An important aspect of photojournalism is facing with different human situations. The ethical question of how much a photojournalist intervene with the situation, when we start putting our camera down and helping or when we don’t. When we stop being a photographer and when we continue being a photographer. Here I have mentioned a few examples of photos with ethical issues.
In this photo, Paolo Pellegrin has shown the destruction after an air strike in Lebanon.
Paolo Pellegrin | As I was Dying Moments after an Israeli air strike destroyed several buildings in Dahia. Beirut, Lebanon. August, 2006. © Paolo Pellegrin | Magnum Photos.
Paolo says: “When I do my work and I am exposed to the suffering of others – their loss or, at times their death – I feel I am serving as a witness; that is my role and responsibility to create a record for our collective memory. Part of this, I believe, has to do with notions of accountability. Perhaps it is only in their moment of suffering that these people will be noticed, and noticing erases our excuse of saying one day that we did not know.”
The next photos by Sara Lewkowicz, a successful photojournalist whose work has been published in a few magazines and newspapers, has won several grants and awards including the first place in contemporary issues in World Press Photo, ‘A Portrait of Domestic Violence’.
Sara met a couple Shane and Maggie at a fair and started being in contact with them; the man had released from prison and Sara wanted to make a story of a prisoner life back to society. She didn’t expect that Shane is a very aggressive person towards Maggie and her tow children from her previous husband. One day he became angry and as we can see in the photos starts to fight with his wife in front of the kids. In this case the photographer had two choices of putting her camera away and trying to stop the conflict and keeping away the kids or continuing taking photos as her job is to document events. Sara decided to left her emotions behind and focus on photo shooting and it resulted in having some documents to report to the police in the scene.
1st Prize Contemporary Issues Stories: As the fight continued to rage, Shane told Maggie that she could choose between getting beaten in the kitchen, or going with him to the basement so they could talk privately. Lancaster, US © Sara Naomi Lewkowicz, USA, for Time
The next photos are about women in Iran who are pulling off their headscarves and hoping for a ‘turning point’. It’s become controversial in Iran and has arised a lot of ethical issues from the government side.
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