To Photograph or Not To Photograph...

It doesn't matter what sport you photograph, and sometimes it doesn't matter what genre of photography you're taking part in either, but there might come a time when you will stop and ask yourself: "Should I photograph this?"

Take this as an example: about a month ago, one of the team who plays on the D was taken out from behind. He hit the ice and lay there for some time. He was down and he was hurt. I didn't photograph it. Would you?

Or how about what happened to Richard Zednik? Back in 2008 he had his carotid artery cut open. They were down in the corner grinding it out when his team mate, Olli Jokinen, was up ended and Jokinen's skate blade made contact with Zednik's neck. He bled profusely. The carotid artery is a major artery in your neck; it takes blood to the brain. It could have killed him if not for the quick actions of the medical staff. Would you photograph that?

There is no right answer on whether you should or should not photograph a player or an athlete in pain or having had a serious accident. It is all down to your own personal ethics and morals. What you might photograph, another photographer may not. If you're working freelance then that's fine, but when you're working for a newspaper or a stock library you'll have to follow their ethical code of conduct whether you like it or not. Getty Images clearly state that:

                                    "No staff member shall let their personal opinions influence the coverage of stories or events" (Getty Images, 2012)

Newspapers and stock libraries work on a utilitarianism approach to photography. This means that they would, and did, print photographs of what happened to Richard Zednik. Just like they printed photographs of the crashes that killed Dan Wheldon and Marco Simoncelli. Basically, utilitarianism is the belief that everyone has a right to know and that it is for the greater good of humanity.

These photographs can often be printed and published at the expense of those involved and their at the expense of their families, causing more grief and pain.

Yes, people have a right to know about what happens in the world, whether it be sport, war or crime. But should they really be viewing images of other people bleeding and in pain? Or images that depict the last few seconds or minutes of someone else's life? Surely these should be private moments, or as private as they can be.

Back in the 1980s a newspaper on the east coast of the USA printed a photograph of a dead boy in the arms of a man. The boy had drowned. While there where around 30,000 complaints about the image being printed in the paper, death by drowning saw a sharp drop in the three months that followed.

While a lot of people don't like viewing images of others in pain etc. they still look at them because it’s morbid introspection. This is an interest of all things morbid. A good example of this is when there has been a crash on the opposite side of the motorway. People slowdown in order to get a better look at what has happened. It’s a basic instinct, to look at what has befallen others, a kind of "if I look at it, it can't happen to me".

We all do it, not slowing down on a motorway to see the carnage of a crash, but watching TV or looking at photographs and exclaiming, "Oh! I can't look, it’s awful!” But you don't look away; you carry on looking, because you're curious.....because if you look it won't happen to you. Everyone takes part in morbid introspection whether they admit it or not.

The other side of utilitarianism is absolutism. Absolutists believe that everyone has a right to privacy and you shouldn't take or publish images of people in pain, dying or dead. They believe it is immoral.

Some photographers fall back onto what they call the 'golden rule'. The golden rule is basically 'treat others how you yourself would want to be treated'.

One of the lecturers at university said another way of deciding whether you should take an image or not is to ask yourself if you would do it in front of your mother. If the answer is no, then don't do it!

There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to a subject like this. It’s a bit of a grey area. It’s down to you and what you believe.  Everybody has different ethics, everybody believes something different.

So where do I stand? Well, I believe it’s wrong to photograph players that are in pain or that are bleeding, regardless of what team they play for.

Going back to the d-man who was taken out from behind, I stood on the stairs and watched him on the ice in obvious pain. I then watched fans get up and walk to the plexi so they could get a better look at him. It really annoyed me, they saw the poor lad go down and seeing that wasn't good enough for them. They needed to see the aftermath. While it annoyed me greatly, I knew that it was morbid introspection. The player who committed the offence didn't get sent off, or even receive a penalty which I found rather disgusting.

If I have images on my memory card of a players getting hurt, I look carefully at each image while I decide whether to keep them or not. I'll generally keep the images that lead up to the incident happening and then delete the ones that show the accident and what happened after.

Some players quite like having photographs of themselves getting hurt; they like to see what happened for themselves and not go on an account from team mates. Unfortunately for them, they won't be seeing anything like that from me.

Twitter: @RaiPekkanen
Facebook: facebook.com/raipekkanen

Related Article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20616635

Bibliography

Getty Images (2012) Editorial Policy [Online] Available from <http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/corporate/editorialpolicy.aspx> [30 November 2012]