Topic 10 Photography, Power and Others

Reflect on the ‘triangle’ model in relation to your own practice: do you feel that there is any kind of imbalance in terms of the relationships between the three ‘corners’?

Think about any previous experiences out shooting: have there ever been any moments when you felt that what you were doing, or had done, was unjust or inappropriate? If so, what prompted this?

What did this experience teach you about your approaches, both practically and conceptually?

Photographing in schools is always toeing the line of unbalance of power and can be viewed as inappropriate. I typically cover the faces of students in my care whose parents have not given permission to be photographed as a result. This has often resulted in the inability to use really great images.

This module had me thinking about the idea of charging photographers for the use of a shooting environment as Jesse stated in discussing the National Trust. This comes up often when shooting portraits commercially. There are numerous cultural sites, non-profits with highly paid executives, that charge roughly $250 for the rights to shoot on location. While I understand the need to charge for property that is maintained for public use, I find that such a fee discriminates against local patrons who are on the lower end of the economic spectrum. While the fee is not an issue at all for wealthy tourists, it is unreasonable for locals who live below the poverty line. The result is that these cultural institutions often feature tourists in their imagery, further diving the socio-economic classes and pushing locals further away from these artistic spots.