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Photographing Homeless People for "Street"
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I’m afraid I am going bring up something which has been bugging me recently, but which is also very important, and we should discuss it.
My natural home on this site is the “street and documentary” section. Great stuff does not get posted there often, but I enjoy checking in on it, commenting on it, reading other comments, and getting commented on myself. However, in correlation with the apparent increase in homeless people and beggars on our streets in recent times, there seems to be an increase in postings of homeless people on there. Now, I know they are on the street, they are part of it, and that it’s sad that people can find themselves in this situation. So, photographers shooting street photograph them, and post the pictures up as examples of the nature of our times. Is this ethical?
My opinion is that simply snapping a homeless person in this way is lazy and exploitative. Now, street photography can be accused of being exploitative anyway, but snapping the most vulnerable really pushes it I think. Another problem is that it’s extremely clichéd and over done, for decades now. If I see another photograph of a passer by looking at a homeless person I’ll pull my non-existent hair out. If a street photographer really wants to tell the story of the homeless why not approach a charity who works with them, and photograph the issue in depth from there. Or get to know the homeless people, introduce yourself, and document their plight, with their permission. Now that would make an interesting photographic story to be posted. I realise that this would be difficult for some, but people really have to think of what they are doing when they are photographing in this way someone who has nothing at all left in the world. Everyone else in the street presumably has a home to go to, a life to live. They will get over a stolen unflattering snap by a photog. I just think the homeless person should be afforded a bit more respect. We are privileged as photographers to live in a society where we can take photographs of strangers on the street and get away with it. For that, I think we should pay the price of respecting the vulnerable on those streets.
What do others think?I took one a while back, was a close up of an old homeless mans face, wasnt for street was actually for another project i was working on with a friend of mine, actually about this same topic.
I asked his permission first of course and i gave him 20euro and a meal deal thing from a sandwich bar.
I dunno if others do this or just snap and run or whatever but if your gunna use someone i think it’d be nice to offer them something, like you would a model who’d pose for you.
Their not just scenery, or articles on the street, not like a lamp or a bin or a statue, their people and deserve to be treated as such. Ok 20euro and a sandwich wasnt equal to what you’d pay a model but i explained why i was taking it and he was more then happy to help out.
I agree with you on this Stephen and i dont normally look in the street section so i cant comment first hand on that aspect of it but i can totally see what your saying.Regards
DaveHi Steve.
Homeless people are found daily on our streets, but I don’t think that they should be included in street photography as such. I think street and documentary should be seperate areas of photography, but others may disagree.
To me personally, Street photography should be about the character of the street itself. Moore street in Dublin (fruit sellers etc) would be an example of this. While it shows the people working there, it also shows something that is unique to Moore street.
I think homeless people would be more of a documentary type of thing. It is showing something of their circumstances rather than the street in which they are found. I know a few homeless guys and would often stop & chat to them, but have never photographed them, mainly because, I am not particularily interested in doing a documentary on their situation or circumstances. If they saw me with my camera (while passing by), they would sometimes shout (jokingly) “Hey,Take a photo of us”, but I know that taking a photo of them wouldn’t mean anything to them overall. I’d have no problem in photographing them if I was undertaking a documentary on homelessness, but I would ask their permission first.If you check back on the archives here Steve, you’ll see that this subject has been discussed since almost the first day the site started. It’s always a contentious issue and there have been some heated arguments about it’s legitimacy over the years.
Personally, I think for the most part it is lazy to just shoot homeless people with a zoom lens and then run..and it’s certainly nothing original. But there have been examples on tis site where a lot of thought went into a shot AND the persons privacy, such as it was, were respected.
I reckon if you are not prepared to walk up to the person and speak to them then you probably shouldn’t be taking their photograph if they are in a vulnerable position.
But it’s a thorny subject, and some people will say that a photographers remit is to record and not to judge one way or the other. The case of Kevin Carters Pulitzer prize winning photo of the vulture and starving child in Sudan always come to mind when discussing ethics in photography.But that’s a whole other story ;-)
I don’t see why you should consider the morality of taking a photo of a homeless person as being discrete from the general discussion of the morality of photographing people on the street generally?
why does having a home affect ones ability to “get over” being photographed in the street?
jaybee wrote:
why does having a home affect ones ability to “get over” being photographed in the street?
I guess because some people have a choice of being there, and some people don’t.
Anyway, have a look at some of Lee Jeffries work. He does the most awesome mono portraits of homeless people. Interestingly, he describes his first photo of a homeless person as being “stolen” from them, as he had not asked permission. From then on, he talks to them to get to know them a bit before finally asking for permission to take a picture. I believe that’s the way to do it, rather than “stealing” a photo of them…
Flickr Stream – http://www.flickr.com/photos/16536699N07/
http://www.yellowkorner.com/artistes/198/Lee%20Jeffries.aspxRgds,
Dave.I don’t see why you should consider the morality of taking a photo of a homeless person as being discrete from the general discussion of the morality of photographing people on the street generally?
I don’t think the homeless, or people begging, are appropriate street subjects for zoom lens/far away sneaky shots and then posted on the internet. What if they get their lives back together and don’t want their past to resurface, but then a relative/employer finds the old pictures online? I think that they should be afforded that discretion due to the nature of their circumstances. It’s our right to photograph them under freedom of expression philosophy, but that doesn’t mean we should do it. Street photography is supposed to be, well, I’m not getting into that again, but compassion might be a word that should be added to the lexicon of descriptions for it.
A very emotive subject to say the least and my view, I think, would be some where in the middle ground.
I dont photograph street people because there are plenty of other photographers doing it and I would rather concentrate on other subjects, however I dont think photographers should be made to feel uneasy about the subject. Street photography is essentially documentary, you are photographing the every day and these people are part of the fabric of the street, irrespective of the circumstances that brought them there, whether by choice or misfortune, or how they might end up in the future.
Lee Jeffries portraits are beautiful and are similar to work by a Canadian photographer Dave Roels, the point I’m trying to make here is I think ultimately the photographer is the one who benefits the most, even if you give the person the price of a meal or a few euro they still face the same daily challenges. I would suggest give the money and dont take the photograph
Kevin Carters photograph is the strongest image I have ever seen and we all konw how that turned out.
Street People, always have been and always be photographed, the decision is up to the individual photographer, does it add to the image or is it just a sure fire capture, you don’t have to do it but you shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for doing it. The choice is yoursclimberhunt wrote:
jaybee wrote:
why does having a home affect ones ability to “get over” being photographed in the street?
I guess because some people have a choice of being there, and some people don’t.
Anyway, have a look at some of Lee Jeffries work. He does the most awesome mono portraits of homeless people. Interestingly, he describes his first photo of a homeless person as being “stolen” from them, as he had not asked permission. From then on, he talks to them to get to know them a bit before finally asking for permission to take a picture. I believe that’s the way to do it, rather than “stealing” a photo of them…
Flickr Stream – http://www.flickr.com/photos/16536699N07/
http://www.yellowkorner.com/artistes/198/Lee%20Jeffries.aspxRgds,
Dave.I don’t see why having a choice of being there or not dictates the ability of one person over another to “get over” having their photo taken… it would seem to suggest that a homeless person is going to be sitting there brooding over the fact that they have had their photo taken (which situation by definition precludes the “stolen” telephoto situation) while someone with a home to go to will be distracted and have some sort of internal dialog along the lines of “oh I’m so worried about having my photo taken… wait I have a house and a tv… oh I don’t feel so bad about it now”
Steve I ‘m glad that you brought up this subject and I find myself in total agreement with you and I have felt this way for many years. Many of these photographs are taken to be used in camera club competitions, so once again these people are being used. I have done a fair bit of travel photography and I have taken photos of the down and out in many countries to be used in competitions. Even though I did give them some money, at this stage I feel that I exploited them. Another thing occurred to me was because I had no real relationship with them the photos hold no value for me as the years go by. I can just about recall what country they were taken in. When I show my work at clubs nowadays I’m inclined to show just my landscape work. I will show 1 or 2 of these portraits and express how I feel about them today.
I wonder how any of us would feel if photos were taken of us when we were drunk and shown on the net or at a competition?
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