Smile! Get closer! Can you do that again for the camera? These are the phrases that no photojournalist should ever utter unless they are at their kid’s birthday party.
This is something a professional photographer deals with everyday. People think they are helping us by “setting up a shot.” This can’t be further from the truth. As a photojournalist we are there to capture the moment.
Recently, I was covering the Obama speech protest at the Indian River School Administration building. A television photographer (governed by the same set of ethics still photographers are) told the group to keep shouting because he had to shoot up close video. I find this unethical.
I was also shooting video of the situation of the crowd that was whipped up for the media. I still struggle with the fact that I shot his setup shot. But, in my defense, I did not set it up and I was covering what was happening. Maybe I should have clarified that in my text. There is such a gray area sometimes – but some things are black and white.
A story was told in one of my college classes about a boy walking a fence line. The photographer, driving by him, saw the boy and pulled over and grabbed his camera. By the time they did so the boy had jumped down. The question is: Do you ask him to jump back up on the fence? Some would say, he was doing it before, why not? “Why not” is because he was not doing it at the time you were taking the photo. If a writer would not fake a quote a photojournalist should not recreate a situation for a photograph.
I know where your mind is going. What about a portrait? The way I shoot portraits one can tell they are portraits, usually looking into the camera. Also, a portrait is usually not at an event.
