Pictures about making pictures and some who say No
If you come into Shinjuku station (headed south) via the Yamanote line from Ikebukuro in the afternoon, there is some really nice light that filters down onto the platform. The doors are on the port side of the train open and there people are waiting to board.
I shot this in September of 2005. It is the kind of shot that was a reaction to what was there in front of me. And it worked out well. This picture was published and a print was up on my wall for over a year.
Likewise, it has also been in my mind every time I’ve exited a train since.
A photograph is made by selection, a composed (solved) new object that is the transformation of real time and space to a two dimensional image. This is not by any means an original thought, but it is important to keep in mind when looking at photographs. Each picture you see or take influences future pictures.
So, when pulling into Shinjuku one afternoon a few weeks ago I had my camera at the ready.
This woman made it clear she did not want to be photographed. She looked aghast as I de-trained, nodded my head and muttered sorry. I don’t know who or what she thought I was but I did not take any more photos of her. I had hoped for the rest of the afternoon that the one that I DID take was worth it.
But worth what?
The disdain of someone I did not know, or will probably ever meet again?
The fact that someone came away from this experience possibly feeling violated and cheated?
I am not about to go making up probable emotions for a her any more than I will for the tall young woman in the first photo.
I think that it whatever it was, was worth the photo.
Honestly, I do not see either woman as “The Subject” for either picture. Rather, the experience, the visual recording of this momentary confrontation is what I see these pictures as being about. Most pictures of people ought to be this way. “Confrontation” that is not in the way that is held aloft by undertones of possible violence, but in the sense that two things come in contact.
Earlier about this image my friend Beth said:
“I (personally) find the whole category of People Who Do Not Wish to Be Photographed to be a ethical quandry. Does the photographer/journalist/artist have the right to point a camera wherever they can? If so, should we exercise that right? Should we restrain? Don’t people have the right to privacy? Who has the power in that sort of situation and who is powerless? What do you think?”
To which Mark replied:
“That ethical quandary is exactly what that photograph is about.”
Beth used to be a photojournalist, and it was her job to sometimes go into situtations to make pictures of people that did not want to be photographed. But she had the legitimacy of it as a career, as a member of the Press to do what she was told to do. My answers to her questions would be Yes, If You Need To, Sometimes, Depends, That Is A Good Question, and finally, I Am Still Not Sure.
I have said this statement a few times before, and this is another one of those times:
I’m really interested in making photographs about photographing, and photographing life which for me is often about photographing.
Both pictures are part of a stream of work that looks at how a photograph is charged based from the explicit knowing of what I am doing by someone that is in the range of my lens. It is a form of communication.
But how does familiarity affect a picture? Is this picture of Mark somehow more “just” because he knows what is going on? Come on, the guy has a camera in the picture!
Who “has the power” in this situtation? He knows me and he knows (far better than me, actually) just how photography works. Is it the Trust factor or the Knowledge of the process that determines what is Fair?
If so, then this photograph of my nephew is not fair because he at that time had no idea what I was doing with my polaroid camera.
But he maybe he could after seeing the picture develop. Provided 2 year olds can comprehend such things, which I doubt.
I also doubt that Fairness is a good way to judge a photograph. Perhaps more than what the image is, How is it used is more important. Is photography of people always a power issue? Can it ever not be? Is this issue even important?
I’m just glad I don’t spend time worrying about this kind of stuff when I am actually out shooting.
nice post.
yesterday in a coffee shop in ginza, I had my photo taken by a stranger at the table next to me.
I was looking down when I heard the loud “passha!” of a keitai camera. I looked straight up and saw a keitai pointed right at me. It made me feel very confused and angry. Partly because that guy had just been unabashedly staring at me in a creepy way and didn’t avert his eyes when I looked back, and partly because it was a keitai, which seems much more creepy than a regular camera.
I got my revenge by pulling out my camera and taking one of him.
IMO I wouldn’t like to have my picture taken randomly by a stranger unless I happened to be in a large crowd. Or perhaps if the photographer gave me a friendly smile (maybe trust is the most important thing after all?). But I can easily see how it makes some people feel violated.
However, pictures of strangers can make for interesting photographs. This picture of the lady is interesting because it forces the issue.
Seeing your pictures of “confrontation”always make me wonder what happens after they are taken. After the photo is taken, the communication doesn’t stop, right? Or does the photo supersede reality?
Comment by makenzie — 3/22/2007 @ 10:29 pm
Hmm. I don’t like being photographed by strangers, myself, unless eye contact is made and there is a tacit agreement between parties - a nod, a smile, etc. I think that photographers, myself included, rationalize this invasion of privacy and space as necessary and forgivable part of what we do. When I was at the paper, I would routinely tell people that “I am in a public space, and so legally I can take pictures of other people who are also in public spaces.” Once, a police officer told me as I was photographing a child who had been hit by a car, “I know what you can legally do. But I think it stinks.” In the end this issue of photographic privacy was one of the reasons I left the media - because I don’t truly believe that pointing a camera in people’s faces is my right. Cooperative subjects are another matter. But for me, photography of the invasive kind involves justifications upon justifications. My ego. My right. My art. My work. The moment. Now with the rise of the internet I am no longer sure that a photograph which is taken, not given, and then distributed via a million channels of fiber optics, is ethical.
Comment by Beth — 3/23/2007 @ 4:23 pm
Makenzie, you bring up 2 interesting points.
#1. The attitude of the Photographer.
I do my best not to be creepy when shooting, and after a photo is taken I sometimes chat with the person, or at least get a few more shots off once they make it “ok” for me to take their photo. Each and every time is different, and that is what is fun but also a challenge. I know when to get out of where I am if the situtation works out to be one where my absence is for the best. If anyone was to stop me and ask what I am doing, (and this has not happened yet) I carry with me in a notebook the newspaper article about me, and copies of the work I have had in magazines. I feel that this would probably placate an upset person.
#2. The camera.
I agree that a keitai (cell phone) is “creepier” than that of a larger, more Real Camera. While some people want to discount the Camera as just a box with a hole, it does play into the whole scheme of photographing other people in how different cameras will elicit a different kind of reaction from those being photographed. I personally have had other “street photographers” (I hate that term) snap my picture. One guy in ginza came right up in my face with a Nikon F3, and I pulled mine up to my eye and we stood there in the street just standing there taking each other’s photos from two feet away for a few seconds. Last month in Asakusa I was leaning up against a tree talking to a teacher on my phone with 2 cameras around my neck, and an older guy with an SLR and a long lens took aim and he got his shot. I was fine with it, and like like when I take a photo I did this thing where I raise my eyebrows up as a greeting. It is weird that I do this but it seems to be disarming. So does furrowing one’s brow and looking down at your camera like you are not sure what just happened.
But back to Camera Selection- I do think that most people would be upset with having their photo taken by a cell-phone but mind less when it is with a full-blown medium format Pentax. It’s size seems to imply that I deserve to be somewhere and am possibly being paid to do so.
Intrestingly enough, here in Tokyo enough people know what a Leica is, and are more impressed with seeing one than they are upset with having had one pointed at them. Maybe. “Aa- Leica da” is something I hear quite often.
Does the photo supersede reality?
At the very least it creates a new one.
Beth, just for the sake of argument, are invasive photographs taken since the birth and spread of the internet more unethical than ones taken by photographers in the years before that? If my great grandfather was the man jumping over/into a puddle in Bresson’s famous picture you bet I’d be proud. But here I am talking of one picture out of trillions taken since then.
Is there a statue of limitations to ethicicality? (that is new word ) Pictures are often taken out of context that their very photographer had intended. http://www.squareamerica.com/ is a great and harmless example.
But sometimes the pictures are the culmination of intent… If you can stomach certian pits of Flickr, you are welcome to do a search for certian ethnicities or body parts and add those words to “girls” or “women” and see what happens. I am not a fan of such lack of respect for both the people involved and the total blindness to how photography can work. But what separates my pictures from those kinds of exploitive ones? A better sense of Form? Does intent come into play here?
A few posts ago I put up of a picture here of an attractive woman and said that I was in love with her. That is admittedly border-line creepy, but if someone was to ask “How would YOU feel if she took YOUR picture and did the same thing?” I might answer “Probably HAPPY“.
This is not going to happen though.
Comment by John — 3/23/2007 @ 4:42 pm
Apologies for the probably too aggresive previous post - rereading it, I think maybe my language is very strong and not exactly fair to you.
John, your two pictures are great moments. And I like them very much. I did not intend to critize *them* as much as to try and describe out my own personal feelings about taking pictures - written in the spirit of friendly debate. Hope no offense was taken…
>>>
Comment by Beth — 3/23/2007 @ 4:51 pm
The post makes me feel like working out these issues in the only real way they can be worked out: by going out and photographing people.
It’s really a confluence, or a confrontation, as you might say, of four things
1. Photographing
2. Photographing others
3. Being photographed
4. Knowing you’re being photographed.
Your pictures are the confrontation of these things. I just noticed this morning that the woman who didn’t want to have her picture taken is holding a cell phone, which is itself a *camera*. How does that make her different from me, who was also holding a camera? I remember that you had me take a step forward into the sun. It’s that knowing willingness to take part in your process that separates the two scenarios.
Still, was it wrong to take her picture? When we are in public places we can’t have any expectation of privacy, including the privacy of not being photographed. Obviously everyone ends up in someone else’s snapshots. Is it different when you become the central actor in a stranger’s photograph?
Again, your photograph is so good because these are the questions it renders witness to.
Comment by Mark James Adams — 3/23/2007 @ 5:44 pm
I think it all boils down to the subject’s feeling of control. The angry response that some people are mentioning I think is related to the subject feeling a loss of control when having there picture taken. Since I believe that control is a fallacy, I am not concerned about the ethical quandary. I am aware that I am over simplifying but sometimes it is better that way.
Comment by bradley — 4/5/2007 @ 9:17 am