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Research Paper

The issue of privacy in the context of street photography was considered in “Street Photography Under Threat” and “Ethics of the Street Photographer” (Dubiner). According to the Arts Law Center of Australia, for instance, street photographers have to be responsible for invasion of privacy, therefore, changes in privacy laws are frequently discussed. It is suggested that photographing a person is inappropriate if the subject does not give his or her consent. These restrictions were turned down as unnecessary and, what is more, threatening the candid street photography as well as freedom of expression. They are a huge cost to the artists and cultural life of the country, as to receive a written consent from all people who appear at meetings and celebrations is “an administrative nightmare”. Moreover, being aware that they are photographed, the vast majority will consider it to be privacy violation. However, those individuals who are bound with religious or moral persuasions that prohibit being photographed should be treated with respect and their wish honored. Thereby, photography is ethical when a photographer is guided by the principles of self-censorship and balances sucessfully between privacy, artistic freedom and his inquisitive cognitive right of a photographer (Dubiner).
The article “Ethics of the Street Photographer” gives readers an insight into one more ethical concern that involves images “that are degrading or insulting…serve no useful informative or artistic purpose”. The reporter concentrates on the issue that a street photographer faces balancing between the public right to images’ heritage, his or her own freedom of expression and privacy right. Images taken in extreme situations involving killings and accidents as well as those portraying individuals with either obvious physical or mental disabilities require peculiar care and consideration. An image may be offensive to an individual but necessary and justified in a definite context at the same time, therefore, a photographer walks on an ethical tightrope guided by his or her own ethical standards (Dubiner).research paper
According of the Code of Ethics, a photographer should pay peculiar attention to vulnerable subjects and victims as well as to children. One of the flashy examples of visual ethics principles’ violation is child humiliation described in The Daily Telegraph in the article “Nude Child Art Photography Reviewed by State Government” (Hildebrand & Lawrence). The issue being controversial in its nature was discussed regarding the case that an art magazine released sexualized photographs of a naked six-year-old girl. It was widely discussed as such photos where a girl was shown naked in a provocative pose in her grandmother’s jewellery runs counter to NSW child employment laws (Hildebrand & Lawrence). Several examples of similar cases are given in the article. Premier Morris Iemma characterised the photos as disgusting and claimed they had nothing to do with art.
The Code of Ethics also states that a photographer may not distort the integrity of a photograph and resist being manipulated by the present-day digital technology world. The article entitled “Ethics in the Age of Digital Technology” deals with the decisions of an ethical nature taken by a photographer. It is claimed that digital era has not created new ethical standards for an artist but altered them, so he should comply with modern high ethical standards of the society (Long). Under the influence of mass media photographs’ credibility is at times under threat. As an image loses its invariance and becomes “a watery mix of moveable pixels” (Long). Due to the technology a photograph has tuned from a fixed image into what an artist wants it to be. Ethical issues are closely connected to the issues of taste, the example of which may be a photograph of a dead American soldier dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. We should be kept well-informed to make choices, judgements and deeply influenced with what is happening not with words but with photos. Digitally altered photos badly damage the reputation of well-known periodicals all over the world, but only real photos can change the hearts and minds of people, “the photo should not look real if it is fake. We have an obligation to history to leave behind us a collection of real photographs” (Long).
In the article “A Question of Truth: Photojournalism and Visual Ethics” D. R. Winslow gives insight into what happens in the reproduction of photos at newspapers and substantiates “visual lie” with numerous examples of the ways digital technology influences and manipulates images causing ethical violations and emphasizes irreversibility of the changes (Winslow).