How to be an ethical photographer
To be ethical photographer means you should think about the morals behind what your creating. nowadays Trying to take the moral stance is somewhat of a hard task, there so many ways one could make work without having to even leave the comfort of your home.
below are three ways that photography practitioners could create work unethically:
1) Image Theft
With thousands upon thousands of photographs available all over the Internet, it is not uncommon to see not only individuals, but also companies using other people’s work for their own benefit. buy simply copying and pasting work one can create a body of work they could call their own. below this such thing happened, Richard Price created an exhibition of instagram posts which all feature normal everyday people in comprising postions. The images were taken without the permission of the person in the post. The explict images to be could damage the reputation of the people in feature in the post. Probably knowing this Price still created this exhibition anyway.
Instagram,Price,R 2017)
2) Photo Plagiarism
Some photographers have borrows another photographer’s idea and perspective to get a very similar, if not identical shot? to use a well know photographer as inspiration and create work in the style of that said photographer is deemed not unethical. But creating work to exactly like someone else work is unethical. Using the same subject matter ,colour or one element from the original is just your personal interpretation of an image.But if this is copied exactly one-to-one, using the same angle, perspective, composition, subject and colors, making it look identical to the source, then it is a clear sign of plagiarism and it should never have been produced.
the image below is a clear example of this, the image on the right is the original work and the one the left is a copy. You could say they are not exactly the same as Tyler Shields image on the left is more vibrant and bold colour palette but everything is similar if not identical to the Irving Penn original image.
(Penn and Shields, 2015)
3) Documentary, News and Reportage
Newspapers today use more public images than they ever have on images and footage provided by the public. Although the most popular media outlets try to have their own staff provide media, it is not always possible, particularly in areas of conflict and inaccessible war zones. When the public sees such footage, there is sense of trust in what they see. As a result, the public believing what they are seeing this can have a potential influence on their future decisions. Because of the importance and the potential influence of such documentary footage, it is only ethical when such imagery is provided without no manipulation whatsoever. however despite the ethical issues there still documentary images out there have been manipulated. To manipulate these images can affect the future as what the public see could influence political and world decisions. It is not just about attracting viewer to watch the news or selling papers this is about what is going on in real life it shouldn't be messed with at all.
the image below show a simple adding of a missile, by adding another missile it would make the plumb believe that situation is more serious as more missiles means maybe war or disaster. The same affect i think would be given by keeping the image the same so why change it is wrong and makes not sense.
(Missile Manipulation, 2017)
If you can try and follow these rules you could be a more ethical photographer but due to the ability too simply manipulate , copy and paste and making work from someone else it is hard to stay an ethical photographer. When i am looking creating my work for my portfolio i want my work to look as real as possible as crime images are not manipulated or taken from somewhere else. They a document of evidence and shouldn't be touched.
Work in Progress show
information below is from Advanced research Strategies (Jackson , L 2017)
As well as our degree show the university organise work in progress show organised to show our work not just to each other but to the public. The reason for this is because it acts as a marketing tool to get the local community interested in our final degree show in the summer . If they see are half finished work now they might be interested in the finished work in the summer. Me and My cohort would submit one image to show what we are creating so far.
As i am in the organisation group i was chosen to create the Facebook so that rest of my cohort and the first years could discuss details for the show. One of details that needed to be discussed was how we wanted to present our work do we use photo text which is easy to hang up and all work will similar. But as group some objected and wanted to show there work in their own way. Therefore i am unsure how i am presenting my work for this show
Obviously i want to present my work in an unique way but for this show i will hang up my work like the rest of my cohort.
Update Since Work in Progress show.
Update Since the work in progress show and Advance researche statergies i decided for my degree show i would like to create brand new work, the images about litter where ok and different but they didn't have any promise for development.Also i couldn't present my work on the floor as it was carpet and the photo text i used wouldn't have worked well. I have decide to stay on the same theme of evidence for my degree show but maybe as i would like to get into crime scene photography after university i could look at crime evidence.
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