“To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder - a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time.” ― Susan Sontag, On Photography Ethical Deliberations in Photography Ethics is about the moral principles that people work with. Societies, countries, groups all have ways of deciding what is right and wrong. 'Correctness' or acceptable conduct is one of the outcomes of ethics. from Shutter Release, April 2010 Ethics are principles reflecting the values of a society—guidelines for its members to treat each other fairly according to accepted ideals. Needless to say, reality often differs markedly from the ideals, but civilizations, organizations and informal groups of all kinds have understandings of ethical conduct. Within a group, ethics may be broadly accepted in general terms, but issues arise in their interpretation and application. Ethics can be especially contentious with changing times and diversities of culture and technology. In the practice of photography, ethical issues tend to arise over the nature of creativity, representation, ownership, profit and service, often confused by the application of new technologies and exacerbated by cultural preferences or political ideology, and of course individual personality and ambition. Steve Lewis lead f8 today in discussing this huge and important area in photography. Below is Steve's narrative..edited "In light of what a sensitive, empathetic, and compassionate group we are, I would like to us to explore how "the line" that separates action from observation, which we have spoken about before in relation to photojournalists, has confronted and impacted each of us. Have we seen something tragic and decided to photograph it? If not, how might we react? As examples, I will bring several such photos from my trips to Haiti and South Africa." Steve's narrative continues...
"The question posed was, "where do we, as photographers, draw an ethical line as to what is acceptable practice when photographing people, particularly when the act of taking the picture could amount to an invasion of that person's privacy. If we bend our ethics to our advantage, then how do we justify the "risk" of violating a subject? The discussion expressed a variety of points of view, and triggered some self-reflection among us. We agreed that this topic is worth returning to in the future for further exchange of thoughts and ideas." Steve's final slide... See it, shoot it? / To show/share, or not? / Art or documentation? / Right or wrong? There was lot's of discussion I could not capture in my blog post...you had to be there to appreciate the discussion and leadership of Steve in this issue...we will come back to this subject at a later date. Below are some links to additional info on the subject of ethics http://www.iconicphoto.com/pdf/ethical_issues_in_photography_0305.pdf https://petapixel.com/tag/ethics/ https://petapixel.com/2017/04/03/the-ethics-of-photojournalism/ http://web.mit.edu/drb/Public/PhotoThesis/ https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/staging-manipulation-ethics-photos/
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The best camera is the one you have with you Today was a laid back open session....we had visual contributions from 4 f8'ers ...all (or most) were shot with an iPhone Julia had some random images...two of which are below...both untitled The photo collage below actually became the title of f8 Project #2 in June...details to follow...thank you Julia for the idea John continues to amaze us with his artistry with his iPhone...the two shots below were from a series he started as the rains came to LA. He focused on umbrellas...and the people who carried them downtown. Joe showed several images he shot at the Filoli Mansion near San Francisco. The Mansion isa mini Huntington. Here is the link if you'd like to see more of Filoli.. https://filoli.org The images below are untitled. Rene showed some images he shot at the recent Book Fair at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Many of his shots were of folding books ...his speciality Finally we chatted briefly about a new photo app called "Colorize"....we could not demo the app since no internet connection...it uses AI to add color to B&W images...below is the link
https://colourise.sg A house is just four walls and a roof, but a home is made up of everything else inside. A house may be decorated from floor to ceiling with the finest furnishings money can buy. But that will never ever make it a home. A home is a sanctuary. f8 Project #1 What Makes Your House a Home Most of us have had “normal” lives…raised by people who cared and nurtured us. We lived in normal homes of one sort or another. But think of those that have been fostered…or live homeless or in abject poverty or in home environments that are less than desirable…crammed into too small a space, no place to escape…no food at mealtime etc. Does home mean the same thing to all of us in the same way. I doubt it. As you start to think about your house and what makes it your home, think of the many that have no special place. Below is a link to a New York Tomes article "The Way Home" California Sunday Magazine December 2018 For those that attended today, to the person, believed that this was a thoughtful project and one difficult to interpret visually. As such, the individual narrative helped make sense for every group of images. Once again, I cannot capture the quality and depth of discussion each set of images brought forth...and, how much we learned about each other. After each presentation, we all chipped in to create a "theme" for the images. So, even though there is just one image for each presenter it does represent much more. As editor, I chose a symbolic image and the theme designation. Charles Kohlhase "At home in the world" Howard Landau "My home a self portrait" John Holmes "No ordinary moment" Chris Kleine "Cats Rule" Jim Staub "Dog day afternoon" Kevin Hass "Home working" Steve Lewis "Views from my home" Rod Williams "My family is my home" Bill & Kathy Wishner "From the world to our home" There were some underlying themes...family, art, pets, travels. ...light, memories but all agreed it is never about the bricks and mortar.
Our thanks to Cyndi Bemel for her suggestion of this project...we all wish her a speedy recovery. Finally we mentioned the Annie Leibowitz exhibit at the Hauser & Wirth Gallery downtown AND the movie "Never Look Back" the life of Gerhard Richter |
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