto to achieve my action shots.

Below are a selection of my edited images

I also photographed the event using my Yashica 35mm film camera as wanted to capture some atmospheric black and white photographs, knowing that throughout the 20th Century this was the main form of medium used to capture photo-journalistic news worthy stories. Using a 35mm film camera would also cross over the idea of the past revealing the present through documenting a contemporary subject matter but using past practises and methods.

Unfortunately however my efforts in the darkroom loading my film onto the reel let me down therefore my negatives were not up to scratch , that being ironically said as due to all the scratches and marks they possessed the printed images would not have been as striking and of a similar successful standard of quality as my images captured using my digital camera.

These are a few of my scanned negatives which I attempted to salvage via editing them within Lightroom.

Due to my daughter being a competitive dancer, therefore knowing David Pollard, the owner of Dance Force Studio's in Lower Darwen, I plan to organize a interview with him so he can give me an insight into dancing's history and its relationship it has to contemporary competitive dance forms to aid me in my research.

As well as incorporating shots I have already taken at the organised competitive dancing event I wish to also broaden my photo story including relationships that the children have within their dance school and outside their dancing world, in other words to show children just being children and to also include and show the importance of parent contribution. I wish to find out the reasoning's as to why parents, mothers especially it seems, wish their daughters or sons to take up dancing. To do this, as well as interviewing the owner of Dance Force Studio's, ask the mothers who patiently wait on many evenings at the dancing school for their children to finish their lessons.

Before I take my photography equipment to the dance studio I feel that a little inspiration is in order therefore below are some images I have found inspiring sourced from the Magnum website of dancing imagery by various different photographic artists.

Contact Press Images

Contact Press Images was established in 1976 by French-British journalist and editor Robert Pledge and American photojournalist David Burnett. It is a international photojournalism agency based in new York and is one of the last small independent photographic agencies still in existence.

They have many active photographers across the world including names such as Don McCullin who won the world Press Photo award in 1964 for his image of a Turkish woman, mourning the death of her husband who was killed in a village battle with the Greeks. (see my blog titled - The Visual Principles of Photojournalism) - to see the image)

Also Annie Leibovitch another founding member of Contact images who was named by American Photo in 2005 as the most influential photographer at work today. As well as Sebastaio Salgado who is one of the worlds master practitioners in the tradition of social documentary.

The agency's mission statement is "To produce in-depth photographic essays of pressing global concern instead of “disposable” news, to pose difficult questions rather than provide facile answers, and above all to make important and lasting images – always with history in mind."

Below is information from Contact Press Images website which advises how they have survived from the transition of using only film to incorporating using modern technologies within a now contemporary digital revolution beginning the 21st Century.

"As Contact Press Images approached the end of the millennium, and twenty-five years of recording history, the landscape it surveyed differed greatly from the one that existed when it began. Color photography, a novelty for covering news in 1976, had long since become the norm. Black and white, by contrast once the standard, now appeared innovative; and all film, black and white or color, was quickly being replaced by digital photography. Most small independent agencies had disappeared, swallowed by corporate behemoths. And 24/7 live television coverage and the internet had largely overshadowed the role traditionally ascribed to photography. But Contact, with members from a dozen countries, men and women of different origin, personality and culture, shooting in every format, from Leicas and Canon digital cameras to inexpensive Holga cameras, remained independent and committed to a spirit of activism and humanitarianism guided by its larger historical project.

To manage the agency’s transition to this new technological theater while maintaining continuity with its past, Contact established a digital domain, including a fully updated website, and scanning and transmitting facilities, run by Dustin Ross in New York and Tim Mapp in Paris."

http://www.contactpressimages.com/about.html

Sebastiao Salgado.

In 1986 Sebastião Salgado began a series of reportages on the theme of manual labor, throughout the different continents. This work was conceived to tell the story of an era. The images offer a visual archaeology of a time that history knows as the Industrial Revolution, a time when men and women work with their hands provided the central axis of the world.http://www.amazonasimages.com/travaux-main-homme

PHPSESSID=fb9232f513125d6c40aeb40dd78e2cd2

Here is a publication of his essay in regards to 'Workers' featured in The New York Times Magazine . 09/06/1991

Magnum

"Magnum is a community of thought, a shared human quality, a curiosity about

what is going on in the world, a respect for what is going on and a desire to

transcribe it visually." -Henri Cartier-Bresson

Paris. 1957. Magnum meeting. ©Magnum Photos

Magnum photos was established in 1947 after the Second World War, formed by four prestigious photographers, Robert Capa, Henri-Cartier Bresson, George Rodger and David 'Chim' Seymour. The photographic agency is renowned for journalistic and reportage style photography, aesthetic qualities and to emphasize not only what is seen but how it is seen.

"Magnum Photos is a photographic co-operative of great diversity and distinction owned by its photographer-members. With powerful individual vision, Magnum photographers chronicle the world and interpret its peoples, events, issues and personalities. Through its four editorial offices in New York, London, Paris and Tokyo, and a network of fifteen sub-agents, Magnum Photos provides photographs to the press, publishers, advertising, television, galleries and museums across the world."

ITALY. Naples. 1943, Capa with Rodger. ©Magnum Photos

China. 1948. Henri Cartier-Bresson ©Magnum Photos

The Magnum Photos library reflects all aspects of life throughout the world and the unparalleled sense of vision, imagination and brilliance of the greatest collective of documentary photographers. In short, when you picture an iconic image, but can't think who took it or where it can be found, it probably came from Magnum.

http://agency.magnumphotos.com/about/about

Below are some further images of dancing found in the archives on the Magnum website for further inspiration