FMP- Brexit - Ethics
This week I have been looking at Brexit, unescapable as it is all over the news. I have been driving around trying to figure out what I want to say.
So in discussion with parents of the children I have decided that I would like the children to convey what message they want.
I sent a message to them asking for ideas on what they want to portray and how.
1. Very British girl, family Brexit voters and she feels there is no other way. Angry about how the majority vote is being played with. "Best of three" and phrases like that being banded around.
2. Girl, family are Brexit voters but she feels sad her Polish friends are being bullied.
3. Family, arguments
4.Family, being torn apart with differing opinions.
5. Polish people relocating back to Poland, don't feel welcome.
6. Families separating.
7. Child victims, no opinion.
8.Closet voter, wont discuss an opinion.
9. Poverty
10. Boston shops are rapidly catering to other nationalities, English are now a minority.
Some ideas anyway to give me food for thought.
A lot of thought into ethics. Photography ethics are the principles that guide how we take and share photographs. Photography ethics are subjective, contextual, and fluid, meaning that every person’s ethics will be different, because ethics are based on a person’s life experience and values.Ethics change from one context to another: what might be ethical in New York may not be ethical in Shanghai. Ethics also depend on the type of photography: photojournalism has strict industry regulations about staging and digital editing, but the same rules do not apply to fine art photography, for example.Even if a photographer’s ethical principles are resolute, the principles may be applied in different ways depending on the circumstances. For example: a photographer can firmly believe in obtaining consent from his or her subjects, but how he or she obtains this consent may be different in London than it is Mongolia.Although everyone will answer ethical questions in their own way and according to the circumstances, there are some key ethical questions that are useful to consider when we use photography.These questions relate to concepts like dignity, respect, and responsibility, and to how we apply these concepts to our practice. We might ask ourselves: how do I respect the dignity of the people I am photographing? What is my responsibility to my subjects? Do I have a responsibility to the audience?
Why do photography ethics matter?
If we take pictures that harm our subjects, no one will want to be photographed. If we manipulate our images and deceive our audience, no one will trust us. If we are not ethical in how we use photography, we risk jeopardising the integrity of the industry as a whole.
On the other hand, ethical approaches to photography can help us to positively impact the world beyond our lens. Photographs play a large role in shaping how we view the world. When we take and share photographs, we are shaping how others view the world. This is an amazing privilege, and an enormous responsibility.With the ubiquity of photography in our daily lives, it is easy to forget how powerful images are; but, in the words of writer and curator Marvin Heiferman, “photography changes everything in its path.”When we take an ethical approach to photography, we increase our awareness of the impact that we are having on the world through the images we produce, and we are better able to focus our impact in a meaningful way.
I came across these rules
1. The Categorical Imperative is a distilled version of Kant’s notion that what is acceptable for a single person should be acceptable for everyone, almost like a theoretical “nondiscrimination clause.” For example, suppose a newspaper editor is trying to decide whether to publish an image of a partially nude young woman fleeing a house fire. That editor should consider whether he would publish the image under different circumstances - if the subject was male, or elderly, or obese. The Categorical imperative says that what goes for one should go for everyone.
2. Utilitarianism as a philosophy attempts to weigh positives and negatives of a situation, and maximize the good for the greatest number of people. For example, if gruesome photos of a car crash offend the victims’ families, but shock the community into driving safely, then by Utilitarianism the taking and publication of those photos is deemed to be ethical.
3. Hedonism represents the “do what feels good” school of thought, and might be used to justify printing explicit photos simply because they are titillating. Publishing a provocative front page photo simply for the sake of selling newspapers would be an example of hedonism.
4. The Golden Mean philosophy concerns compromise. If there is a less intrusive, offensive, or disagreeable photo that still tells the story, that is the better option. The emphasis is on finding middle ground rather than an all-or-nothing approach.
5. The Veil of Ignorance asks the photographer or editor to consider how they would feel if they were the subject. If they would not feel good in the subject’s place, it would be better to look for a different image.
6. The Golden Rule is sometimes phrased “love thy neighbour as thyself.” As an ethical philosophy it requires that a photographer or editor treat his subjects as he would treat himself. This, of course, leaves decisions subject to the photographer’s, editor’s, or institution’s ethics
Ketevan Kardava March 2017
When we discussed ethics on this MA I was very opinionated about the right of people to take photos of people without permission in sometimes very embarrassing or harrowing situations.
As well as some people editing images to make them tell a different story and a balanced view. Something I wanted to be very aware of in my project.
http://web.mit.edu/drb/Public/Bersak_CMS_Thesis_FINAL.pdf accessed Sept 2019
https://medium.com/arete-stories/photography-ethics-and-why-they-matter-bf7f389d3213 accessed Sept 2019
