Defending ‘Needles in the Sewer’ and Photographing the Disadvantaged; PetaPixel, December 29, 2018

Simon King, PetaPixel; Defending ‘Needles in the Sewer’ and Photographing the Disadvantaged

[Kip Currier: Thought-provoking article identifying and discussing some of the sticky ethical issues of whether to-photograph or not-to-photograph, particularly regarding vulnerable populations and difficult topics. Kudos to the photographer Simon King for shedding light on his metacognition (i.e. thinking about thinking), with regard to how and when he takes pictures and what he does and does not do with them.

Beyond photography, the issues raised in the piece have broader implications as well for digital age technologies' impacts on disadvantaged communities related to the increasing collection and use of data generated by AI algorithms, mass surveillance, facial recognition, biometric information, etc. The last two paragraphs of a November 2018 New York Times article, Colleges Grapple With Teaching the Technology and Ethics of A.I., provide an example of some of the ways higher education is preparing students to better recognize and address these issues:

David Danks, a professor of philosophy and psychology at Carnegie Mellon, just started teaching a class, “A.I, Society and Humanity.” The class is an outgrowth of faculty coming together over the past three years to create shared research projects, he said, because students need to learn from both those who are trained in the technology and those who are trained in asking ethical questions.

“The key is to make sure they have the opportunities to really explore the ways technology can have an impact — to think how this will affect people in poorer communities or how it can be abused,” he said.]

"The main issues people brought up about this image were consent and exploitation...

My responsibility (and maybe yours?) as a photographer is to avoid self-censorship. I can always choose to publish an image or not, but only if that image exists in the first place. If I take an image then I should have the presence of mind to understand what I saw in that scene, and what purpose I want to apply to that image. If I had not taken an image at this time would that be a form of erasing and ignoring this issue? I would rather face discussion and debate about my work than to talk as if these issues are distant and abstract.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I’d like to direct some of the attention from this topic and image to the website Addaction. It’s a UK-based organization providing aid and outreach to at-risk addicts. Please consider having a look at their website and possibly making a donation, or maybe going out of your way to produce an image that may also draw attention to this topic."