Photographic Ethics

Almost every photograph you make can involve moral issues. How you represent people. What you can do or should not do to get your picture. What you can or cannot do with the images you make. How far you can go to tidy up a landscape. How much AI you can use, or none at all.

Photography is much more than the cameras, lenses, techniques or workflows.

We will ask:

• What do morals and ethics have to do with photography?
• What are the ethics of street photography?
• What responsibilities do you have towards the people or animals you photograph?
• How should we think about consent, privacy, dignity, rights, and representation?
• What assumptions lie behind terms such as 'shoot', 'capture, 'manipulate'?

Through discussion of scenarios and case studies, the workshop will help you recognise ethical issues, think through tricky photographic issues. You will develop a more considered approach to your own practice.

We will begin by mapping the main questions surrounding photographic ethics. We will then move from general principles to specific situations, using group discussion and practical case studies to examine how ethical decisions arise in real photographic contexts.

Topics include:

• The difference between morals and ethics.
• Culture, social norms and photographic practice.
• The rights and interests of photographed people.
• Consent, privacy, dignity and power.
• Representation, context and responsibility.
• Ethical challenges in people photography.
• How to develop codes for your own practice.

Together, we will look beyond focal lengths, apertures and framing to consider the human, social, cultural and even philosophical dimensions of making photographs. The aim is not to impose rules, but to develop better questions, and informed judgments.

By the end of the workshop, you take away a richer, more nuanced understanding of photographic ethics plus improved confidence to shape your own practice.

Photography’s Great Questions

Photographic Ethics is the first in a series of guided debates about photography’s great questions.

The series is designed to extend your enjoyment of photography and deepen your understanding beyond the merely technical. We will explore ideas that are often placed in the “too hard” basket, including questions that are confusingly mixed together or left unexamined.
 

• Street photography 
• Portraiture
• Wildflie
• Landscape
• Image manipulation 
• Artificial Intelligence

• Lots of questions and ideas