A Little News

There are way too many ways for people to die.  Life would be much tidier if people only died after living a long, full life and had a loving family surrounding them as they passed.  Unfortunately, that is not the way life happens and it is certainly not the way death happens.  Far too often, death just happens right out in the street in front of everyone.  Traffic fatalities, swimming accidents, falling, industrial accidents, murders, suicides and a thousand other ways that can all draw a photojournalist into the middle of an unpleasant situation.  For those of you who are reading this who are not photojournalists, let me assure you, we are not vampires with fangs bared looking for blood.  There are few things in life I like less than being sent to a fatal accident.  First of all, I hate death.  Secondly, I hate having to invade on an exceedingly emotional moment for the survivors.  Then only reason I can do what I have to do is because I hope and pray that someone seeing the photo in the paper will slow down, or take some extra precaution that may save their life. 

The photo at right is from a fire in Moulton, AL where two firefighters were killed when a wall collapsed on them.  The woman on the front of the engine is an EMT and the man inside is a firefighter and they are mourning the loss of their friends.  When I got out of my car I could hear a woman weeping off to my left.  She was sitting in total darkness and she was all alone well away from the scene.  It would have been a tremendously emotional picture but to invade the privacy of that moment was too much for me.  I just walked on to the scene and prayed that I could get a shot that would tell the story.  This is the decision every photojournalist will be faced with when photographing tragedy; do I shoot or do I walk away?

The Decatur Daily has one rule which I am intensely grateful for.  We do not show dead bodies in our local photos.  We do not show even bodies covered with a sheet if there is anyway to avoid it.  We will go so far as to hold a photo if the person in the photo is in imminent danger of death.  I can only remember one or two times in my whole career when we have run a photo that showed a person who was dead or was dying at the time it was shot.  That is a great relief to me.  It also helps when we approach police, fire and emergency workers on the scene of a tragic incident.  If they know that I can be trusted not to shoot photos showing the victim of a fatality they are more likely to let me do my job and get out.  Taking it for granted that a photojournalist is going to be involved in tragedy on a fairly regular basis, how then do you handle the decisions you will have to make regarding what to shoot and how to shoot it?

Of all the situations where your personal ethics need to be in order, this is the one that stands out the most to me.  Here the question comes into play, “What kind of a man am I?”  Do I view a news situation as an opportunity to make a “great” photo first and check my ethics later or do I view the victims with compassion and make my decision on what to shoot from this point of view?  Let me say here that I have done it both ways and the answer is sometimes the first and sometimes the second and it varies depending on the seriousness of the situation, the public’s ‘need to know’ and on how invasive I have to be in the moment.  My personal approach is to photograph the scene, the emergency workers and any pertinent detail that tells the story without hesitation.  When there are grieving family members on the scene, I usually avoid photographing them because I believe that a person has a right to grieve in public.  In other words, I believe there are moments that are deeply private that do not need to be shown on TV and in newspapers.  I have photographed grieving family members and will have to again.  When I do have to do this, I use long lenses and remain as discreet as possible.  I try to avoid using flash unless there is simply no other way to get the job done.  I any case, I try to remain as respectful as possible and remember that the situation may have to be documented but the people do not have to be exploited for me to tell a story. 

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily      The opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.