I disagree with you both.

They should take pictures then take any one injured to a hospital, where they can get a more drastic effect with their photography.

Most of the staunch warmongers will wilt when they see what it actually is.

What we have here is the genovese effect, only responsibility is diluted through the use of the camera. Thoughts: "I don't have to help any one, because I'm media."

Diffusion of responsibility comes in many forms, the photographers are no less a problem then the bombs.

Movie: We were Soldiers, the photographer was a bystander until responsibility fell on him personally.

PS: This guy in the video is a helluva photographer.

Na that's bollocks. The photographer takes the responsibility to photograph. that is a big responsibility. Why ask him to do half his job? Take photos THEN help? How many photos? Where do you draw the line? Maybe you should leave that to the photographer to decide, seeing as he is risking his ass and you are not?

I don't think you can accuse people going unarmed into a warzone of taking advantage of diffused responsibility. It's us guys watching it on youtube and doing NOTHING that are "diffused". The ones of us who then insult the photographers without any knowledge of what they do are just... ech it makes me puke.

I do nothing, because I cannot. I wont explain why not.

To me taking photos of someone that clearly needs help is like snapping shots of dead bodies at a car accident with a cell phone.

But then again I'm biased because I am fledgling photographer and a trained first responder. First thing to do when responding to people in need? Clear the scene and kick the media out.

Interesting stories of war journalism:
http://www.newseum.org/warstories/essay/romance.htm

so you think that helping a person off the floor is more important than publicising the injustice that has taken place to thousands or millions?

maybe we should train 10000 war photographers and send them to disaster zones, where they can all take a couple of pictures and then get on with the "real" work of helping people who have cuts and broken limbs. If they miss a few shots while helping someone, if they get distracted and can't do their job properly, well that's ok because grandma is comforted by a guy who has no training.

i am just amazed that there is so much shock about a photographer doing his job, whereas the people who bombed a helpless village are not discussed in the same breath. Even if you think the photographers are a bit bad, the warmongers are the real problem here, not the photographers.

No shit.

How the hell are we going to do any thing about foreign war mongers when we cant take care of our own.

It seems to me that doing any thing is futile, but that is apathy. I vote, write senators support people Like Kucinich and it gets me nothing but shit from the majority who are theoconservative.

(I'm not sure if you are US or not. Ya dig? So you have context as to what I mean.)

don't add to the problem, solve a little bit, leave things tidy. that's the best way. some war photographers have ended wars.

i am not US nah

This reminds me of Milgram's and Zimbardo's experiments that showed that people were capable of doing atrocious things so long as they could rationalize that they were just doing their job or that it wasn't their responsibility.

I'm totally with Nordlich on this one. Any photographer that says they didn't help because they have the more important responsibility of getting the news out is full of sh*t. That footage from Georgia of the photographers just standing around taking photos had nothing to do with getting the story out and everything to do with each of them hoping to get the cover or Time or Newsweek and make a lot of cash in the process. Your responsibility as a human being to help others in immediate need supersedes any responsibility you may think you have to your job.

As a final note, notice that in this vid not once do you see the photographer standing around taking pictures of wounded people who are obviously in need of first aid. The shots he takes of the wounded are at the hospital--and no less compelling because of it.

dude, go and try being a war photographer. see how much work you get done if you start to get mixed up in the events instead of documenting them.

it's so much more complex an issue than "man what a cunt why doesn't he put down the camera".

as for the motive that you will get on the cover of a magazine and get some money, well thank fuck they have a motive, we need the photos. I for one don't find international fame and riches a good enough reason to walk into a conflict without a gun, but if you do, then please, go for it. we need the pictures.

and as for "in this clip nachtwey only photographs people in hospital" !!!!! you retard, you think you just saw his whole career in one youtube video? it's not even the full documentary. And why doesn't he stay and dedicate his life to raising money for the hospital? Why didn't he take a bunch of antibiotics with him? Cunt!

He has photographed people who he could have given a year's wages with a couple of dollars, and he could have taught their kids to read, but he didn't, he just took photos and fucked off like a cunt, didn't he.

You only have to help people if they are on the floor bleeding, yeah? If they are mining poisonous rocks then you don't have to help them. If they are women in an unjust war you help, but bleeding terrorists you don't help? Go on, think this through and see where you get.

You just consume the war photography and call war photographers cunts. Nice one. Way to be all morally superior.

>> ^MINK:

it's so much more complex an issue than "man what a cunt why doesn't he put down the camera".

Amen MINK. Well said.

You seem to be confused about what I'm saying. I'm not against war photographers. Did I say photographers should go around helping everyone like some sort of roving superheroes? No. I said that if there's someone that needs immediate medical attention right in front of you and there's no immediate danger to yourself or others, you have the a responsibility as a human being to help them and not stand around snapping shots while they bleed to death.

Taken from the National Press Photographers Association Code of ethics, standard #4:

"Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy." NPPA

Standing around snapping photos while a civilian caught in a cross-fire is bleeding out directly in front of you doesn't strike me as very compassionate. Going back to the point I made earlier about Nachtwey, you lose none of the emotional power of the photo by snapping shots at the hospital as doctors work on the wounded.

Also, former NPPA president John Long had this to say about the ethics of photojournalists.

"For example, take the very famous photo of the young child dying in Sudan while a vulture stands behind her, waiting. It was taken by Kevin Carter who won a Pulitzer Prize for the photo (a photo that raised a lot of money for the relief agencies). He was criticized for not helping the child; he replied there were relief workers there to do that. After receiving his Pulitzer, Kevin Carter returned to Africa and committed suicide. He had a lot of problems in his life but, with the timing of the sequence of events, I cannot help thinking there is a correlation between his photographing the child and his suicide.

This is the kind of choice all journalists will face some time in his or her career; maybe not in the extreme situation that Carter faced, but in some way, we all will be faced with choices of helping or photographing. Some day we will be at a fire or a car accident and we will be called upon to put the camera down and help. It is a good idea to think about these issues in advance because when the hour comes, it will come suddenly and we will be asked to make a choice quickly.

Here is the principle that works for me. It is not a popular one and it is one that many journalists disagree with but it allows me to sleep at night. If you have placed yourself in the position where you can help, you are morally obligated to help. I do not ask you to agree with me. I just want you to think about this and be prepared; at what point do you put the camera down and help? At what point does your humanity become more important than your journalism?" Ethics in the Age of Digital Photography(emphasis added by me)

^i think what you say, and what you quoted from the NPPA (which doesn't represent all photographers but anyways...) ...i think that none of that insists that photographers stop doing their job and do someone elses.

I can photograph someone with compassion, or without. At no point is medical help specified as the means of expressing compassion.

i think what you say just supports my position that the photographer should decide for himself, and that armchair moralists should stfu.

Sure it's every photographers decision. I agree with you there. But if that photographer chooses to let someone die or suffer in order to get the shot, then I'm going to choose to call him an inhuman son-of-a-bitch and hope that if he ever gets hit by a car people stand around snapping shots of his broken body with their cell phones instead of calling 911 while subsequent drivers swerve around him and continue on their way because they have to get to work and it's someone else's job to treat the injured.

well yeah, i agree photographing someone for half an hour as they scream their last scream "HELP ME YOU CUNT" before dying in a pool of blood is probably immoral. i really doubt many war photographers have ever done that, and the guys in the clip that inspired this thread certainly did not do that, even if it does look a bit ugly to see people crowding round a tragedy competing to get the best shot. That's just the best system we have. You can't say only one guy is the official photographer and everyone else must be a first aider.

I agree with MINK, war is hell and documenting it is one of the most important jobs anybody in it can do.

Look beyond photographers and look at the bigger picture. Did anyone else know that the red cross is so committed to remaining neutral that it will not testify at war crimes tribunals? In order to try and do the most good in a war people have to make compromises. Those compromises aren't the easy ones we normally face either, people are often faced with nothing but terrible options. If photographers or red cross workers stick to the plan they made before getting into the chaos it's hardly something we can criticize from the outside looking in. Even soldiers face the same terrible choices. Say a rebel army is defending villages from a murderous regime that is coming through and killing all civilians. If their only way of defending those villagers is to heavily mine every village they face the consequence that even if they succeed, the villagers they defended will be dying for years to come from the very mines used to protect them.

When people talk about war as though there are absolutes and with unrelenting refusal to accept any compromises they are part of the problem, not the solution. The peace niks and the hawks are both equally guilty of that and are equally responsible for the tragedies they both refuse to recognize.