Photography Comes With A Moral Compass

In the book On Photography, Susan Sontag argues that a photograph is “a neat slice of time,” adding that “to take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, and mutability.” 

Those words capture the weight that comes with being a photographer. 

Photographs that portray the unusual—things never seen before—have long been subject to controversy. Images depicting conflict, poverty, famine, human suffering and sexuality often challenge social norms and disrupt human perception. 

For instance, the world was not prepared to see The Vulture and the Little Girl (1993), taken by Kevin Carter while documenting the civil unrest in South Africa from 1990-1994 as part of the Bang-Bang Club. 

The image showed a humanitarian crisis that lacked attention: a starving child collapsed on the ground being stalked by a vulture. 

Carter faced relentless criticism for photographing the devastating scene. An editorial in the St. Petersburg Times in April of 1994 said he “might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene.”

The photo illustrates the ethical quagmire photographers constantly face. The horrors he witnessed, among other things, led to his suicide in 1994. 

Should photographers intervene or document? 

The uncomfortable truth is, despite some exceptions, a photographer’s job is to photograph. By doing their work, photographers raise awareness and in turn, create change. History proves this right. 

Think of the Napalm Girl (1972). The raw portrayal of a child running in despair after a napalm bomb had burned her clothes off shook everyone to the core by revealing the brutal reality of the Vietnam War. 

So, what ultimately defines an image: the artist’s intent or the audience’s interpretation? 

This question is relevant in a series of photos by Sally Mann titled: Immediate Family (1992). They were criticized for having some nude photos of her children. The exhibition was even removed from the Fort Worth museum in Texas as a result of child pornography allegations. 

Charges were brought against Mann but they were eventually dropped. She said her photos’ intent was to capture her children’s childhood growing up on a Virginia farm. 

Diane Arbus also captured unusual photographs such as Identical Twins (1967), Seated Man in Stocking and Bra (1967) and Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park (1962). 

At the time, these were widely regarded as exploitative portrayals of “freaks” for the amusement of the wealthy when in fact, she dedicated her life’s work to intimate and provocative portraiture of ostracized communities to provide others with a glimpse into their humanity. 

A photographers’ work is often judged by society’s discomfort with their images as opposed to their intentions. 

By pointing the camera outward, photographers inevitably turn it inward, exposing not only their subjects, but their own moral compass. 

To hold a camera is to accept responsibility: to capture the living, the vulnerable, the obscure, the misunderstood and the unseen without dehumanizing or stripping them of dignity.