I read a list of dos and don’ts for graduate studies photographers a while back, and thought about the rules I had broken, the rules famous photographers have broken, and the rules you see people break all the time. One of those rules is about photographing indigent people, something I have seen done a lot, and something I occasionally do. I never intend to print or have a show of images of the homeless, but occasionally when out photographing something else if I have someone ask me for money I will make a trade for photographing them.
Sometimes I worry I am being exploitive, or in some way fostering exploitation. What if someone really likes the image at the beginning of this post and decides to do a series of homeless people. Does Jackson, Mississippi need increased awareness of the homeless? Or would any images of that kind be exploitive?
What if we put the same question to images of Katrina: was there a point where the media coverage was so complete that any further images of the disaster became exploitive? Or was it such a significant event that it needed as much documentation as possible?
I spent a few minutes talking to the gentleman whose image begins this post, and I learned a few things. Seems that he feels gateway is not a safe place to sleep, and Stewpot, which is a good place to sleep, has a waiting list and takes a long time to get in the shelter. So rather than stay at Gateway this man is willing to walk to Salvation army and back downtown every day. Why walk downtown? The money is better.
When I lived in Atlanta, I drew pictures of homeless people all the time. I don’t think taking a picture of them is exploitive. I think the exploitation is only a question of the purpose of the photo, not of the act of taking it. I think you can take exploitative pictures of anything…it’s all about what you are doing with the photos that really make the difference. I think photos that intended to document something aren’t exploitive. If you look at Katrina I am sure that there were a ton of photos and video taken for “impact” or “shock value” and were plastered on the newspapers and evening broadcasts. The intention there was to sell ads, but that’s been a problem with news since forever and always will be as long as news outlets rely on advertising for revenue. I think that NPR is about the best source for non-exploitive news, they also score high on the best source for unbiased news as well…probably not a coincidence. But networks and publishers that have to keep the lights on with dollars they earn from advertising will always be reaching for ratings and/or sales.
I think the same could even be said of some artists, if they take photos with the intention of exploiting someone’s circumstance or condition or looks or whatever to profit from it…either by actual sales of prints or by notariety or whatever intangible gain…then that is exploiting the subject. But the same photos taken to show the condition or illustrate teh circumstance or even to portray the look without regard to profit, monetary or otherwise, then I think is still art and should be treated as such.
The real problem with art is that sometimes it is hard to judge the actual intent of the artist. Just because the photo depicts a certain subject, does not always imply the true motivation of the photographer. If you know that you do what you do for motives that you are okay with, then I say any subject is fair game.
I would wager that the “rules for grad student photographers” was more of a reaction to the fact that it is for grad students. I imagine that the grad photo series would be littered with photos of homeless people in an attempt to find an easy way to portray emotional weight and interesting subjects, with little or even no thought given to the actual subjects and nothing learned by the student in the process.
Sorry, this turned into a thesis.
I think that media presentation of Katrina became exploitive even before the storm had come ashore.
But as to the other question. I wonder, would be as concerned as exploiting a non-homeless person that you took a picture of out on the street? Like, if you saw a businessman coming out from lunch and something about the scene caught your eye (he was dressed in an interesting way, had particular look, or just that the scene of these people coming from lunch was somehow compelling) would you be worried about exploiting him (or her)?
It seems as if the exploitation question only arises with the homeless (but paparazzi seem like an obvious other place for exploitation). This makes me at least partially skeptical of the concern. Its a kind of paternalistic fear; the homeless man, besides being homeless (or because he is homeless) is also one who is incapable of either defending or deciding for himself about having his picture taken. Or alternately, the fear is that homelessness, like pornography but unlike photos of non-homeless people, is the kind of thing that people look at which treats the person like an object. But I have trouble imagining someone objectifying homelessness. In fact, it seems as if the very point of that subject matter is to subjectify (is that a word?) homelessness: its not a thing, its something that happens to real, live people with hopes and dreams, wants and desires.
Certainly though I agree with Jas N. If one is taking a picture of homeless people in order to make a name for yourself then you are exploiting them (regardless of how much good your project does them in the long run), which is an obviously deontological position. But you would be exploiting the non-homeless if you did that as well. That is, I am not seeing anything specific to taking pictures of the homeless which would lead to necessary exploitation.
Well put, Hud. I think that the explotation does not come neccessarily from the subject, but rather from the intention or objective of the photographer. So in that light, I doubt very seriously that you could truly be explotive with any subject, homeless or otherwise.