The Photo Ethics Podcast (Photography Ethics Centre)

In this episode, we talk with photojournalist and filmmaker Amanda Mustard about navigating the photojournalism industry, finding her own voice in photography, and realising that you don’t need to leave home to tell interesting visual stories. She explains how her transition from Egypt to Thailand has coincided with a transition in the type of work she is pursuing, and how she is doing more storytelling at home.

What you’ll find inside:

“It kinda makes me sad to look back and think of how much time I spent photographing what I thought I was supposed to. And then slowly over time I realised that, you know, I don’t think that’s exactly where I can contribute anything new” (3:12)

“I guess the way I feel is that if I’m going to continue to be a part of this industry, I need to keep working towards and contributing to efforts to make it a place that I feel welcome, and that others feel welcome, because otherwise I lose hope too easily. (10:25)

“We have a lot of power when we’re holding a camera, especially in communities that we don’t belong to, and we will all benefit by taking some time and just being a little bit more thoughtful about those power dynamics (11:18)

“But I think that there is this pressure to, like, really dedicate yourself and make being a photographer and identity and put it all on the line, and I really disagree with that. … It’s just setting you up for burnout in a lot of ways and it doesn’t set you up to be able to do your best work.” (18:08)

“I can travel all over the world and look for stories that really mean something and really dig into the nuance of it, but this, you know, inside me is where I have the most strength.” (22:52)

What does photo ethics mean to Amanda?

“Photography ethics is so important to me because I feel like it is this unwritten contract between the person with the camera and ultimately a lot of the power, and the people that we’re taking photos of. And if they’re going to give me something, then the ethics ensures that that transaction is respectful and dignified and will ensure that harm does not come to them as a result of the photography.” (31:05)

Links:

Amanda’s GoPro videos

Frontline Freelance Register

ACOS Alliance

Alex Potter

Learn more about Amanda’s film

In this episode, we talk with Danielle Villasana about the importance of telling the whole story. She describes how the media industry has been complicit in promoting a stereotypical view of marginalised communities, and she describes the negative impact that this has on trust in the media. Danielle spends time unpacking our individual responsibilities as image-makers, both toward the people in our photographs and toward our colleagues.

What you’ll find inside:

“Ultimately this is about truth telling. This is directly liked to how people view the world, and when we are denying those voices into that dialogue, we’re basically failing society. So, I believe that our industry can only be better by creating community … and making space for one another. It will continue to be problematic if that doesn’t happen.” (6:10)

“It’s not just about being a good human being, it’s also about protecting the media as a source of truth. So everybody should be invested in bettering the industry through inclusivity and equity, and consent is one of the many, many things we could do to improve.” (14:32)

Informed consent (19:20)

Release forms (21:10)

“There’s a lot of power in the media industry, there’s a lot of power in the way that we make stories and portray our world” (27:10)

“You have to tell the complete story because when we only tell little fragments and elements of the story we are not doing our duty as journalists because we are only giving viewers that one slice of the truth.” (33:15)

Quote by Shiyam Galyon: “I want to live in a world that feels moved by photos of non-white people at their best moments in life, rather than at their worst.” (34:40)

Links:

Everyday Projects

Authority Collective

Authority Collective’s “Do No Harm” statement

Women Photograph

Diversify Photo

Shiyam Galyon

In this episode, we talk with Jason Houston about collaborative ways of working in photography, and responsibilities he feels as an image-maker. He describes the steps he takes to educate himself about the communities he photographs and the relevant environmental and social issues at stake, and he explains how he has incorporated participatory methods into his process.

What you’ll find inside:

“Sometimes you feel that you’re being a little bit selfish” (5:10)

“The reason that I’m out there doing it is because I love everything about photography. I love thinking about it, I love the process of doing it, I love the experiences that it gives me … I love looking at what I’ve created. And that’s all very self-centred, you know? But if that’s done in service to these other reasons that I do it, this idea that it’s important, that awareness matters, and those sorts of things … then its a mix of motivations” (25:40)

"The simplest thing is, you know, is what all photojournalists have to do, is make sure that you’re making the photograph from a place of understanding what’s important, and being truthful, and being honest about the scenario and not just making an amazing, beautiful photograph.” (26:20)

“And so the challenge is to do what we’re charged to do as photographers, which is make photographs which are remotely interesting, and also to fairly represent the complexity of those scenarios.” (33:28)

“One thing that I’ve tried to do is to find my value as being someone who is a decent enough photographer but more importantly understands the subject matter and the issues in a way that allows me to really contribute to the conversation” (39:00)

What does photo ethics mean to Jason?

“Trying to be honest about my experience and trying to represent people as human beings, you know. I think I have a responsibility, given the kind of subject matter that I deal with, I have a responsibility to understand the dynamics as well as I possibly can.” (37:50)

Links:

Cornell Capa's The Concerned Photographer

Ryszard Kapuscinski’s The Other

Federico Estol’s Shine Heroes

Solutions Journalism resources at World Press Photo

The Solutions Journalism Network

Anthony Luvera

In this episode, we talk with Polly Braden about how she negotiates continual consent with people in vulnerable situations. She describes the importance of pursuing depth and nuance in storytelling, and she explains what it means to be a socially conscious photographer. Finally, Polly discusses fair wages in the creative industry and the process of applying for grants.

What you’ll find inside:

“If you want to try and be the person who is going to talk to those things, then you need to understand the depth of it. And so that’s what gets missed doing quick stories for the Guardian over two days, or for another newspaper” (9:40)

“If he comes out of the secure prison, and there’s stories about him all across the Guardian, and then he’s moving into a house in the community, that might not be the best thing for him if we don’t tell the story right. So we really, really had to think through what is consent in this case.” (16:37)

A discussion of fair wages and applying for grants (27:02)

“My kind of photography is trying to tell stories to raise awareness about things. I would have been shy saying that before, because it sounds really boring and, you know, not very exciting. But the truth of the matter is that’s what I do.” (32:25)

“So you sort of, you have an idea, you reach down, you come back up, tell the stories, then you go out and tell everybody about it. And then, sometimes, little bits of change happen.” (35:08)

What does photo ethics mean to Polly?

“I suppose what it really means is to think through the consequences of every photograph. And what I mean by that is not just the consequences of taking the picture, but the consequences of where you publish the photograph.” (36:24)

Links:

Great Interactions: Life and Learning with Disabilities and Autism

In this episode, we talk with Martha Tadesse about representation, ethics, and how to tell visual stories with empathy. Martha explains how she balances her ethics when working with clients in the humanitarian and development sector. She asks photographers to question themselves about what, why, and how they are photographing, and she calls for photo editors to take a more active role in critiquing the over-saturation of work from white photographs and in choosing more Black, indigenous, and photographers of colour for assignments.

What you’ll find inside:

“The image that has been taken, especially within Africa, has been misrepresented, been unethical. So through those images I had to unlearn so many biases …” (4:50)

“Unlearning is difficult, right?, because there is so much pride in whatever you have consumed in the past.” (6:40)

“My frustration still is: what has changed when it comes to agencies? What has changed when it comes to editors? … it’s still white male photographers taking over and African stories being awarded by white photographers.”

“My recommendation is just act on it. It’s not a performative activism, but really showing support by taking action, saying no when it’s not your space, and calling out other colleagues and friends as well.” (22:55)

“There is always that dilemma of - okay, how do I take this picture? why do I want to take this picture? - You know? You have to constantly question yourself.” (29:41)

“There definitely are wonderful and amazing white photographers around Africa documenting different stories, but what type of narrative are they setting online? What type of stories are they sharing, and how are they sharing it?” (32:16)

What does photo ethics mean to Martha?

“It means everything. … I can only ask the ethics behind before I actually enjoy a documentary photography. You know? It could be great with the technical, the composition, the lighting could be great, but how these photographs are documented, who documented them, and why, are important. I think it’s the genesis of documentation. Photography ethics is everything.” (37:15)

Links:

The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Women Photograph

Authority Collective

Diversify Photo

Welcome to The Photo Ethics Podcast!

I’m your host, Savannah Dodd, and I’m the founder of the Photography Ethics Centre.

Each week we will hear from an accomplished photographer about the ethics of their practice. We will delve into conversations that explore how these photographers have handled some very sticky situations, we will hear about how their different experiences have shaped they way that they use their camera, and we will ask the big questions to find out why they photograph what they photograph.

I hope that you will join me as we speak with some fantastic photographers to hear about their journeys toward a photography practice that embeds ethics in every stage of the process - from deciding what to photograph, how to photograph it, how to edit that photograph, where to publish a photograph, and how to caption it.

In this episode, we talk with Tara Pixley about the vital importance of taking a critical approach to media production. She unpacks our subconscious biases and the myth of objectivity to explain the importance of having different perspectives in the newsroom. She explains that both rights and responsibilities are central to her work in photojournalism. Finally, Tara reflects on personal experiences that have contributed to her understanding of what it means to be a responsible image-maker.

What you’ll find inside:

"I was beginning to realise that the ways we as journalists represent marginalised people … is very problematic and it's not holistic storytelling. It's not even necessary accurate all of the time. And it isn’t some kind of intentional choice made by the journalists … it really comes back to there being a lack of representation in the newsroom.” (2:45)

“We have to start addressing who we are, what we, as individuals, bring to our media production, because everyone else is going to tell you that you have to take yourself out of it, that you’re objective. … No one can be objective. And, in fact, if we’re adhering to this ideal of objectivity, it allows us to do all manner of heinous things because we’re not looking very critically at what we’re actually producing.” (8:40)

“Any time we’re rushing away to go do something as a journalist, we’re assuming that what’s happening here doesn’t matter and that what’s happening out there is something that we have a right to.” (14:50)

“Across hundreds of thousands of newsrooms, it’s the same kind of people seeing the same way, thinking the same way - and it’s not that that way is wrong, there is nothing wrong with the way that they think or see - it just isn’t complete, it isn’t diverse, it is not encompassing the whole of human experience, and it shows.” (21:00)

“Our goal as photojournalists is to inspire that empathetic response … You can’t do that with a blurred face. You can’t do that when you see an image of people, you know, marching down the street, but they’re all just blobs. That photo becomes irrelevant…. This demand from audiences to do that indicates that they don’t really understand what photojournalists are supposed to be doing.” (34:10)

“I just happen to be of the opinion that I can both hold on to my first amendment rights and minimise harm as I’m utilising those rights. I believe that I have rights and responsibilities to my public.” (39:00)

“We need to stay with the trouble, we need to keep having those uncomfortable conversations and keep reckoning with our own relationship to images and what it means to make a photo." (50:00)

What does photo ethics mean to Tara?

“Photography ethics to me means an opportunity for me to reckon with that space betwixt reasonability and rights. The ethics of photography is an opportunity for me to constantly reassess and reimagine what it is I’m doing as a photographer, as a photo editor, as a scholar of visual journalism. What ideas am I producing in the world and how am I treating people as I produce those ideas?” (46:00)

Links:

“Why We Need More Visual Journalists and Editors of Color”

Authority Collective

In this episode, we talk with Jess Crombie about the importance of collaboration and partnership when telling other people’s stories. Jess describes some of her experiences from working in the humanitarian sector which made her question the way that content is normally collected, and which led her to a more considered practice that accounts for the power dynamics in these storytelling partnerships.

What you’ll find inside:

Nigerien proverb: “A song is sweeter from its author’s mouth.” (3:00)

“I was having … these incredibly intimate and personal conversations with people about some of the most challenging times in their lives, and as I was having them, I was thinking: Am I allowing this person to tell the story the way they want? Do they have enough time to tell their story in the way they want?” (9:20)

“It was that moment that I realised that all I had to do was to just be really clear and explain what I was actually trying to do, and then people could make the informed choice about whether or not to share, what stories they shared with me.” (12:35)

“But I think, yeah, it’s about that constant reflection and awareness which is really, a bit exhausting and sometimes you don’t want to do it, but if you’re making work about the most vulnerable people it seems really irresponsible not to be reflecting on your practice constantly.” (17:45)

“Ultimately it’s about a conversation, a really, really in-depth, honest conversation, and about allowing yourself the time to have that conversation.” (23:10)

“When I say partner with you, I don’t mean, you know, giving them a camera and getting them to take the pictures themselves, but partner with you in terms of being active contributors to the story you’re telling.” (26:30)

What does photo ethics mean to Jess?

“I think photography ethics for me is about considering not so much the act of taking the photograph, as who you are photographing and what they think about the story that you’re telling.” (41:00)

Links:

The People in the Pictures: Vital perspectives on Save the Children’s image making by Jess Crombie and Siobhan Warrington

Oral Testimony Works

The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Photography Ethics Symposium 2019 Report

Catching Alices by Save the Children

In this episode, we talk with Smita Sharma about how she approaches difficult and sensitive stories by first connecting to people with empathy. She stresses the importance of considering safety, both for herself and for the people she photographs, and she shares some creative strategies that she has used to protect people’s identities. Smita describes how she makes decisions about what information to reveal about a person, and what information to withhold, and how she takes time to ensure that she has informed consent from the people she photographs.

What you’ll find inside:

“I did not start asking them: how were you raped? I think that’s really wrong and very insensitive. It takes time to work on something sensitive and something which is so difficult, and you don’t want to re-victimise them by asking them difficult questions.” (6:00)

A technique for ensuring confidentiality (8:40)

A description fo informed consent (16:35)

“I think the person that we photograph, that person does us a favour by sharing their story. We are not doing a favour, they are doing a favour to us. So we have to respect that.” (22:30)

“I don’t think any experiences goes for a waste, even my work that I did as a journalist, I think it has come very handy even now because I know how to navigate through things, difficult things because I already had that kind of experience working as a correspondent.” (27:30)

“Don’t be in a hurry to get recognition, to get your work published. Because I see a lot of people they who want to take up work because it’s the hot topic. … I don’t know how invested can one be in something that you don’t really care about. At some point you are going to get bored of it. So I think you should only invest your energy into something that you really like, that you really care about. And then you should follow it.” (32:40)

What does photo ethics mean to Smita?

“I think photojournalism cannot sustain itself without having ethics as a backbone. And I call it a backbone because you cannot create things which are not real, you cannot distort facts, you cannot stage scenes, you cannot do that.” (35:15)

Links:

Ethics and Integrity in Visual Research Methods

Not My Shame

Sexual Slavery in Central African Republic for Human Rights Watch

Stolen Lives: The harrowing story of two girls sold into sexual slavery for National Geographic

Recording of Photography Ethics Symposium: On gender, power, and documenting vulnerability with Smita Sharma and Laura Saunders

In this episode, we talk with Justin Carey about how he navigates relationships of collaboration with the people in his pictures. He discusses the importance of recognising your own position in relation to what you are photographing, and he explains how planning ahead can help to avoid ethical dilemmas, especially when working with family. Finally, Justin addresses the lack of diversity in photography organisations, the impact that this has on the industry, and the need to be mindful of who is in the room when decisions are being made.

What you’ll find inside:

A description of collaboration in his project (11:15)

“I didn’t want it to be about me. I didn’t want it to be about this woman that you might see on the website. I wanted it just to be about everyone, and so, to do that, I had to anonymise their contributions. And so that was a difficult discussion, because what I didn’t want to do was to make them feel like I was sort of stealing their ideas, and stealing their work, and presenting it as mine. So they had to be seen as true collaborators and the way that I was going to present the work was discussed with them and they had to be cool with it otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to do it that way.” (13:40)

“There was a point where the balance between seeking collaboration and input from other people and giving my own input was wrong. So, I was actually just getting people to give me all their revelations without giving anything back. … The thing I realised was that I wasn’t being as open and honest myself with my own input into the work as I was hoping to elicit from other people. So that had to change. So that’s when I started shooting myself.” (19:12)

“I think the best way to approach ethical challenges is to plan ahead, and to really think about all the different things that might arise and figure out how you are going to approach those. … I just think you have to plan ahead, and be honest, and be flexible.” (25:18)

On working with family: “You have to protect them ahead of time because they may be so accommodating that they switch off their filters that they would have had in other situations, and then if you ‘re not thinking for them about those potential filters, they may end up being hurt.” (28:40)

“The options to progress your career all go through organisations and media that are run by and curated by white people, to be frank. So your career is largely dependent on patronage by people who often do not have any investment or interest in your perspective.” (34:45)

What does photo ethics mean to Justin?

“Firstly I think you have to be honest about where you are as the photographer. You have to accept that you have a position, and that you aren’t seeking the truth, in sort of profound and definite ways, because every photographer’s truth is different. … I think to practice ethically as a photographer, you have to then think: okay, how are my own biases going to influence the sort of work I’m making, and how is that going to effect other people?” (29:25)

Links:

Reaching Out into the Dark: An exploration of urban solitude

Reframed bursary

In this episode, we talk with Alison Baskerville about the importance of understanding one’s own identity before addressing issues of ethics and safety as a photojournalist. She describes how her experience in the military has shaped the way she approaches her work, and what she has learned from her career as a photojournalist. Finally, she talks about the safety movement she founded which is designed specifically to address the concerns of women and non-binary people.

What you’ll find inside:

“About nine years into my military career, photography appeared again but it was in a very different way from perhaps what I had done at art school, which was using it as a means of surveillance.” (3:55)

“I feel like I’m a good example of someone who has tried to do the work to become more aware of these things, rather than someone who is quite virtuous and has always been aware and tends to make people like me, who have come from a working class background through the military, somehow as being unable to be aware.” (11:13)

An experience of her photograph being taken out of context (16:45)

On the need for intersectional safety training for women and non-binary people (20:15)

“People will start a session talking about what their safety concerns are and where they feel safe and unsafe, but also about their identity. … I think when you’re self-aware, you can start then to look at your personal safety from a slightly more nuanced point of view.” (25:50)

“If were talking about identity as a safety concern, then we absolutely have to look at ethics as well because the choices we make within our identity is an ethical decision.” (27:40)

How Alison learned about protecting the safety of others through her military experience (31:12)

On moral injury and ethics (37:35)

What does photo ethics mean to Alison?

“I think to be an ethical photographer, you almost have to try and be an intersectional photographer, which is hard, but it’s a journey worth taking. Because you really have to question your ethics. What are they? What are your values? What are your personal values, and how will they translate into your work? And also: what part of you are you willing to compromise to make the work?” (36:35)

“I think an ethical photographer is someone who considers all the aspects of what they’re photographing beyond the aesthetics and that it’s just a great photo. A great photo it may be, but what was the journey to getting that photograph? What was the relationship to the person in that photograph?” (38:10)

Links:

ROAAAR

Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

Learn more about moral injury from The Moral Injury Project

In this episode, we talk with Taha Ahmad about how he navigates ethics in his longterm projects. He stresses the importance of extensive research in his workflow, of building relationships with the people he photographs, and of approaching traumatic histories with care and sensitivity. Finally, he describes the personal experiences that have tested his ethics.

What you’ll find inside:

“I would not have been able to access [family archives] because it is with the family, so I have to take the permission. And whenever I shoot any of the archival material, I shoot it in front of the family members so that they are aware what I am shooting or what I am scanning or which letter I’m scanning and also how I’m going to use it.” (7:28)

“It’s not easy and you know it’s not even easy emotionally for me because you know talking about those incidents again and again … a lot of times talking about this takes them back and gives them an emotional toll. What I do is, my process is I never go and talk about it straight away. … They start telling me themselves, and this is how I finally make a relation with them. And then I start asking them questions so that they don’t feel that I am here just to extract the tragic memories they have, but instead you know they feel that I am a curious person who is here to understand.” (10:10)

“I know that I work on longterm projects, I have ample time. So, even if I am not shooting for, let’s say, two weeks, it doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is that I’m able to get the real truth out of it.” (13:14)

Discussion about the importance of research (15:00)

“Research is also something which actually becomes a part of your process, it is something which actually leads you to a particular idea, it is something which decides how you are going to execute it, how are you going to gain access. … This is why research is important, because when a person knows about the roots of their work … they have a better understanding of the kind of work they are going to produce and what impact the work could make when it is out in front of the world.” (16:40)

On making decisions about photographing graphic subjects (Warning: Graphic content 22:00 – 24:00) (21:05)

Complications of consent when embedding in a community (26:30)

What does photo ethics mean to Taha?

“Photography ethics I would say, especially for me, it might differ from person to person … for me it is kind of the morals that I live my daily life with … ethics again differ from place to place, work to work, and situation to situation.” (18:30)

Links:

The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India by Urvashi Butalia

In this episode, we talk with David Degner about his experiences navigating different ethical choices as a photojournalist working at home and abroad. He draws on specific situations he has encountered during his career to explain how his education in photography has shaped the way that he approaches his work, and how he embeds ethics in his practice as a photographer.

What you’ll find inside:

“Really the biggest use that most of these programmes have is that they help you make connections and they help you eventually get your foot in the door to get that internship that eventually gets you in touch with editors that gets you jobs.” (3:57)

“I remember being surprised. Like when I was in school, we had certain very strict journalistic ethics … and then I get to Egypt and I’m surrounded by a bunch of European photographers and they have often a different set of ethics.” (7:47) 

“Having my own moral guide for how I want to treat other people and layering on top of that my journalistic ethics gives me a clear structure for how like I talk with and interact with other people, and so they can trust me. And so much of the most meaningful stories require that trust.” (10:19)

“By taking assignments, I know what editors want and I often, consciously or subconsciously, try to make the photos they want instead of the photos that I want … so it’s quite important to keep your own perspective.” (16:55)

“I’ve never quite found where the hang up is, if it’s like editors or it’s readers or photographers being trained, but like we are often stuck in these same cycles of stories.” (19:31)

“So much of news photography these days are events that are created to be photographed.” (22:44)

David weighs into the discussion about photographing protestors (27:48)

What does photo ethics mean to David?

“My photo ethics go back more to journalistic ethics, being an ethical journalist trying to accurately portray what’s happening. Really, I guess I don’t actively think about the ethics of my photography like every day that I go and photograph. Now it’s just a constant background method of working. I definitely used to think about it a lot more, but now it’s just like my journalist ethics are like enmeshed in the way that I work. But it’s an important part of what allows me to approach people and try to fairly and accurately tell their stories.” (32:04)

Links:

Online training in photojournalism ethics

The American Diversity Project Workshops

“Occupied Pleasures” by Tanya Habjouqa

Do No Harm: Photographing Police Brutality Protests

In this episode, we talk with Tasneem about the ethical issues that she considers when planning for publication. She describes her experience around consent, the possible consequences of an image, and how the message of a story can be shifted through a publication’s editing. Beyond this, Tasneem shares how she thinks about the people she photographs, and the impact that can have on how they are represented.

What you’ll find inside:

“Photographing for National Geographic... I have a lot of people saying that’s amazing, but then in my mind I’m like is it just because I’m Saudi? Is it because there’s no one else? Like I’m always trying to ask myself, do I deserve this? And I don’t know if it’s just a woman thing or it’s just me. This imposter syndrome is always in my mind.” (6:30)

“All these stories of women going through emotional hurdles … a lot of them I photograph and they’re open to photography and then they change their mind because they realise that this could be something that would put them at risk, it could bring attention that they don’t want. And it’s my job to respect that and understand that it’s not about me… “ (9:30)

“I don’t like this kind of view that has always been in the Western publications, that, you know, the western media has given them voice. No, no. They’ve always existed. They’ve always been part of society.” (11:25)

“I worked for the New York Times for two years, as a freelancer... It made me realise that not all the photos I submit are going to be used and it might be shifted, not the captions itself, but the way the story’s direction takes place. So that kind of has made me think that I have to take more control of my images and my stories and my captions than I did initially when I just started photographing for publications.” (12:30)

“I don’t like this idea that as a photographer you’re the hero. I don’t think I’ve done anything great. I think that I’ve just held a camera to take stories and if there’s anything that I’ve done well it’s just that I’ve been lucky enough to find and meet those amazing, inspirational humans that have let me into their lives.” (14:55)

“I try to force myself to fall in love with the person that I photograph that day, and I realise that the more I’m inspired and the more I love the person in front of me, the camera will really, really shed light in a way that’s beautiful and sensitive. It’s very different. I think you can see when you have no connection with the person in front of you and when you do. You will try to photograph them in the way that you would want to be photographed.” (17:25)

“Instead of showing a homeless person who has no opportunity, if it’s their voice and their photo, then why don’t they have a say in how that story is being told? … They need to like their photo and they need to be accepting of the caption that you’ll say about them.” (22:24)

“This is my country, it’s my people, then I can’t really escape. I’m not a parachute photographer, I can’t just leave and do as I please. I am part of this, so I will be under question by the people that I photograph.” (28:50)

“I see a lot of photos for instance when there’s war or there’s poverty, in Myanmar, for instance, and the Rohingya refugees. Everyone flew in to photograph people at their worst moments, and I think in my mind I’m always going through this question of like: Well did it help? Did anything actually change? ... I don’t know how I would react if I was one of those photographers there but I hope I would have more sensitivity and respect towards the people that I’m seeing in front of my eyes being traumatised.” (33:25)

What does photo ethics mean to Tasneem?

“It’s to photograph humans in a way that you would want to be photographed. When it’s sensitive and it’s respectful, and it’s not demeaning in any way. … the way you play with the light, the way you control the portraits, and the pose, it can be in a way that brings them up or also brings them down. It can be a way that’s very colonialist or it can be something that embraces the person and brings them their own voice.” (34:43)

Links:

Tasneem’s Saudi Tales of Love series

In this episode, we talk with Melissa about the importance of empathy and compassion in creating ethical wildlife photography. She emphasises the need to understand the animal you are photographing, and to adjust your behaviour accordingly. Melissa highlights the unethical practice of using photo game farms to capture the perfect shot, which then presents viewers with a misleading impression of the state of wildlife today. Given the struggles of many species, she says, the impact of photography is all the more significant.

What you’ll find inside:

“More and more I come to realise there are so many shades of grey, you know, it’s such a nuanced topic. And also that none of us are perfect. I’m not perfect, and I make mistakes all the time. … We can all build in a higher awareness, a great awareness, into our field craft as carefully as we build in knowledge of our camera’s buttons.” (6:15)

“We have so much power, not just as humans but as wildlife photographers. And we have a responsibility with that power to first do no harm.” (10:10)

“These are just about photos to us, but to a wild animal every single moment is about survival. Every single moment is about life or death. And so knowing that, I hope can help us be more thoughtful and careful in our approach.” (13:54)

“Ethics for me in that field of captive wildlife photography really has to do with making careful, conscious choices about what sort of facility you are visiting and supporting. “ (22:20)

On truth in captioning: “People are always going to assume that the animal is wild. So if it’s not, tell us it’s captive, tell us where it’s housed, tell us the truth of that animal’s life. Don’t do a disservice to the viewer. … It’s deceptive in terms of what’s really going on in our world with these species, and how close they are teetering to extinction.” (29:12)

“Animals are not ours, they’re not here to perform for us. Especially during breeding season when they need to use all their energy … For us to compel a bird to come perform and spend all that energy, and to fool it, I feel maybe back in the day it was okay ... but birds are in such peril now and have so many challenges that I really feel like we just have to be more sensitive than that. We have to be more careful. Are our photos really worth the price that that animal is paying?” (36:11)

“How comfortable would we be telling other people the truth to this shot? That’s another really good indicator for us: am I going to want to tell people on social media how I got this shot or would I be sort of embarrassed? Would people really look down on it? Because if the answer’s yes, you would be embarrassed, yes, people would look down on it, then maybe that’s a good sign that’s not a great practice.” (37:09)

“Learn about your subject, and have empathy and compassion for their struggles, and realise that they value their lives as much as you value your life.” (38:14)

What does photo ethics mean to Melissa?

“I think ethics is a tricky word because I think sometimes in wildlife photography it’s been bandied about so much, and I feel in some ways it’s lost it’s meaning. And I think when you say ‘be an ethical photographer’ there’s a knee jerk reaction, sometimes where people feel like ‘Well, don’t tell me what to do. How do you know what’s good, what’s right, what’s bad?’ And, you know, I understand that it can be tiresome to hear those words and it can sort of lose all meaning, but for me it’s really about being empathic. I really do feel like ethics comes from empathy and that’s what I want people to come away with, and that to me is the very foundation of ethics, is empathy and that feeling for another living being, you know, whether it’s a person or a wild or captive animal. You know, how can we honour, how can we best honour our subject? And for me, those are the questions that I think ethical practices really stem from.” (39:56)

Links:

National Audubon Society's Guide to Ethical Bird Photography

International League of Conservation Photographers

NANPA Truth in Documenting Guide

In this episode, we talk with Chrystal about how she prepares for each project, and why she places such an emphasis on the value of research. Yet even with research, Chrystal acknowledges that you may not always be the right person to do the work. She notes that accepting being wrong sometimes, and responding quickly to your mistakes in order to minimise harm is key to being an ethical photographer. For Chrystal, discomfort is a means through which to learn and grow.

What you’ll find inside:

“It’s possible to do all your due diligence and yet maybe still be the wrong person to do the work.” (4:05)

“It’s that philosophy of person first, photographer second. I’ll approach people as people, and then we’ll go from there.” (7:30)

“I spend two years reading all the books and papers and everything that I can... and then I start thinking about what pictures I might want to take.” (13:20)

“I feel like, if you are in the business of telling stories that are quite often not your own and touch on themes that reach a lot of people, whose stories you don’t know, whose emotions you can’t always necessarily safeguard, my bottom line is that I’m ready to be wrong.” (17:27)

“Again, I’m talking about the Black Lives Matter movement but I think for me, and for many people, that was a really important moment because it made us all really uncomfortable in exactly the right way. And sitting with that discomfort, and … working on what that discomfort brings up, I think is really important.” (18:19)

“For some reason we view being wrong, or being shown up to be wrong, as a really negative thing. But actually being wrong about something just means that there’s something you didn’t know … and that’s really exciting.” (19:27)

“There is a tendency within the photography industry … that there’s a kind of cult of personality, and this idea that once you’ve made it to be one of the gods of photography you’re kind of untouchable and I do think that’s just quite harmful. Because you shouldn’t be able to rise to the god of anything, really, and there should be no point at which you’re untouchable, where you’ve reached such a height that you can’t be critiqued.” (25:09)

“The reason I struggle to think of it as a career is because I don’t make my living from photography and I feel like that is kind of a big mark against me or something. But when someone says career, it makes me think that the aspiration is to end up making a living doing the thing that I love. And actually every time I’ve tried to do that, it’s killed photography for me.” (28:23)

What does photo ethics mean to Chrystal?

“I really do think it’s just being prepared to be wrong, and being prepared to be uncomfortable, and being okay with being uncomfortable, and digging into your discomfort to find out why you’re uncomfortable. And addressing those holes that we were talking about where you lack the understanding that you perhaps might be better for having. I think it’s a constant work in progress. No one gets it right because it’s hard. But it think that means that the effort should be constant, and should be always in the background, sometimes in the foreground. … Just not avoiding the discomfort, which is easier said than done, for sure.” (32:20)

Links

“Bits and Pieces” by Chrystal Ding

“Yours is Going to Be Healed As Well” by Chrystal Ding

“Genetopia” by Chrystal Ding

Survivor’s Fund

In this episode, we talk with Pete Brook about images of incarceration, and his thoughts on photo ethics more broadly. He shares how he first came to learn about mass incarceration, and why he felt so passionately about the issue. He discusses his belief in the importance of formal education on visual culture, and his experience teaching both university students and men incarcerated at San Quentin Prison. From this experience, Pete describes some of the responses he received from prisoners themselves on prison photography.

What you’ll find inside:

“A visual literacy is imperative and a visual literacy should have a major part in any photo education.” (6:05)

“When I emphasise visual literacy, it’s because in my classrooms I want to talk about Gregory Crewdson, I want to talk about Nan Goldin. But I also want to talk about the memes that flashed up on everyone’s phones yesterday.” (7:00)

“I’m always trying to coach my students into thinking about the ethics of image making. I ask them to think about everything that’s outside of the frame. The obvious questions: who’s taking the picture? How did they get there? How long can you assess they maybe stayed there? Do you think they should have been there?” (11:40)

On the work of Tōyō Miyatake and Jack Iwata, photographers who were interred at the Japanese Internment Camps of Manzanar and Tule Lake: “I’ve just learnt about this new photographer who was also interred and actually photographed two of the camps, not just one. And so I left my students with a question: Why is it that Jack Iwata’s name is only just becoming known? ... Why is it that one biography, one narrative is repeated and pedestaled, and others are not?” (12:35)

On photography archives: “There is always space to invite people to bring their own photographs and add vernacular photographs of the moment to the historical moment that the archive wants to speak to.” (16:30)

“Photography and colonialism sort of ran hand in hand. Their inventions came about at about the same time, and have really suited one another.” (19:27)

“We need to go past the dominant, simple, obvious tropes which seem to stand in for a ‘depiction’ of prison.” (24:38)

On the responses of incarcerated men to photographs of incarceration (26:47)

What does photo ethics mean to Pete?

“A few months ago I initiated a discussion with some other photo educators - it’s online - and the premise was about fear, and it was my fear. And thankfully they talked me down. But when I think of photography ethics I think of talking about and sharing images in a way that helps people know the world better. And my fear is that images, more and more, are causing alienation, causing confusion, especially amongst young people. And going back to what we said at the very start about visual literacy, you can take any image, it doesn’t have to be an image of blight or plight elsewhere in the world. You can talk about the ethics around an Instagram story, you can talk about the ethics of those platforms, you know, which are now increasingly algorithmically run. And, I don’t know whether this fits your vision of ethics but … we have to do work, right? We’re the consumers, and if you’re not thinking about images in a way where you want them to improve society, then you might be inadvertently becoming part of the problem. And my fear is that our current image culture … is that it’s too much work for people to do. Or worse than that, they don’t even see the work that needs to be done.” (41:28)

Links

Pete Brook’s Prison Photography

Tōyō Miyatake

Jack Iwata

Kelly Lytle Hernandez

Thomas Allen Harris

Zanele Muholi

Ucobia Darm? (41:55) Eucobia Adam

Isadora Kosofsky

jackie sumell

Saverley Smith? (44:39)

Ashley Hunt

The People’s Paper Co-Op

Lucinda Devlin’s Omega Suites

Louis Baltz’s Point San Quentin

In this episode, we talk with Sarah Waiswa about the importance of listening to the people you are photographing. Sarah describes her experiences working with journalists and working with NGOs, and the difference between them. She highlights the potential for NGO photography to be extractive as a result of the power imbalance between the photographer and the photographed. To counteract this, Sarah notes the need to acknowledge the power that you have, and emphasises the role that collaboration should play in telling someone else’s story.

What you’ll find inside:

“I think a lot of the issues is with NGOs that work in the rural areas, when the people see them coming, they think they’ve come with money and gifts and all types of things, you know? So they feel like they really have to perform in order to get those things.” (10:10)

“I think NGO work is my least favourite kind of work because it is extractive. … Also the briefs, you know, are very make sure everyone is smiling. Make sure it’s positive. Make sure people are happy. Make sure, make sure, make sure. And yet when you go into these areas... sometimes it’s not a smiley situation.” (12:20)

“This idea of being the voice of the voiceless, I think when I was starting out that sounded so … cool right? I quickly, quickly after kind of working and just learning about photography, just realised that that was absolutely just not true. I don’t think anybody can be the voice for anybody else.” (17:30)

“Anytime you are telling other people’s stories it has to be a collaboration, you know? Yes, you have the tool, you have the camera, but at the end of the day, you have to work with someone in order to be able to tell a story.” (18:30)

“I think the story doesn’t start with you busting out your camera.” (20:20)

“Even as an African, telling stories about Africa, I think it’s still important to consider that we could possibly be doing the same thing and in various different communities. If I go and photograph a story in an informal settlement, I am an outsider too.” (24:20)

What does photo ethics mean to Sarah?

“I think the first thing I would say is that recognising that, just by virtue of you having a camera, that you have a certain power, depending obviously on the type of photography that you’re doing, but that you have a certain power over the people that you’re photographing. And so being conscious of that I think is really important. I think if you’re conscious of that, how you navigate the storytelling and how you use that power I think is really important. And not abusing that power. I think that’s what photography ethics is, is really trying not to abuse the power that the camera gives you.” (28:40)

In this episode, we talk with Waleed Shah on how he uses photography to break stereotypes and challenge societal norms, in both his personal and commercial work. In creating work with and about people of other cultures, he acknowledges the importance of cultural sensitivity, and the importance of learning from people who truly understand the culture. Waleed discusses how, in commercial photography, it’s possible to set up a scene specifically to alter perceptions of a particular group of people. He also describes his upfront approach to ethics, and how commercial brands may respond to this.

What you’ll find inside:

“In a masculine dominated society, you’ll have the man driving and the woman in the passenger seat so, you know, when I saw that visual, I hadn’t seen the visual before shooting, but when I was shooting and I saw them sitting there I was like guys, this is so stereotypical, let’s switch this up. So we switched up the lady having her in the driver’s seat, and it’s like a muscle car and they’re having a light interaction, not a flirty interaction. So it’s those societal norms or those stereotypes that you kind of try to break so it’s not just another lame ad.” (6:49)

“From an ethical standpoint, what I understand with documentary photography, it’s like you want to keep the scene as is, you don’t want to touch it, you know because you’re documenting what is happening in reality, you don’t want to pose people, you don’t want to crop in a way that changes the story. Whereas in commercial photography you can set up the scene in a way to change perceptions.” (8:40)

“It’s generally resistant, to be very honest, it’s generally resistant. But the people themselves, the people working for the brands, understand it. But there’s always this expectation that my boss won’t approve it, my boss won’t like it and if only that person was in the room with us I could take them into it.” (9:47)

On cultural sensitivity for The Father’s Day Project: “I took a buddy with me who is from Kerala, his family’s there, he grew up there, and he really helped me navigate that culture, and also translate, and be respectful.’ (11:27)

“t’s a strange way to put it but you actually get famous, you get well known for putting your foot down on certain issues. So once you put your foot down on one topic, the industry will know about it. And it can go both ways... One way it can go is the bad way which is, oh this is a difficult person. Let’s not work with them.” (17:44)

What does photo ethics mean to Waleed?

“I think it changes with every conversation. And that’s one of the reasons I actually don’t like having the questions in advance so I can’t really prepare the answers, and I just have to think off the top of my head. But I think today it’s about representing every culture and breaking every stereotype that you possibly can - when we’re talking about the commercial side of things. … representing the right cultures in an image and breaking the stereotypes of that culture because I think, at least in our generation, we’re kind of done with our parents' generation of thinking. You know, we want to get rid of that. It’s all about the male, female roles, it’s all about cultural minority roles - breaking those stereotypes and levelling the marketing to include everybody.” (25:58)

Links

Behind the Scenes Video - Emarat | Expect the Unexpected

Rock Your Ugly

Magazine Cover

The Father's Day Project

In this episode, we talk with Kirsty Mackay, Kelly O’Brien, and Joanne Coates who are working class photographers, visual artists, storytellers, and founders of The Other. They talk about why and how they founded The Other, and the importance of fostering a supportive community. They discuss how they see the role of a photographer, the role of the photographed communities, and the power dynamic between the two. Providing examples from their own experiences, Kirsty, Kelly, and Joanne raise the issues facing working class people within the photography industry while suggesting possible solutions and calling for change.

What you’ll find inside:

“I think in my mind [the obstacles] are two fold. There are the obstacles that we have in our head. Things like imposter syndrome, things like a lack of confidence in middle class spaces. And then there are the obstacles within the photography industry. Some of those come from it being a middle class dominant space, so work of working class photographers is not valued in the same way. There’s the financial obstacles of the pay to play, so that’s paying to enter competitions, paying for portfolio reviews.” (9:40) (Kirsty)

“I want to challenge the dominant visual discourses which are coming out, the dominant bodies of work that are coming out around working class communities which I find quite harmful. I find they’re misinformed. And that’s largely because the people who are making that work aren’t coming from those communities, and they don’t have a deeper understanding of what it’s like to be poor and working class. … I just feel like there needs to be a deeper education and knowledge when people are working with communities which aren’t theirs.” (16:40) (Kelly)

“Photography’s always been very good at portraying victims and not as good at portraying the perpetrators. And if you are looking at poverty, for instance, through a middle class lens it’s easy to miss out a lot of the nuances and tell a very single sided story.” (17:35) (Kirsty)

“My solution is to listen to people, and when I’m photographing people I’m not doing it from a vantage point of looking down on people. When I’m photographing people, I’m in awe of the people that I’m photographing and I’m learning from them and I’m listening to them.” (31:20) (Kirsty)

“Different marginalised groups are often divided, so we need to have an alliance with other groups and other movements. And all understand each other. So that could be queer photographers, BIPOC photographers, women photographers, disabled photographers, non-binary photographers. All different people who have all different issues and to understand that together we’re stronger.” (38:45) (Joanne)

“People need to let go of their power. And I think that’s the difficult one.” (40:00) (Kelly)

“I think there’s a fine line of this saviour complex that we can experience. And even in my own communities when I’m working, I don’t believe that my photography is going to radically change the people’s lives that I’m working with. Because actually it’s bigger than me, and it’s bigger than the work. It’s systemic, problematic, Capitalist oppression. And the least we can do with our work, if it’s done well, is create important conversations.” (49:00) (Kelly)

“If you have money, it’s easy to make money. And I know some photographers who boast about their funding applications and their success rate. And I think I would just love people to look at their privilege a little bit more.” (59:35) (Kirsty)

“Arts Council England … is a system in place to make artists able to practice, and it’s continuously taken advantage of by using things like grant writers, but also people who think that they deserve it, which is often not working class people. … It’s really important to look at that specific funding body and to know that it is funded mainly by working people, and how ethical is that in your practice.” (59:50) (Joanne)

What does photo ethics mean to The Other?

Joanne: “I think, individually, ethics should be at the core of your practise. … I think considering, and really looking at the actions that photography can have on other people is really important. And, as a group, I think ethics is something that we really talk about quite a lot. As in, before we do a talk, we discuss how that’s going to be manageable. Will it be difficult for people to access? What should we talk about? And we kind of really look at different issues and how they’re going to affect people. And that’s something that I’ve really found helpful, being a part of this group, is that I think Kelly and Kirsty are both very considerate towards that. So that makes it a group that I want to be part of.” (55:10)

Kelly: “I think ethics for us as well - I’ll speak for all of us - is an openness to learning but more importantly unlearning. Unlearning is challenging and difficult, and I feel to be ethical as an organisation as well we need to be willing to learn from others, to get other people involved but also be open to criticism cause we’re not going to be doing everything perfect. We will make mistakes. And I’m sure we’ll make many mistakes. But that we have to invite and welcome in that dialogue. … For me, that’s what being ethical is, is to constantly - which is tiring but, you know, we are committed to doing the work - is to constantly have a look at how we’re acting and the way we think. And how that plays out in, not just our own practises, our image making, but also our work together as a group.” (57:00)

Kirsty: “Ethics for me and photography in terms of making work, it really boils down to putting the person you're photographing or the community you’re photographing - putting their needs or requirements on a par with yours. And it’s about that releasing of power, and being willing to not use an image if the person in the picture does not want you to use that. You know, not assuming that you have a right over anybody else.” (1:01:28)

Links:

Class Wars

Kit de Waal

Know Your Place: Essays on the Working Class by the Working Class

Kerry Hudson

Panic! Social Class, Taste, and Inequalities in the Creative Industries

In this episode, we talk with Polly Irungu on working intentionally. Polly reflects on her experiences growing up and going to university which led her to found the community Black Women Photographers. She describes how intentionality is central to everything she does - from her work as a photographer, to her work with radio news, and then to her work with Black Women Photographers.

What you’ll find inside:

“Photography was that creative tool, that creative outlet for me when I was in a really bad place and helped me find my voice again.” (9:09)

“When you’re a self-taught photographer, you’re not taking a class classed ‘Ethics 101.’ You’re not learning about the things that typically or whatever is considered standard that’s ethically wrong – you’re not learning that as a self-taught photographer. And then, depending on what journalism school you go to, you may not even learn there either. I mean, you’ll learn like ethics within journalism, but how does that translate into the world of photography?” (10:40)

“I want to leave this industry better than I found it.” (13:04)

About the inception of Black Women Photographers (14:43)

“What am I doing as a photographer, as a journalist, or as the founder of a community? What am I doing? How am I doing it? Where am I spending my time and energy? And, again, all those different questions that I ask myself, that’s just me trying to be more intentional about going about it.” (24:10)

Relating radio journalism to photography ethics: “Who are we having on the air, and are they the best person to tell this story? … It’s like, how we approach that and how we are so mindful of the voices we bring onto the air.” (28:00)

“Am I the best person? You know, I also have to ask that myself. Just because I’m Black or just because I’m a woman, am I still the best person for x y z? And so, I still say no to things. And I’m like, if I can say no, I know my counterparts who are white can also say no, and pass up an assignment, and can recommend someone else.” (31:55)

“What would I be leaving behind? And would I be proud of that? And what work would I be leaving behind, and so would I be proud of that work? And so I guess that’s how I think about it a lot, and how I think about what work I say yes to and what work I don’t say yes to, because it plays a large part in the mark you’ll be leaving.” (33:23)

What does photo ethics mean to Polly?

“I feel like this definition is constantly changing. Again, I think there are fundamentals that everyone probably knows and sticks to, but then you go beyond that and then everyone should have their own personal line where they do not cross. And so, it’s so hard because when you think about the state of photography and how it’s still very white male dominated, and any time there is any ethical dilemma I feel like it comes from those white males who still dominate this industry. … My definition of ethics would be … different compared to what photography may be because, again, it wasn’t set up for someone like me to thrive in.” (39:42)

Links:

Black Women Photographers

Women Photograph

PhotoShelter Webinar with Alexis Hunley and Dee Dwyer

In this episode, we talk with Mallika Vora about the necessity of complicating narratives in photography, and providing a more nuanced understanding of events. She also addresses the issue of objectivity within the photojournalism industry, and the need to be transparent with the viewers about why you’re making the pictures you’re making. Mallika emphasizes prioritising the person you are photographing. She believes a photographer should foster a relationship of trust and mutual vulnerability, while understanding who the photograph really belongs to.

What you’ll find inside:

“Trust is established not when the picture’s being taken, but in between the moments that the picture is being taken. And I really value that. And to also display some vulnerability and some willingness to share of yourself in the moment that someone else is, I think is really, really important. And you can’t really do that when you’re also trying to take the picture. Sometimes it takes putting the camera down, looking someone in the eye, and telling them something really personal. That’s a part of being human. That’s a part of letting someone know you’re right there with them, and you feel what they feel. And you, too, know what pain feels like, or you, too, know what it means to be vulnerable. And then in those moments that trust is built, and then after those moments, then the photos happen.” (10:20)

“It also made a difference that the editor was on the same page as the both of us as well. And what was established at the very, very beginning was, by the editor themselves, was: I know you know this already but I need to say this. The safety of the subjects is the most important, their dignity is the most important, their comfort is the most important. The pictures will come but if you focus on that as being the priority in our process, then the pictures themselves will be what they need to be, and will say what they need to say.” (14:43)

“When I say that I seek to complicate narratives, I want to kind of break past any assumptions that a person looking at the photograph might have about the person in the photograph.” (16:26)

“I think the job of the artist or the journalist or the visual storyteller is to critique power. So I think complicating a narrative is complicating a narrative that has been handed to us by power that we then have to subvert in order to start creating change in society.” (17:06)

“In protest photography, I think it is much more useful when presenting that story, for people to know that I’m a sympathetic journalist in that place. Like I’m documenting these feminist protests because I’m also a feminist and I support what they’re doing. And I think that that honesty is absolutely necessary... one, to understand the pictures themselves and, two, to understand the context I’m creating for them.” (23:37)

“In regards to transparency with subjects, I mean, it’s not fair if they don’t know where the picture is going, why you’re taking the picture, who you are when you’re taking this picture, because their image ultimately belongs to them.” (24:10)

“It would be lying to say that there isn’t sometimes a voice in my head that would be like ‘this would be a really iconic, like famous photo’ because it’s really intense, and x, y, and z. And I think a lot of photographers have that voice, and I think that voice is often trying to convince you to do something unethical.” (31:41)

“Focus on all the moments, not just the darkest ones.” (33:15)

What does photo ethics mean to Mallika?

“Ethics is where a bunch of really cool things come together. Those really cool things being transparency, safety, consent, context, and kind of removing yourself from authorship in a certain way as well. Like I think that the biggest challenge, especially the way the media landscape is structured, is claiming ownership over images and who has ownership and basically this problem of property, right? But when you really think about it, the person in the picture... it’s their picture. It’s not your picture, it’s their picture that they allowed to happen. And so I think acknowledging that, and I think moving in a way that honours that is a way to truly move in a way that is ethical.” (34:30)

Links

Diversify Photo

Women Photograph

Searching with the Mothers of Mexico's Disappeared - The New Yorker

In this episode, we talk with Aaron Turner about the place of identity in abstract photography and art. He discusses the inspiration behind his photographic projects, and why he chose to pursue abstraction as a medium of expression. Aaron shares the reasoning behind his decision to document his family and local community, while noting the issues that need to be considered when doing so. Aaron also talks about the experience of Black photographers following the death of George Floyd and emphasises the need to readdress the mainstream narrative of photographic history and its exclusion of Black photographers.

What you’ll find inside:

On abstract artists who were connected to the Black Arts Movement: “On one side of their practise they were deemed, by their fellow Black artists, as not contributing to the cause. Again, because their work was kind of in that realm of geometric abstraction and so you don’t see moments of, what we call now, Black joy. ... We are not painting an image, or depicting an image of Black dignity. You’re painting triangles and squares and circles.” (7:10)

“What the perception could be is that they’re trying to pass as a white artist. But if you really look into their work, and the symbols and the choices that people use in their work. Like Howardena Pindell, for example, and why she used the circle. I encourage everyone to look that up, it’s pretty fascinating. It comes from a place of her identity and her childhood. She’s not an artist trying to pass for white.” (12:18)

“The feedback that I got about documenting my own community and documenting my family was that it was not serious journalism, it was not serious work, right? It wasn’t taken seriously... until you have a person like a Latoya Ruby Frazier, at least for me as an individual, I see myself in her, right? In terms of having like the wherewithal and the bravery to sort of do those things.” (16:28)

“Now, I know this is probably true for a lot of photographers after what happened with George Floyd in Minnesota, and how people sorta had this - I don’t even know what you would call it because there are so many things that have happened since - but now all of a sudden Black photographers are sought after globally. To sort of go into communities and make the work when people have been trying to say you should have been sending us there in the first place all these other years ago.” (26:31)

“Just because I’m Black, doesn’t mean I get all the rights and privileges of going into a Black community and documenting. I still have to do my job as a journalist, I still have to gain people’s trust. I still have to be ethical up to my standards. You know, that’s what I have to do with my family. Like I don’t get to just raise the camera up to my family, right? They have to get comfortable with me doing those things.” (36:09)

“Go back in history and ask: why are things the way they are?” (40:12)

“Self-publish, get the work out there yourself, don’t wait for a big publication to add authenticity to it, don’t wait for someone else to deem it valuable. Find value in it yourself.” (46:17)

“I think as photographers we have to move beyond what some people describe as photoland or the photo world. Because other things are happening around us and we have to be aware of those things to be more effective at what it is that we do.” (47:05)

What does photo ethics mean to Aaron?

“Do unto others as you would have them done unto you. That’s a principle I was raised with and still live by to this day. It’s not always easy to do that. It’s not just as simple as saying that it’s a different world when you act out and live that. ... I think being ethical is practising empathy, in the various ways that it’s possible to do that. Put ourselves in other people’s shoes but also I think self-awareness in all interactions with people. Like being aware of the role that you play or different power dynamics or what you’re trying to accomplish by interacting with people. When you make an image of someone, what you’re taking, what they’re giving. When someone allows in their space, to spend time with them, you know, what they’re giving up, what you’re giving up, what they’re taking, what you’re taking. Maybe also like selflessness. Going into something, figuring out how it can benefit someone other than ourselves. I think that can go a long way. And so I think that also ties into, you know, why are we picking up the camera in the first place? Would we do it if we weren’t paid for it? You know, how everyone kind of comes to that way of thinking, or that understanding for themselves based on their life and decisions. So that’s what ethics is for me.” (43:07)

Links:

The Center for Photographers of Color

Yesterday Once More

Black Alchemy

The Black Arts Movement

Frank Bowling

Howardena Pindell

Passing by Nella Larsen

The Imitation of Life

Latoya Ruby Frazier

Matt Eich

Reflections in Black by Deborah Willis

Eugene Richards

Dorothea Lange

Gordon Parks

Roy DeCarava

Kerry James Marshall

In this episode, we talk with Tamara Abdul Hadi about what we have seen. She discusses how she develops relationships with marginalised people, and the importance of having the right intentions as a photographer. Tamara recounts some of her personal experiences with photography ethics, and how they have altered her perspective. She highlights the need to have a critical eye when it comes to the historic photographic narrative of Iraq, of who is choosing the photographs and why. Beyond this, Tamara talks about what photography means to her and passes on some advice for young photographers.

What you’ll find inside:

“As an Arab documentary photographer, what I really love to do, and what really drives my work, is getting to know people, getting to know subcultures. Getting to know specifically those marginalised within my own community. And what I do with my work is I create opportunities to interact with and learn from these groups, which are often subjected to stereotyping and misrepresentation.” (2:23)

On a moment in Palestine that altered Tamara’s perspective on photography ethics (7:00)

“Ok, now I can really try to think about why I am taking photos, and what I’m trying to say through the photos. And how actually I can represent people. It’s not like I’m taking away their power by representing them. You know, you can amplify voices through photography. You can do the opposite of that, right? You can do the opposite of taking away power.” (13:54)

“There’s a lot to unpack and a lot to think about in terms of these sort of repeating visual regimes that keep repeating themselves and we ingest them, but it’s because we are used to seeing them. … How does Iraq fit into photographic history? And what have we been used to seeing in terms of the visual regime of Iraq? And what have we been taking in visually about the country?” (18:29)

“I think we need to open up and think about how certain places are being represented, and if we feel like we can add to that, then that’s what we should do.” (23:27)

On the cover image of the Latif al-Ani book: “The cover of the book is basically a photograph in Iraq in an area called Taq Kasra, which is like a historical Iraqi ruin. And it’s basically a photo of an older Iraqi man sitting on the floor playing with an instrument called the rebaba. And standing over him are two people, a couple, and the caption of the photo is ‘US couple, or American couple, at Taq Kasra.’ … It’s like, who decides, like why is this photo the one that’s supposedly the representative photo of all the photos in that archive and in his book?” (28:19)

Advice for young photographers: “To connect with people that were like-minded, to have conversations with other people that seemed to be doing similar things to me or thinking similarly.” (34:14)

“It’s also important for people to ask themselves, like try to figure out why you want to be a photographer. If it’s just because you want your photos in the magazine, you should consider other reasons why you might want to be a photographer. … For me, I realised that I’m doing this because it’s what keeps me going. It inspires me. It makes me feel like it’s a part of who I am. … And then on a wider level, I continue doing work because I hope that the work I do can be part of a conversation. That it can enter conversations with other people who could be doing work with a similar intention.” (35:21)

What does photo ethics mean to Tamara?

“Photography ethics means everything to me, I think. It means that I have to think before I photograph. It means that I have to be sensitive when I’m photographing. It’s very, very multilayered and it’s extremely important to think about and should be spoken about more.” (38:30)

Links:

We are the Medium

Rawiya Collective

Barber Shops in Palestine and Lebanon

Return to the Marshes by Gavin Young and Nick Wheeler

Wilfried Thesiger

Latif al-Ani

Arab Image Foundation

In this episode, we talk with Hannah Fletcher about how to develop a more sustainable photographic practice. She discusses the issue of sustainability within analogue and digital processes. Hannah explains the need she identified for a wider conversation around sustainability within photography and how this led her to found The Sustainable Darkroom. She explains her relationship with science and why it is so important for photographers to consider themselves within the broader ecosystem of photography and all the industries photography is connected to.

What you’ll find inside:

“I suddenly just thought, what if actually some of these plants could absorb the silver from waste photographic fixer and use it in a positive way? Like actually what if there’s something more going on here that I could explore and somehow create more of a holistic ecosystem within photography?” (4:18)

Hannah discusses the main issues of sustainability within analogue photography , including: the amount and type of water used, the use of bovine gelatine, waste chemistry disposal, and the use of plastic. (7:18)

Hannah discusses the main issues of sustainability within digital photography, including: the ethics of your camera’s manufacturer, the mining of minerals and materials for your camera, disposal of your old camera, and the storage of digital photographs. (12:27)

“In 2019 I founded an initiative called The Sustainable Darkroom which is basically a kind of platform and research and learning initiative to support other practitioners in finding their own more environmentally friendly approach to working with analogue photography.” (16:26)

“I knew that I needed collective knowledge and the help of scientists and experts, which is why I kind of thought I need to make something that is going to bring together lots of people to really work in this way of activism and community resilience. Because I really believe that these forms of actions are some of the most powerful ways that we can move forward in society.” (18:51)

“I think we need to be open to possibilities for new understandings and new visual languages within our photography because that’s the only way that we can really move forward.” (23:40)

“None of these ideas that I’m putting forward are solutions to working completely environmentally friendly. None of them are perfect. None of them are solutions yet. But I believe that just making an informed decision, knowing what materials you’re using, where it came from, why you’re using it, why it makes sense for your practise, being able to justify it. I believe that this is one of the most powerful things that we can do as a society is to inform ourselves, and make conscious decisions.” (26:06)

“If we are thinking about the whole ecosystem of photography, it relies on so many other industries to exist. And I think we need to not think of ourselves as an individual photographer existing on our own.” (30:12)

Hannah explains her relationship and approach to science (32:00)

What does photo ethics mean to Hannah?

“I think ethics encompasses everything that we do. And I don’t think it should be thought of as something separate from photography, you know, it should just be completely intertwined in a way. And ethics isn’t this thing which kind of sits, you know, on a podium over there. It’s like within everything. It’s within the ecosystem. It’s within, you know, the camera that you’re holding, and it’s within the scene that you’re photographing, and it’s within the chemistries that you’re developing in. And I think it’s just really about having a complete awareness of how those materials came to be and your relationship with them and a consciousness of that. That you have kind of like done your research, if you like, and you can justify why you’re using that camera and why you’re taking the image you can... I think if we’re more conscious beings then we don’t have to think about it so much because it will always be there within the way that we work and the way we approach our practise and our kind of just wider lifestyle.” (35:18)

Links

The Sustainable Darkroom

London Alternative Photography Collective

The Ecology of Grain by Edward Maughan-Carr

Film Washi

Digital Cameras Guide by Ethical Consumer Magazine

In this episode, we talk with Ryan Christopher Jones about positionality and power. Ryan discusses the connection between his identity and it’s influence on his photography, and how this ultimately gave him a more nuanced perspective as a photojournalist. He shares his personal experience of ensuring stories are ethically depicted - whether by taking the time to reshape a story, or by doing his own research to avoid confining the people photographed to negative stereotypes. Ryan also appeals for greater awareness and implementation  of photo ethics within the NFT community, as well as more accountability for the role that editors and publications play within photo ethics more broadly.

What you’ll find inside:

‘I get to Sunset Park I realised, oh, what actually am I doing here? What is my voice? What is my vision? Why am I the person to tell this story?’ (4.29)

On taking a class with Davíd Carrasco: ‘Growing up I always felt like I was too white to be fully Mexican and too Mexican to be fully white. So I felt that I was not enough of either camp. And he had this amazing point. He said you actually have the capability of speaking from two centres now.’ (8.14)

‘I think that coming from a place where both Mexico and the United States, it’s a known reality for me, I approached that story with a bit more of a nuance to push out the idea that like, okay well, America is clearly the utopia here and clearly Mexico is the place that needs to be escaped.’ (12.02)

‘We had to have a big kind of broader like ideological reframing of the story, of this story is not really about housing. This story is about sacrifice. And in making a pivot like that, I think is a huge ethical consideration.’ (15.35)

On preparing to photograph addiction: ‘The contact sheet of those Google searches are horrifying. They’re all photographed pretty similarly. They are… kind of in a single dimension of pain. And it shows that these people are visualised, that they can do almost nothing but exist in this space of suffering. So I looked at that, and I was like oh God, I don’t want to do that.’ (19.58)

‘The NFT photo community really just likes talking about how great it is to have a community and that’s fine. But people aren’t really talking about the bigger issues of what happens when you make that kind of money on someone’s face, and that person had no say in it’s production.’ (29.48)

‘Ethics is a localised thing, but it’s also a much more institutionalised thing that I think needs to be talked about too. There was a breakdown of ethical story production throughout the pandemic, and it happened both from photographers, editors, and institutions.’ (34.15)

‘It was my job for three weeks to follow these priests and basically wait for people to die. And it put me in such an existential funk, because that’s not the place anyone should be in to tell a story.’ (36.11)

What does photo ethics mean to Ryan?

‘Identifying your position of power - the position of power that you have with your camera, with the people who are being photographed. You know, and that can be extrapolated to how are you extending power in the way that you edit? How are you extending your power in the way that you publish?’ (41.33)

Links:

The Very Busy Life of an Immigrants Rights Priest in 2018

Harvard extension classes

The American Mosaic Journalism award

Mary Ellen Mark

Underground Lives: The Sunless World of Immigrants in Queens 

How Photography Exploits the Vulnerable

The Bronx’s Quiet, Brutal War with Opioids 

The Last Anointing

In this episode, we talk with Alex Reynolds about taking a step back. Alex reflects on her own practise and how she first learnt to consider ethics within her work as a travel photographer. She explores the role that social media, this need to share online, and a culture of centring ourselves, plays within the ethics of travel photography. Alex also discusses how she handles the balance of being a tour guide while educating visitors on photo ethics.

What you’ll find inside: 

‘With time I started to realise that, I mean, people often just centre themselves and just kind of take other people and use them as props a lot in my industry, and just are trying to craft the visuals that we are expecting to see in a sales pitch about insert destination here.’ (4.05)

‘It really was a matter of seeing that, recognising that, being extremely uncomfortable about the fact that I too am promoting these kinds of images. And then wondering, how do I not do that?’ (9.56)

‘Sometimes you don’t have enough time in a situation to accurately portray it in your photography and then I think an important question that a lot of us photographers at any level need to be asking ourselves is are we then suitable to be representing this?’ (12.37)

‘That’s something that a lot of people struggle with in our culture where everyone is constantly sharing everything all the time because that’s what you have to do. Sometimes we do have to step back and decide that, no, this is not appropriate.’ (17.21)

‘A lot of people are interested to learn these things but they need more tangible examples to help them actually grasp visually what these suggestions are all about.’ (19.55)

‘My business partner actually had a much better way of approaching it. She asked him, what is that camera lens for? It’s like really big. Like what are you shooting with that? What do you use that for? And he was like well people use it to shoot like wildlife and stuff like this. And she said, oh, so you think humans are just animals then?’ (23.55)

‘But simultaneously it’s true that when you go to a place, you’re going to have a very shallow experience with it, you’re only going to see a certain set of things. And so it can be useful to have someone with that like novelty in their eye, come in and represent this place.’ (26.18)

‘We’re all trying to get the Instagram shot, the beautiful girl in the beautiful location but like smack in the middle of the beautiful location and so you have all these people descending, and swarming, and trampling, and just taking over. Not so much to appreciate the beauty but more to have someone document them in the beauty. And so I think that if we kind of took our step back and reverted to actually looking at the things that we’re theoretically coming to appreciate then I think that would remove a lot of the damage.’ (34.35)

What does photo ethics mean to Alex?

‘Ethics for me is about making sure I’m not harming people and that can come in a variety of forms. Like perpetuating harmful negative stereotypes is one, putting people at risk of danger or otherwise is another, not exploiting people is a kind of harm, not destroying a location maybe like what we were talking about with revealing it to too many people could sometimes come into play. When I create an image, and I share that image, I would hope that it has a net positive effect on the world, and not just my own ego.’ (37.00)  

Links: 

Lost with Purpose blog

Sacred Footsteps podcast

In this episode, we talk with Toby Smith about climate visuals. Toby explains what can make a photograph of climate change successful. He discusses ineffective old tropes, such as images of polar bears, to more effective photographs that allude to solutions or agency. Toby also describes the ethical considerations that went into setting up the Visualising Climate Change open call initiative, as well as the seven Climate Visuals principles.

What you’ll find inside: 

‘Sadly a lot of the photography out there around climate can be really illustrative but it’s not impactful, it’s not landing with any emotional resonance.’ (2.04)

‘One of the nemesis’ of my line of work is actually the polar bear. It’s one of the images we associate most strongly with climate change but some of the research Climate Visuals does and social scientists and researchers and papers suggest that actually it’s become a really ineffective, worn out, metaphor for climate change.’ (2.47)

‘How can we invite and give stage and presence to more participation? And that participation must be the kind of diverse voices and people that are often the frontline of climate.’ (6.27)

‘We need to balance that type of newsfeed and that type of emotional connection with climate solutions and positive stories, especially ones that… we feel able to have agency.’ (9.23)

‘Those principles should be something that should empower and give them extra resources in how they go about their practice but shouldn’t at all impinge or overrule the different values and ethics systems that they might operate with their community.’ (21.50)

‘Anyone, of any age, anywhere in the world will be able to read an image and it’s integrity instantly. It’s a gut feeling.’ (23.06) 

‘Imagery showing climate change causes at an individual level - two examples I like to use are someone enjoying a steak dinner or someone firing up their gas-guzzling V8 sports car - these can actually have the effect of being quite accusatory, or quite individually pointy at certain people or cultures. And it actually gains a kind of defensive reaction from people which doesn’t necessarily get the right traction. Whereas showing industrial agricultural feedlots or showing congested highways - people can see themselves in that image but they don’t feel defensive as to their role within it so it’s much more effective.’ (23.50)

‘It’s really important we bust out of the green bubble. We need to think more about how we can engage with conservative audiences.’  (26.57)

What does photo ethics mean to Toby?

‘I think to me, photography ethics, I can’t narrow it down into a single part. To me the most important aspect, I feel personally, is around content production - partly because that is the foundation of where all photography comes from, is the lens in situation producing work. If the person holding that camera producing that work is engaging with their story and their subject matter with the right values and ethics then that’s a great start, and sadly that sense of control or ethics of value can’t always accompany an image as it floats off into it’s distribution networks. But I feel like that’s where we have to start, is the values and ethics of content production. And then maybe the other place to start is the value and ethics of content distribution, and somewhere in the middle there might be places in which we can exert some control for the right reasons.’ (37.50) 

Links: 

Climate Visuals

Climate Outreach

Visualising Climate Change open call initiative

In this episode, we talk with Laura Boushnak about questions of representation. Laura discusses the importance of being transparent and upfront with the people you are photographing, of earning their trust and respecting their decision to change their minds. She explores how social media is enabling people to tell their own stories and to choose how they are represented. Laura also explains how growing up in the Arab region has affected her opinion of representation in photography, and she questions the inequality of how different regions are depicted.  

What you’ll find inside: 

‘All these questions, no matter how many years of experience you have, I have always have these doubts and questions. Which I think is a good sign because it means I care.’ (2.44)

‘I think the key to any story that photographers work on is to be transparent with the people you are approaching. Just share with them your intentions, show them what you’re working on, why you’re doing it, where it’s going to be published.’ (6.25)

‘But now on social media, isn’t everything online? People are owning their own stories, you know, they are telling their own stories.’ (15.15)

‘The question is not if they’re being published, it’s how? How they’re being represented. That’s I think also, women, what they fear, how they’re being represented.’ (16.00)

‘It’s where I come from. I come from a region where it’s been misrepresented for years in the mainstream media. So it’s tiring when you see certain images reflect the whole region.’ (17.05)

‘I’m not saying let's just work on positive stories. Of course, part of our job is to highlight and focus on problems. But it’s the way we make you feel sorry about the subjects. That I can’t stand.’ (21.00)

‘When there is a suicide attack or an explosion in the Arab world, it’s okay to publish dead bodies. But have you seen a single photo coming out from Paris attacks?’ (23.27)

‘Why is it okay to publish certain images from certain countries but not others?’ (23.58)

What does photo ethics mean to Laura?

‘They’re like the guidelines, you know, cause sometimes I am in the field and I’m tempted, you know like ugh this photo would have been fantastic if… but then you ask yourself these ethical questions that you shouldn’t cross. Also one time I took a really nice photo but then the person in the picture, they go like please don’t use that photo. And I was too tired to argue, I didn’t even bother. I said yeah it’s okay, I won’t use it. But when I was editing I was like oh that’s a really strong image, I wish I could use it. And then you think, could I use it? But then you think no I shouldn’t… but maybe the person won’t see it. And then you remind yourself, this is the internet. Everyone can see everything… You have to think it’s people’s interest above your own interests. At the end of the day, I have no right to go to people’s houses, take their pictures, share their personal private lives with the rest of the world. And I mean these people trusted you so at least show some respect to them.’ (28.10)

Links: 

LGBTIQ in Lebanon

I Read, I Write

Three Syrian sisters in Germany

In this episode, we talk with Michèle Pearson Clarke about vulnerability. She talks about the ethical considerations of presenting other people’s vulnerabilities within a gallery space and the responsibility she feels towards the communities she works with. She describes the process she took to be vulnerable herself in her self-portraits. As an artist and a teacher, Michèle explains the impact different mediums and methods of presentation can have. And as a photo laureate, she describes her ambition to build the public’s understanding of visual literacy as they create and engage with photographs everyday.

What you’ll find inside: 

‘Photographs are part of systems of power, photographs get used to communicate certain things, to hide certain things.’ (4.35)

‘Ethics no longer just applies to professional photographers right? We’re all publishers, we’re all broadcasters, we’re all making and disseminating photographs now.’ (5.06)

‘A lot of what we do is ego work as artists... It’s really okay to think that maybe your photograph is only going to do not that much in the world. Particularly when it comes to ethics, I think often there’s an overinflation of what we think our photographs will do or can do. And that often gets held up as justification for showing an image that people question.’ (8.10)

‘Especially given the history of making black people’s pain a spectacle for consumption, what does it mean to, not just ask people to be vulnerable, but what does it mean to show that in a gallery? What does it mean to present and display black and queer vulnerability and pain in the gallery space?’ (12.25)

On creating a website to aid informed consent: ‘For every project I build a project website that allows me a lot of space to be able to say who I am, why I’m making what I’m making, where it will show. I just put all the information I can about what I’m doing… so people can read that on their own time before deciding yes I would like to participate.’ (14.50)

On her self portrait series: ‘I’ve been reflecting on what does it mean to be read as moving from a young black boy to being read as a black middle aged man? And for some people a black man is a very threatening thing.’ (25.35)

‘The self portrait series is intentionally photographic because on the one hand when I’m out walking down the street I don’t want you staring at me, trying to figure out if I’m a man or a woman... but in the gallery I’ve intentionally decided, you can look as long as you want.’ (29.46)

‘Audiences too have responsibilities, and I think it’s something that often galleries shy away from. I think it’s okay to ask the audience to do some work.’ (32.15)

What does photo ethics mean to Michèle?

‘I think photography ethics… it foregrounds to me that I see myself less as an individual with rights and more as part of a community to whom I have responsibilities. And so it is a way of working, and not just in the making of the photograph, everything. It is a way of addressing people in emails, it's a way of working with galleries, it's everything that I do. It's the way that I teach, how I treat my students, how I build my lesson plans. It’s foregrounding the responsibilities that I have as part of a community and thinking about… as I said, power is embedded in all of those positions I hold - artist, teacher, photo laureate - I hold a certain amount of power. So it means how do I leverage that power… I mean it’s hard because ethics always equates morals. And for me it's not so much about good and bad but it's about harm reduction almost. One of the things humans are really good at is we hurt each other. Sometimes intentionally, most times unintentionally. And so how do I make decisions? How do I set up processes that hopefully minimise harm as I pursue the things that I’m drawn to pursue.’  (41.50)

Links: 

Quantum Choir

The Animal Seems to Be Moving

In this episode, we talk with Tara Todras-Whitehill about becoming a storyteller. She shares how she first became a photographer, and the ethical situations she has found herself in since. Tara describes her current role training NGOs on how to tell stories powerfully and ethically, while explaining the different ethical contexts between journalism and NGO photography. She discusses the importance of going beyond a basic approach to consent, to ensure that the participant is well-informed. Tara also talks about how becoming a mother has altered the way she thinks and acts about photo ethics.

What you’ll find inside: 

‘I quit after four years because I wasn’t really getting what I wanted out of it and people thought I was crazy because I was quitting a staff job, and who quits a staff job? And I was like, but this wasn’t what I signed up for. So then I went back to doing more in depth storytelling for social impact.’ (10.18)

‘NGOs vs journalism have very different decisions about what is correct for them.  I always take the journalist ethics to the organisations I’m working for, but you always have to figure out how to balance those things because they’re working in a different context.’ (14.18)

‘If you do the down-trodden thing and like woe is me and whatever, they don’t come back, because people might donate, but they’re not interested in it because it makes them feel bad.’ (19.10)

‘You want to make sure you’re telling the story that’s accurate, but you also recognise that they are working within confines. If you’re working with the government, there’s things that they can’t say and how do you tell the story accurately so that your own ethics are being met?’ (22.44)

‘We are synced for stories, and we are synced for connection.’ (26.15)

‘As a mother, I also feel like I’m more vulnerable to seeing things - in a good way. Like more emotionally attached whereas before I would have said my camera in front of my face is like a barrier.’ (27.30)

On photographing a story about a child’s circumcision: ‘I sent a message and I said you really need to explain in a lot more detail to the family, even though they gave consent, about what this means.’ (29.20)

‘I’ve been advocating for better consent forms where people can retract consent and understand their consent doesn’t mean anything about whether they’re going to get more or less services.’ (33.05)

What does photo ethics mean to Tara?

‘I mean to me it’s just humanity. You’re being allowed to take a picture of someone and their life, and that’s an honour, to be able to do that. And I think about that all the time, about the things I’ve been able to do and how amazing it’s been and how people let me into their homes with a camera. To me, it’s not photo ethics, it’s just how you want to be treated. That is just human.’  (39.35)

Links: 

Portraits: I had an abortion

Ethicalstorytelling.com

Dignified Storytelling

In this episode, we talk with Anne Nwakalor about reading and research. Anne discusses what motivated her to start No! Wahala, a magazine dedicated to showing work by African creatives, in the midst of the pandemic. She explains the need for a narrative shift in the way that Africa is depicted, and the impact that colonialism and white saviorism has had on this narrative. Anne highlights the need for respect within photography, and how foreign photographers can engage with local photographers in an ethical way. Anne also emphasises the need for photographers to continue learning in order to engage with the ever evolving nature of ethics.

What you’ll find inside: 

‘One thing that really propelled me to start it is because living in Nigeria surrounded by so many amazing photographers, photojournalists and one thing that we saw a lot is that for stories and features a lot of photographers from the West are being flown in.’ (4.30)

‘Even though the intention was to get local photographers seen by industry professionals, it became so much more. It became like an educational platform, it became a resource.’ (5.20)

‘There’s been a lot of issues going on with a lot of photographers presenting people that they photographed in a certain way, and it’s out of context and it causes a lot of issues. So in my full time job, when I’m putting something out there, I need to make sure that the context is correct.’ (8.35)

‘Basically what I narrowed it down to was, not just getting the African photographers seen internationally but reshaping the narrative of the continent as a whole, because so much damage has been done with centuries of white saviorism and colonial gaze.’ (9.45)

On asking local photographers for their advice: ‘I recommend you reach out to them and just talk through your ideas, talk through what it is that you want to achieve and also ask them if it’s feasible and if there’s a way that it can be done respectfully’ (13.00)

‘Doing your research will help you to be specific, and will help you to narrow down what it is you want to accomplish, what it is that you stand for.’ (18.02)

‘I feel like the photography industry transforms so many times. One moment something is ethical, the next thing it’s not. So that’s why it’s so important to be updating yourself and researching.’ (20.25)

‘Because ethics is changing, you will make mistakes and there will be things you need to unlearn. And I think you need to position yourself in a way where you’re open to unlearning.’ (23.09)

What does photo ethics mean to Anne?

‘In one word, respect. That’s what it means to me. Being respectful, being respectful of the person you’re photographing, being respectful of who that person represents, being respectful of where you’re photographing it, you know what I mean, it’s just respect. And I feel like if us photographers go into what we’re doing with respect in our minds, we’ll be able to counteract a lot of the ethical issues that are going on right now.’ (29.28)

Links: 

No! Wahala magazine

The Safe place issue

African Photojournalism Database

In this episode, we talk with Sebah Chaudhry about diversity and inclusion. Sebah emphasises the need for diversity across organisations and educational institutions, and the impact this can have. She explains the importance of mentorship in order to help photographers understand their worth, and the problematic ways in which organisations can take advantage of photographers of colour. Discussing her own experience, Sebah recounts her process for deciding whether to work with an organisation or individual. Sebah stresses the need for organisations to be held accountable.

What you’ll find inside: 

‘I’ve worked with really great organisations and they all do have great values but, of course, we have to always question those and we have to make sure that they are being held accountable.’ (5.50)

‘For her not to get paid, even if it’s a nominal fee, I think that’s just really terrible. I feel like if they were photographers who were white, and male, and middle-aged, they would have been paid.’ (8.50)

‘I have worked on projects before where there have been all white photographers and I have challenged this, or tried to work out why that is. If there’s an application, for example, why are only white photographers applying for this? And what can we do to make it different?’ (16.18)

‘I feel like it’s really important for every single person, organisation to have a statement of ethics and why has this not been done before? We should have these statements and make ourselves accountable.’ (19.35)

‘If we don’t represent those artists, then how will we achieve equality? How will there be more inclusion? We have to include these photographers, we have to show their work, we have to give them commissions, and we have to support them.’ (23.42)

‘You need to have people of colour on boards of organisations, but you also need to have them in leadership roles.’ (25.37)

‘We need allies. We need support, and it can’t just be something that black people do or brown people do. It needs to be everybody.’ (27.25)

‘Why aren’t lecturers, why aren’t heads of universities making these changes? Maybe if they don’t have as many students of colour, why is that? Is it because it’s not reflected in the teaching staff?’ (35.04)

What does photo ethics mean to Sebah?

‘To me, it’s about being fair and holding myself accountable for the decisions that I make, which includes who I work with and why I work with them. And also holding others accountable.’ (35.20) 

Links: 

ReFramed

Picturing High Streets

Peer to Peer: UK/HK

AIS Open 2022

Redeye

Redeye graduate mentoring scheme

Format Festival

Street Level Photoworks

Stills

In this episode, we talk with Anthony Luvera about collaborative representation. He provides an insight into his approach to collaborative work, what collaboration means to him, and the interplay between collaboration and representation. Anthony explores his early roots in collaborative photography and how they led him to the socially-engaged work he does today. In particular, he describes his work with people experiencing homelessness and how he has formulated ethical processes to aid collaboration. Anthony also dives into his thoughts on ethical issues such as paying participants and participant consent.

What you’ll find inside:

‘I’m really interested in using photography in a way where I’m able to involve or invite participants to co-create the work that I’m making with and about them.’ (2.00)

‘This idea of consent is a dialogue. And just because a participant may say yes, it doesn’t preclude them from having the capacity or right to say no and to withdraw that consent.’ (10.26)

‘What’s more important is not necessarily the duration that one has to work within, but rather is the clarity of the invitation and the sharing of information with the participants.’ (15.39)

‘I think the thing to remember, for me, is that it’s not about someone taking part in a project. More importantly, it’s about a relationship with a person and keeping the value of what you’re doing in check - particularly when I’m working with people who are experiencing homelessness.’ (18.40)

On his photography workshop with people experiencing homelessness: ‘People came with all kinds of questions… why are you doing this? What’s in it for me? What will I get out of this? Are you making money out of this? How can I make money out of this? What is this for?’ (21.55)

‘I can see now that my earliest experiences of photography have been about enabling other people’s knowledge of photography and generating enthusiasm for photography.’ (24.02)

On the ethical considerations of paying participants: ‘Often the participants that I work with are on benefits, and any kind of formal payments to them would adversely affect their capacity to continue to receive those benefits. So thinking creatively about how one [pays a participant ethically], whether that’s through gift vouchers or whether that’s cash in hand.’ (28.58)

‘I think it’s also important to be really open about your intentions and to be really willing and flexible about adjusting your intentions to really take on board the feedback from participants.’ (33.20)

What does photo ethics mean to Anthony?

‘For me, photography ethics - ethics in general - is a continual questioning of is this the best possible way to use photography? Are there other ways we can use photography? And in doing so, what kinds of challenges might that present? I often think about the work of Martha Rosler - the writing of Martha Rosler as much as her photographic practise - and in particular, a statement that she wrote in her essay Post-Documentary Post-Photography? where she speaks about representational responsibility, and the kind of responsibility that is incumbent upon a photographer or any kind of cultural producer. To really take into consideration the information they convey through their practise and how they go about taking in hand the decisions they make in relation to disseminating the work, in relation to speaking about the work, as well as how the work itself is created and what it depicts. I think it’s about keeping your intentions in check, it’s about considering the context in which you disseminate the work, it’s about how you create that work.’

Links

Art on the Underground

Construct (project with GRAIN and SIFA Fireside)

In Conversation

Not Going Shopping

Gravitas

Mermaids UK

Crisis

The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems by Martha Rosler

Residency

Photography for Whom magazine

Post-Documentary, Post-Photography? by Martha Rosler

In this episode, we talk with Arpita Shah about representing identity. Arpita talks about the process of working with participants on their own representation and how the photographer and participant may see the same photograph differently. She discusses her experience photographing her ill grandmother, the ethical considerations that involved, and the importance of transparency and dialogue with participants on the way they are represented. Arpita also describes how she explored the use of audio for a project and how participants responded differently to the medium. Lastly, she reflects on how her own background helps her to form a connection with the people she is photographing.

What you’ll find inside:

‘I think it’s something I’m learning from every time, and it changes. I think sometimes when you look back at work, there’s certain images of my grandmother that I really love as an artist and I know curators really like the image, but as an elderly South Asian woman I know she might not be comfortable with that image being shown. So just trying to navigate and learn around that.’ (4.40)

On photographing an ill family member: ‘I was using metaphors of fragile flowers, or photographs that were crumbling. That’s how I worked around it but I absolutely understand. It’s difficult to approach it through the lens and so you have to be a little more creative and have more conversations around it.’ (7.23)

‘I’m very fortunate but a lot of the time, the people I work with and photograph, because we’re exploring cultural identity and the meaning of home, I can identify a lot with that and they really know what my work’s about.’ (10.35)

‘Being able to hear those sounds and drink tea, all these senses about home and displacement were being sparked up when you were listening. The photographs didn’t work at that point so I ended up doing something very different.’ (14.26)

‘It’s something I’ve learnt from, and am still learning - what I’ve found is a lot of the time as a photograph when I take a photoshoot of somebody, the photograph they’re going to pick is always going to be very different to the one I’m going to pick.’ (15.28)

‘I think it’s very important ethically to be very transparent and clear on your role as a photographer but also always be open to input and feedback that the person you photograph had.’ (17.30)

‘With the themes I explore in my work, there’s a shared experience and this kind of understanding that really helps me and the people I photograph connect.’ (22.16)

‘I think it’s really hard because I’ve made work in the past that I really thought was a small project and it can end up, 15 years later, on a billboard somewhere and you just don’t know these things. You just have to think about protection all the time, protecting yourself as well, protecting the people you photograph and being really transparent.’ (24.03)

What does photography ethics mean to Arpita?

‘To be an ethical photographer is to accept your learning from experiences, that you’re learning and there isn’t a straight guide to how to be ethical. It’s based so much on what kind of genre you work in, what kind of photography you are, what your own methodologies are as a practitioner. But crucially it’s about being aware of the power you have as a photographer, being responsible and accountable for that trust that people are giving you when they allow you to photograph them, respecting that agreement, respecting them.’ (25.16)

Links:

Light Work and Autograph ABP Artist-in-residence programme

Fòcas Scotland

Street Level Photoworks

Nalini

In Sickness and in Health by Colin Gray

Creative Scotland

Portraits of Home

An Lanntair

Copan Chai

Purdah - The Sacred Cloth

In this episode, we talk with Fati Abubakar about changing the narrative. Fati explains her motivations for countering misrepresentation and creating new narratives. She explores the ethical issues that can arise when photographers fly in to a country without a deep awareness of cultural nuances and the resulting repercussions. Fati describes her connection to the people she photographs and how invested she becomes in their stories. She also talks about her experience with managing work life balance, and how she took a break from conflict zones and attended therapy to address this. Fati details her approach to teaching photography and why it is important to teach them about photography ethics.

What you’ll find inside:

‘There’s always this backdrop of tragedy. And I didn’t like how we were always unhappy in coverage in mainstream media. Do we ever have weddings? Do we give birth to children? Are there naming ceremonies? Are we in school? Do we go to the market to buy groceries? What is the day to day in a conflict zone?’ (4.41)

‘I didn’t like how we were showing people online or on television, and talking about this girl was raped by a terrorist or this girl was a sex slave for a terrorist knowing there would be repercussions. So there wasn’t a lot of attention on the cultural differences that we had and also on ensuring that person had the safety that they needed.’ (7.45)

‘I wonder would I want to be in a book? Would I want to be in someone’s home, in a frame from a photo they bought? Would I want to be in a gallery? A lot of these questions are personal for me, at the same time being an ethical, and moral dilemma.’ (12.50)

‘The closer you are, the more of a burden it becomes because you start to feel personally responsible for anything that happens to that person. And then you become emotionally attached to a point where you’re very protective of however the content is being used.’ (17.18)

‘I have a tendency to get so absorbed to a point where I want to see where they go, where the story leads, how they end up, and I still want to communicate and I always want to link them to other organisations that may help them. For me it becomes a personal issue.’ (24.00)

On going to therapy and work life balance: ‘I cried at her for teaching me boundaries. I was easily accessible, I was available to everyone but myself.’ (27.45)

‘I came into teaching knowing that I didn’t want to teach young, impressionable people photography without making them aware of not only the historical colonial gaze in many different continents, but also moving forward how to represent their own communities.’ (29.50)

‘I think that a lot of people go in with the camera first. I think that for me is a problem. Sometimes you have to spend a lot of time without the camera to understand people, to understand society.’ (37.16)

What does photography ethics mean to Fati?

‘For me, approaching a story ethically, means that… I always say that I want to photograph people the way I would like to be photographed. And it means that I want someone to take a photo of me where I would be happy with the image, and how I would be represented. And always to show me what the image looks like, to show me how they portrayed me. To show me how they will tell my story, to ask me if I like how my story is being told, to ask me if this captures the essence of my story. So it’s always for me how would you take this photograph if this was someone in your family or if this was you and your self portrait? Are you happy with what this looks like? Is this something you want to present to the world?’ (40.11)

Links:

Bits of Borno

Tales by Light

B&H

National Geographic

TED

In this episode we talk with Annie Tritt about intentions and impact. Annie explains their personal journey with photography ethics as a young photographer starting out in their career. They explore their initial misunderstanding that closeness to an individual gives you the right to photograph them, and the responsibility photographers have to the people they photograph. Annie describes being asked to work on a piece about detransitioning, and argues against the need to always show two sides to every story. They also talk about the difference in ethics and transparency between editorial and commercial work, and how portraiture can be a collaborative process.

What you’ll find inside:

‘A lot of people would probably disagree with me. They think the larger topic is more important but, to me, the people in the photos are my number one concern.’ (8.43)

‘She used drugs, she was abused, they became homeless many times. None of that was my experience, and I hadn’t studied it. Just because I could go to her house, and the kids came over my house, and we liked each other. Like what am I going to illuminate about that?’ (10.53)

‘I was in grad school when Katrina happened and I ran there. I had no business being there, I have zero business being there. And the professors at school told me that, and I didn’t listen.’ (14.40)

‘The media feels like it needs to give both side. Kind of like during the Trump administration, there’s not two sides. I feel like during the Holocaust, there aren’t two sides. In the effort to be fair we’ve been told we have to show both sides but there isn’t both sides.’ (16.40)

‘If I’m selling iPhones, I’m not pretending I’m doing anything but selling something and there’s something really transparent about that. Whereas the transparency in editorial is the so dicey.’ (19.30)

‘With portraits, for me, it’s very collaborative. Like where do you want to be? And I can explain I know you love being here but the sun is bad. I can explain visually why I can’t do it but I can say we can come back here later, but is there somewhere else? It becomes, for me, way more collaborative so it’s something we’re doing together.’ (25.24)

‘When I came into doing the trans project, so many people said no because they were like people in the media have burned us and were not trusting again.’ (29.40)

‘Is talking about poverty important? Yeah. Is talking about how it happened? Yeah. Do you photograph someone’s kid naked that you don’t know? No.’ (30.23)

What does photography ethics mean to Annie?

‘I think about ethics a lot in everything. I think ethics to me are something that I revisit a lot in interactions in my daily life. Ethics are about having a baseline of ethics of your life. How do I impact the people around me? How do I impact the environment? What are my big intentions? What are my small intentions? And revisiting tht. Having dialogue with the people in the photos, with yourself - the people that you work for it harder - but having dialogue as a community.’ (31.29)

Links:

Transcending Self

Catchlight fellowship grant

In this episode we talk with Rehab Eldalil about relinquishing ownership. She describes different ways that she has used collaboration in her projects, and she unpacks what this means for the ownership of the work. She distinguishes between relinquishing ownership and abdicating responsibility, asserting the responsibilities that she has to the protagonists that she works with.

What does photography ethics mean to Rehab?

“I believed that, first, your ethics depends on you as a person, as a human, as a photographer, but also on the project and the people that you’re working with. … The whole idea of ethics is very fluid because it all depends on all of these different variables, but it’s something that you need to always think about, just like when you’re thinking about budgeting for your work, about shooting plans, travel itinerary, whatever - you still need to have this ethical column that you need to fill in and it all depends on these different variables.” (40:50)

Links:

Tanya Habjouqa

The Longing of the Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

Traces of What Remains

Fred Ritchin

In this episode we talk with Robin Hammond about balancing impact. He explains how ideas of impact fuelled his motivation for starting Witness Change, an organisation dedicated to advancing human rights through visual storytelling. Robin describes some of the difficult ethical decisions he made as a photographer, and he emphasises the importance of talking with local people and people with experiences from the communities he is photographing in order to navigate such ethical decisions.

What does photography ethics mean to Robin? 

“Ethics makes me think of truth, and I know that that’s such a wobbly term in the world of journalism, but I think it’s like trying to be authentic to the folks whose lives you’re documenting. I feel like, also in the process and the way that we document, I feel very strongly that we need to be making it clear about our process as storytellers in that we need the audience to know whether an image is constructed or not … I think it’s about respecting the people and the communities whose lives we’re documenting.” (32:55)

Links:

Witness Change

Peter Singer

Eugene Richards

In this episode we talk with Salgu Wissmath about queering photography. They describe how there are certain expectations about ethics that are specific to different genres, and they explain how their work tries to push back on some of these expectations in order to promote change in the industry. They highlight the importance of ethical transparency, especially when taking an ethical approach that is not standard according to the genre.

What does photography ethics mean to Salgu? 

“I think ethics are going to be different for different people. So, the ethics that you hold for news coverage, for example, versus a commercial project, are going to be different. And so it depends who your client is and the genre of photography you are doing, but I think everyone has to know what their own lines are that they won’t cross and why. … And it is important to be transparent if you are going to do things slightly different from what is considered ‘the norm’.” (36:25)

Links:

Documenting Dysphoria

In this episode we talk with Daniel Regan about (self) care. Daniel discusses how he approaches collaborative work with others and personal work about his own lived experience. He describes how he works with participants in collaborative projects to ensure that they are comfortable sharing their work, and how he makes decisions about sharing personal work about himself. Daniel explains that caring for one’s self is an important part of the process, and he describes the steps that he takes to care for himself during photographic projects.

What does photography ethics mean to Daniel? 

“For me it’s about considering the impact that our images have on ourselves and on others. It’s not about going through the world just making because I want something, I need something, this is all about me. When we work with others, in particular, it’s about considering how other people that engage in our work feel. … So for me when I think about ethics, I think about how we care for the people that we work with and photograph, and we really think about what kind of experience do we want them to have?” (43:30)

Links:

Justin Carey: On solitude and collaboration

Threshold

Thread on the meta analysis on trigger warnings

Arts and Health Hub

Subjects (film)

In this episode we talk with Nilupa Yasmin about unconscious bias. Nilupa describes the conversations that have shaped her thinking around unconscious bias, accessibility, and representation. She explains why she makes work, how weaving has become an integral part of her practice, and how craft can be a form of activism. She goes on to discuss her approach to participatory work with communities, and she encourages artists to undertake training to ensure that they are well-equipped to take on their safeguarding responsibilities in that setting.

What does photography ethics mean to Nilupa? 

“For me, ethics is having that common ground of understanding with the people that you are working with, or the subject that you’re working with, it doesn’t necessarily have to be people. But its also understanding that there is a lot of power in the camera, and while you’re the one that’s pointing it, you need to have that understanding in who they are and what they are comfortable sharing with you. … So I think it’s just being conscious at different varying points, and always understanding that these are real people that you’re working with. And like Anthony Luvera said, ‘be conscious of your unconscious bias.’” (40:09)

Links:

Anthony Luvera: On collaborative representation

In this episode we talk with Morwenna Kearsley about ethics as comfort. She describes both her personal projects and her projects working with participants, focusing on ownership and control over the images that are produced. She discusses her choice to focus on making portraits of objects instead of making portraits of people, and she shares the ethical responsibilities she feels as a photographer in the age of the internet.

What does photography ethics mean to Morwenna? 

“Well I think it is an ongoing conversation that you have with yourself and your practice, whatever form that practice takes. So for me it’s a conversation between myself, the materials that I use, the technologies that I use, and how that relates to the people that I’m working with and the places that I’m working within. It’s not something fixed … as the technologies of photography change and the applications of photography change, photography ethics must and does change with it. … For me, it’s just trying to be as aware as possible about what you’re doing, and, for me, to not make work that I’m uncomfortable making, not to put anybody else in a situation that I would not be comfortable in…“ (39:47)

Links:

Creative Scotland

Street Level Photoworks

Sally Mann’s At Twelve

Source (magazine)

William Henry Fox Talbots’ Articles of Glass

Citizen Kane (film)

Jorge Luis Borges (writer)

In this episode we talk with Jack Moyse about understanding disability. Jack describes the therapeutic benefits that he has found through photographic self-portraiture and the ways that he has integrated performance art into his practice. He discusses ableism, both within the photography industry and in wider society, and articulates the impacts that he hopes to have through his work.

What does photography ethics mean to Jack? 

“For me it’s something that is gotten to the point now, where it’s like, it’s just mandatory, to consider the ethics behind the types of images that you’re making, to consider the ethical effect that might be had on your subject, to consider what might happen to these subjects after the camera is no longer pointed at them. … it’s so valuable and should be engrained at every level of the image making process.” (44:45)

Links:

Francis Alÿs

What it’s like (being me)

Dr Kim Charnley

Susan Sontag

Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord

Looking for Alice by Sian Davies

The Other: On class in the industry (with Jo Coates)

In this episode we talk with Stephanie Lloyd and Erica Belli from Photovoice Worldwide about expanding the frame. They each explain how their distinct career trajectories led them to photovoice, and they describe why they find this research method valuable. They explore the ethical challenges that come with photovoice, and they also talk about the ethical challenges that photovoice aims to solve.

What does photography ethics mean to Erica? 

“Photography ethics means so many things to me. I think the first thing that comes to mind is the idea that you have this tool in your hands, or you’re given this tool in your hands when it comes to photovoice, and you have to be responsible about it. It’s a bit about going into things with blinders or not. And deciding that you are going to think about the implications of a photo, you’re going to think not only of you taking this picture, but where is this pictures going to showcased, who is in this picture, what are the consequences for the person who is photographed, and where can this picture make change. There’s so many questions around photo ethics.” (41:57)

What does photography ethics mean to Stephanie? 

“When I think about photovoice, I think about it as a social justice issue, so really through photography wanting to strive for diversity and equal representation involving groups that aren’t typically asked to share their opinions, and creating these opportunities for participants to share their voice and advocate for themselves and share what’s most important. … Photos are powerful tools, so making sure that through our photography that there is a piece of consideration here… While it can be such an important tool and something that can really uplift and share the power, making sure that we’re doing that in a way that’s respectful and that’s representative of groups and what they want to share.” (43:21)

Links:

Paulo Freire

“When Everything is Photovoice: Moving the conversation forward” by Daniela Miranda

“Taking an Anticolonial Approach to Photovoice: An interview with Dr. Jen Fricas”

Laura Lorenz

In this episode we talk with Shaminder Dulai about troublemaking. He describes how he navigates ethical considerations, both as a photo editor and as a photojournalist. He defines the difference between a “picture taker” and a “picture maker,” he discusses media literacy, and he describes the responsibilities that come with image making. Shaminder advocates for a kind of “troublemaking” by speaking up when you have questions or concerns.

What does photography ethics mean to Shaminder? 

“I think for me the answer is: at the end of the day are you proud to put your name on this? Do you feel like you did right that day? Ethics is like, kind of like objectivity, it’s not a binary and its always changing, it’s always evolving, it’s a living creature in a lot of ways. Ethics today are very different than what they were 20 years ago, same as objectivity, same as our norms in the newsroom. And I think ethics, it’s that higher purpose, like, okay: are you doing right by the responsibility of the journalism? Have you done your due diligence? Have you avoided perpetuating harm? Have you avoided stereotypes? Have you made time for the people you are working with to fully understand what the story is? Have you advocated when you felt like you should have? Did you not stay silent because you were afraid of making waves? I think ethics are all part of that. It’s like character. It’s like at the end of the day, all that comes together and your byline is on it.” (44:33)

Links:

Environmental Photographer of the Year Award

“Photography Ethics: Putting Ethics into Practice” by Shaminder Dulai at VII Insider

In this episode, we talk with Margaret Mitchell about connection and sincerity. She describes some of the projects she has undertaken which look at the experiences of homelessness and of end of life care. She explains how she gained her understanding of ethics and representation through photographing her own family members. Finally, Margaret offers a description of what she believes that true collaboration or collaborative practice entails.

What does photography ethics mean to Margaret? 

“It’s very much about the very substance of what it is to be human, you know, how do we approach others in life and treat them? And that’s across all that we do, not just around photography, every interaction. But I really see photography as just being – being a photographer – as just a continuation of that approach, you know, about treating other people with a level of decency. … I’m really, really clear with people when I start a project, exactly who I am and what I’m doing. And I think, ethically, you have to do that.” (35:43)

Links:

An Ordinary Eden

Finding Home: Photography and Representation

In This Place

In this episode, we talk with Brent Lewis about becoming the story. He describes the importance of not becoming the story by incentivising people to participate in being photographed, but he also explains that we are, ultimately, part of the stories that we tell with the camera. Brent spends some time debunking some other “J School” ideas that can sometimes perpetuate unhelpful myths about photojournalism, including affirming that the photographs we take impact us in long lasting ways.

What does photography ethics mean to Brent? 

“Photography ethics to me means to just bear witness. Let’s not changing anything. Don’t have ideas of what things are going to be or what it is. Just show what life is. That’s the beauty of what we do. … I want to see that person next door lives like, and how that communicates to me and how I see what they are going through that make me understand life that so much better. I want to see the person that is 20,000 miles away and what their life looks like, and how, at the end of the day, we both want the same thing. We both want to be happy, we both want love, we both want compassion, we both want that freedom, that ability to breathe and to live. So photography ethics at the end of the day means to just show me that reality. Show me what’s happening in the world and do just that. Do not harm, go no above and beyond. Just give it to me straight.” (46:23) 

Links:

Diversify.Photo

“Photography is a superpower” tops and totes

World Press Photo Award 2023 Jury

Miranda Barns

Gordon Parks

Evgeniy Maloletka

Article about Lyndsey Addario “Photographing the Reality of War” by Emmett Lindner

In this episode, we talk with Fred Ritchin about photography for a better world. Fred offers a thoughtful reflection on image-making practices and their evolutions over the fifty years that he has been involved in the photography industry. He speaks about the power of images, and how this power relates to the importance of contextualisation and transparency about the image-making process. Finally, he touches on the shifts that are happening with regard to synthetic imagery generated by AI technologies and what this means for the future of photography.

What does photography ethics mean to Fred? 

“The purpose of photography is not to make more images. It’s not to be celebrated as the greatest photographer. It’s not to be picked as the picture of the year. The ethics of it is that you’re a citizen of the world, and you’re using photography to make the world a better place – whether as a witness, as an advocate, as a family photographer … you’re using it in such a way to be useful, be helpful in the world. And this sort of disconnect – like the photo festivals where there’s great photos, other photographers see them, and then we say ‘photography is flourishing!’ – well, but my question is: but what’s its impact on the world outside of the bubble of other photographers? And to me that’s what photo ethics is. You know, I used to start many of my lectures: ‘I don’t care about photography, I care about the world.’ And if we could use the photography to make it a better world, that’s the ethics of it.” (41:35)

Links:

Susan Meiselas

Gilles Peress

Bosnia: Uncertain paths to peace

Four Corners Project

Writing with Light

Statement of Ethics Campaign

In this episode, we talk with Anastasia Taylor-Lind about being slow, kind, and gentle. She shares her experiences of telling delicate stories about people struggling with trauma, and she describes how she works to include their input in order to craft more authentic photographs. She goes on to talk about the differences between her roles as a photojournalist and poet, and how she decides which medium is more fitting for the stories she tells.

What does photography ethics mean to Anastasia?

“Nothing. I don’t mean that it’s not important, but it’s impossible to define ethics because it’s something that’s personal to each person. And that’s one of the challenges...when we talk about ethical photography or ethical war reporting. It’s impossible to define ethics, but, for me, if I were to boil it all down to one rule for myself, it is do no harm. To the best of my ability, don’t hurt anyone with my reporting.” (40:31)

In this episode, we talk with Pia Johnson on performing identity. She explores how her formal education in other artforms, like textiles, is present in her photographic practice. She discusses how photographing herself can be freeing, and she also acknowledges the challenges that come with it. She ends by discussing the ethical dilemmas and requisite care that come with working with family archives, both hers and beyond.

What does photography ethics mean to Pia? 

“The crux of it is respect and care. And I think we’ve covered those things, but at the same time there’s a responsibility and a consciousness that we have to have as photographers that goes beyond us in the moment, that we’re consciously thinking about... Part of me feels like, this should just be so part of every photographers’ practice. We should just be conscious and kind and responsible. And I know that sounds a bit naive or idealistic, but actually it’s a really powerful tool and it is an important one, especially in the age that we live in where images are everywhere. How can we make sure that we put the best images forward that have integrity and have respect and have care? And are conscious of the legacy they will leave? And the future’s history. That’s what we’re thinking about and making images for. They’re not just sitting in a drawer or on a hard drive. They’re out in the world and we need to be responsible for that.” (40:06)

In this episode, we talk with Raymond Thompson on speculation. He talks about how his portfolio represents the many different disciplines and approaches that inform his work. He discusses his role as a photographer in understanding himself within history, and the challenges of working with archives that are often incomplete. Raymond formulates his idea of speculation in photography, as a way of filling in the gaps when facts are no longer effective.

What does photography ethics mean to Raymond? 

“So much. The one way is ethics should be the operational code of how to engage...the subject-photographer relationship... So it’s really that negotiation between that relationship between photographer and the person being photographed. And that’s an important relationship to work through. The other part for me is visual ethics, or the right to be seen or not to be seen or representational ideas. I think about that a lot, especially about gaze–the male gaze, white gaze, Black gaze, and how we look. That’s how I look at ethics mostly, through that lens, or the idea of who’s doing the looking?” (44:15)

In this episode, we talk with Anastasia Taylor-Lind about being slow, kind, and gentle. She shares her experiences of telling delicate stories about people struggling with trauma, and she describes how she works to include their input in order to craft more authentic photographs. She goes on to talk about the differences between her roles as a photojournalist and poet, and how she decides which medium is more fitting for the stories she tells.

What does photography ethics mean to Anastasia?

“Nothing. I don’t mean that it’s not important, but it’s impossible to define ethics because it’s something that’s personal to each person. And that’s one of the challenges...when we talk about ethical photography or ethical war reporting. It’s impossible to define ethics, but, for me, if I were to boil it all down to one rule for myself, it is do no harm. To the best of my ability, don’t hurt anyone with my reporting.” (40:31)

In this episode, we talk with Zula Rabikowska on working with communities. She talks about the care and research she invests in projects involving vulnerable communities, before exploring the additional layers of care required when photographing her own family. She examines the complexity of her own multi-national identity and how it shines through in her work. Finally, she talks about her position as an educator and how she has helped students avoid the ethical pitfalls of the industry.

What does photography ethics mean to Zula?

“So many things. I think, for me, photography ethics means an ongoing process of negotiation with yourself but also with the topic or subject that you are documenting. So being informed, whether that’s through personal experience but also through factual or emotional understanding of the topic through other people or through reading or gathering information.” (33:00)

In this episode, we talk with Nicole Tung on navigating ethical dilemmas. She explores the responsibility a photographer has beyond taking a photo, discussing the investment she displays in the impact of her images. She examines the question of when to intervene as a photojournalist in a conflict zone, before talking about how the industry can better support freelancers doing this dangerous work.

What does photography ethics mean to Nicole? 

“Photography ethics, for me, means, I think, the framework within which you yourself work as a photographer, how you navigate various situations and moral and ethical problems that will inevitably come up. I think that being very conscious of where you draw the line on what you’re willing to do, what you’re not willing to do if you’re confronted with a very problematic situation is something that I try to think ahead of before I work on a story, for example. And that I think comes with experience; I don’t think you can have that framework without spending the time doing this work. Certainly during my first year or two documenting conflict, I was still building that scaffolding, and it is something that you start to layer onto over the years because you encounter different things and you see different situations, and you also learn from the people around you. So it’s really about whether you can go home at the end of the day or the end of the assignment that you’re working on and feel that what you did was mostly okay.“ (35:01)

Links:

ACOS Alliance

In this episode, we talk with Aryan Musleh on storytelling on social media. He discusses the challenges of representing communities that are misrepresented or forgotten in the media, focusing on the political barriers that can hinder the efforts of photographers. As a curator, he explores the ethical complexity of ensuring that photographs he posts are used responsibly and represented accurately through captions.

What does photography ethics mean to Aryan?

“It means a lot to me. For example, it means representing people as they want to be represented, which is very important. And I would say it’s all about ethics, and it’s the cornerstone of having a community represented through visuals. It’s very basic, but it’s a steppingstone and a cornerstone of starting to tell a great story. And it has to be there. When a story lacks any ethical constraints, it’s not complete; it’s misrepresented; it’s biased; it’s all based on assumptions and cliches.” (36:22)

Links:

Photojournalism ethics courses

Everyday Afghanistan

Statement of Ethics campaign

The Photo Ethics Podcast interview with Shaminder Dulai

Azeta Hatef on Afghan suffering in the media

In this episode, we talk with Alicia Bruce on collaboration and advocacy. She explores how a collaborative approach to photography can avoid misrepresentations and can counter typical media narratives. She also discusses her involvement in campaign-based photography and the empowerment that can come as a result of telling hidden stories in an ethically-aligned way.

What does photography ethics mean to Alicia? 

“Ethics, for me, it’s a reflection of personal values. And its respect, integrity, compassion, and care. Ethics are different from laws, I would say. There’s things that you can do legally, but it doesn’t mean you should do them. It’s about having good intentions and also being open to sometimes having those challenged as well because we’ve got ethics in the here and now, but we’re always growing and changing, and our ethics should as well. But, for me, it’s alaso about treating everyone the same.” (32:14)

Links:

“Goose Girl”

“American Gothic”

Sebah Chaudhry on The Photo Ethics Podcast

Franki Raffles

AOP Downloads

In this episode, we talk with Mohamed Mahdy on embedding ethics. He talks about using your own senses to discover the stories around you, rather than venturing out of your own community. He also explores his quest for authenticity in his work and how multi-modal works can help achieve such authenticity. Finally, he discusses street photography and the ethical reflections it invites.

What does photography ethics mean to Mohamed?

“Ethics is to let your ego go and then don’t separate your person from what you do. Like, if you’re really a good person, it will be reflected in your work immediately. If you are thinking about ethics and manners and values and respecting people, it will be immediately in your work. Actually, everything you do in your life, we should not separate them. And I feel like ethics, to me, is always reflecting what I’m doing, every step asking those questions each project I make... And getting back to why I’m doing it. For whom?, what is it about?. I believe we should always put them in front of our eyes everyday because we also change with time, and having a lot of exposure can change you.” (35:45)

In this episode, we talk with Daniel Etter about truth and fiction. He discusses the differences between observation in photojournalism as opposed to the element of creation present in filmmaking. He discusses the rise of AI image-making and the associated risks. Finally, he describes how problems within photography are often representative of systemic problems requiring societal change on a wider level.

What does photography ethics mean to Daniel?

“Just being respectful and meeting people at eye level and being open to their experience and being open to their grief, and seeing what causes less or more harm to them. So, it’s just like respecting people. It’s like … do you want to show a dead boy and the grieving father, or not? And in some cases, if it was like somebody who’s killed in the road in an accident here, you’d probably say no because it doesn’t make any sense. But maybe the father is like ‘yeah show that because I want people to see.’ … We have to understand people and see if it’s justifiable to show certain things or not show certain things. And I think it comes down to respecting people equally.” (33:09)

Links:

Open letter to Meta about AI

Daniel Etter, “Photos don’t always tell the whole truth. Is that a bad thing?” The Washington Post

Sarah Sentilles, “When We See Photographs of Some Dead Bodies and Not Others,” The New York Times Magazine

In this episode, we talk with Mohammad Alnobani on reducing bias in imagery. He discusses his experiences founding an Arab stock imagery website and how his role has allowed him to better understand photographers’ concerns. He also explores AI tools like image generation, describing how he has tried to maintain his own ethics through the use of these tools.

What does photography ethics mean to Mohammad? 

“I would answer with two angles towards this. Basically the ownership of the image, unfortunately, not only in our region, but I found out that in many, many regions, ownership of images is taken very lightly. Like, oh if I take this photo out of Google and use it as a social media post on my personal page, it doesn’t harm anybody because I’m not really benefitting out of it. But, no, you are, and you did take something away from somebody who owns this photo at a certain point. And, on the other end, I would say with the photographer’s point of view, when you take a photo, what’s ethical, what’s not when you take a photo of a model and you upload it somewhere. Just make sure that you treat it rightly, and this is what we’ve been pushing our photographers to do. In certain situations it’s quite impossible to carry your model release around and ask people to sign it and explain why they’re signing it, but at least record a view with that person–just have some sort of content that verifies that person was okay with you taking their photo. So, this is a very broad topic, but it has a lot of angles and now with AI, there’s way more details to get into.” (40:35)

In this episode, we talk with Melanie King about leaning into collaboration. She talks about her transition from research-informed practice to practice-informed research. She also explores the collaborative nature of sustainable photography and how she has built her own network within the community of researchers and practitioners. Throughout, she comments on her journey of becoming a sustainable photographer, gaining greater confidence in these methods.

What does photography ethics mean to Melanie? 

“The first word that jumped into my mind was care. So, I think it makes me think does my artwork, does my photography, cause harm to anyone? Does it cause harm to the environment? Is there a way that my practice or my work can contribute to the care of others, to the care of the environment? … Just to make sure that the work that we’re doing does not cause harm in any way.” (29:48)

Links:

London Alternative Photography Collective

Sustainable Darkroom

The Photo Ethics Podcast interview with Hannah Fletcher

The Photo Ethics Podcast interview with Nilupa Yasmin

Andy Goldsworthy

David Nash

Brian Cox

Royal College of Art Working Class Collective

The White Pube Funding Library

Each year since 2020, the Photography Ethics Centre has interviewed 12 photographers, asking them: “What does photography ethics mean to you?” After four years and 48 interviews, we have distilled eight key lessons that we have learned about what it means to be an ethical photographer. These lessons - ranging from the language we use to the intentions we have - can help photographers, filmmakers, and visual storytellers to reflect on their process, develop their practice, and help to build a more equitable industry.

This resource was developed through a thematic analysis of 48 episodes of The Photo Ethics Podcast, Seasons 1-4. This research was led by Dr Savannah Dodd, founder and director of the Photography Ethics Centre, during her Practitioner’s Appointment within the Centre for Creative Ethnography at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) in 2024. It was supported by the Photography Ethics Centre’s advisory team and by Luke Strong. It was funded by the QUB Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Impact Acceleration Account (IAA).

Thank you to all of the photographers who have contributed to this research by sharing their experiences through The Photo Ethics Podcast. Special thanks to Anthony Luvera, Justin Carey, Rehab Eldalil, and Mallika Vora who also contributed photographs to illustrate this report.

You can download a PDF version of this report in six different languages at https://www.photoethics.org/articles