Ethics: Photography

Situation: A renowned, talented landscape photographer was arrested
and fined after fires he had set as a backdrop for night photography grew out of control
and caused damage to natural formations at Arches National Park in Utah.

My Summary of Events: On September 18 and 19 of 2000, Utah landscape photographer Michael Fatali lead a group of amateur photographers to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, a state landmark. Fatali and his assistants lit Duraflame logs to demonstrate to amateur photographers "nighttime photographic techniques."

In his statement to prosecutors, Fatali said he brought aluminum pans to the shoots to contain the fire. The pans failed, however, and the Duraflame logs burned directly on the sandstone, causing damage directly under and to the west and east of the arch.

Officials were able to remove some of the scorch marks immediately, but remaining scars from the fire have proven difficult for park service employees to eradicate.

He plead guilty to all counts including starting fires at another National Park in Utah. The other incident occurred on Aug. 12, 1997 when Fatali used wood from Canyonlands National Park to build a fire at Horsehoof Arch. The next day, he did the same thing at a slot canyon known as "The Joint Trail."

 On Feb. 1, Michael Fatali was sentenced to two years probation by a federal judge in Salt Lake City. During this period, Fatali is prohibited from entering Arches and Canyonlands national parks. In addition to 150 hours of community service, Fatali had been ordered to pay $10,900 in restitution to the Park Service. Federal officials have seized all the negatives, originals and prints of the firelight photos.

While the Assistant U.S. Attorney had asked that Fatali be banned from all NPS lands in Utah, the judge denied the request saying that the penalty would be "onerous."

My Opinion:

Fatali devoted his entire career to producing breathtaking photographs of Utah's desert landscapes. He operates a school of photography and owns a gallery outside of Zion National Park. I think Fatali made some poor decisions, he never obtained the proper permits to start a fire, didn't have the logs in proper container and didn't bring fire extinguishing devices. If the fire got out-of-hand he could have destroyed a natural treasure that couldn't be replaced. I agree with Fatali's punishment and hope he learns to act more ethical as a photographer, especially one who educates photographers. 

Lesson to all photographers, the government can seize your photos as part of or the result of a case like this one. 

Aesthetic Controversy and the iPhone

Damon Winter a New York Times Staff photographer has sparked controversy from his third place win in Pictures of the Year International’s Feature Picture Story competition for his photo essay A Grunt’s Life.

 He captured daily life in a war zone for US troops in and out of action, a controversial topic but not the reason he is being criticized, the bigger issue at hand for most critics is that he shot the entire body of work using an iPhone and the Hipstamatic application to add a faux-polaroid filter.

 Photographer Chip Litherland, also a contributor to the New York Times, points out that the real problem lies with the editing application "...the images were processed through an app that changes what was there when Winter shot them.  It’s now no longer photojournalism, but photography. That transition happens when images become more about the photographer and less about the subject of said photos."

The New York Times‘ own photography policy is seemingly against the color-shifting and distortion that occurs in Winter's photographs:

"Images in our pages, in the paper or on the Web, that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way. No people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, distorted or removed from a scene (except for the recognized practice of cropping to omit extraneous outer portions)."

  Winter notes in his New York Times response to the controversy,  that other photographs in the competition, notably the first place winner, employ distortions similar to those of Hipstamatic:

"It is black and white, shot with an extremely shallow depth of field to focus attention on the intended subject and blur other distractions and to give it a certain feel. It features a very heavy use of vignetting." 

"Much of the information in the image has been obscured in the interest of aesthetics. We humans do not see in black and white. And we do not see the world at f/1.2. These are aesthetic choices that do not contribute to the accuracy of the image. They are ways that the scene has been enhanced aesthetically."

 It is true that no image can be deemed as being the absolute truth, the limitations of the camera and the photographers ability to make aesthetic choices will always seep into photojournalism, this is being pushed further and further with changes in photographic processes and technology.

Photographic Truth in a Digital Era

I read an article written and published by the Media Awareness Group, a Canadian non-profit organization that provides "Resources and support for everyone interested in media literacy and digital literacy for young people." The article's title is Photographic Truth in a Digital Era, the article provides great examples of digital manipulation and what it can be used to achieve, both good and evil. 

The article brings up many excellent points but the one I found especially interesting was about how digital manipulation can add credibility to urban legends and hoaxes. Individuals can use photography to add validity to something that is untrue. The example below shows how digital manipulation was used to add credibility to a widely-circulated hoax. In the aftermath of the horrific attack on the World Trade Center, a photo surfaced of a tourist being photographed just seconds before the tragedy. Supposedly, the camera containing the shot was found in the rubble of the twin towers. 

 Simply making a statement isn't as effective without evidence, now it is possible to create a photo that looks real, supports your claim, but was created in Photoshop. 

A New Concept: The Social Element

The concept behind the photograph the psychological element, so to speak, has always appeared in some form throughout my work. We process a photograph, or any work of art for that matter, with our brains, making art that inspires the senses and stimulates the though process is what I feel art is essentially about. My first project for this class adds a social element to my continuing theme of abandoned buildings, behind every building is a creator, a generation of people and their thoughts, architectural style and design elements of a personal nature. I have merged texture and other attributes of these pictures to create a final image that reminds the viewer of the human element in these buildings, we built it and we let it get to the state it was in when I captured it with my camera, usually in a state of neglect. These few photos approach the concept in a few different ways, you can decide which method gets my concept across the clearest.

My influence for this work is Lisa Jacoby's stunning black and white photos. One of my favorite photos of hers is the one in which she revels the man inside a portrait of a boy by replacing the eyes with a pair of adult male eyes, it subtly gets her message across. She does many variations of this concept. She also has a series called Through the Looking Glass, where she rips open the picture and in the opened scene is another image. Trees need water, clouds retrieve the water from bodies of water on planet earth, so she fused these elements together to demonstrate their inner relatedness. In another body of her work, she shows that wilderness can be full of chaos and in one of her most popular photos she adds a path in the center of the photo to lead the viewer through the composition and add a certain degree of order. She inspired me to try something different and relate two elements together in one composition.

Her Website: Click Here