Photographs can make your hair stand up by their mere intensity. I visited the World Press Photo Exhibition the other day and was deeply moved, by some of the photographs. The content of the pictures was very different. They showed Georgian women crying over their murdered family members, heavily wounded victims of Brazilian gang violence as well as diving athletes making funny faces while jumping off the springboard. Each of them was unique. Nevertheless, they all made me ask the same question.
Is it fair to take pictures of people in extraordinary situations, or this is an unacceptable form of voyeurism? Does the photographer help the African refugee after he takes a picture of the man, trying to cross the border to save his life, or does he just care about the outcome of his work? Is it immoral, that the photographer wins a lot of money for his picture, showing a person in a terrible situation? I am not sure, whether it can be argued that the picture will raise the public awareness of the problem and thereby help the victims. However, I probably would have never known about it, if the photograph would not exist.
Perhaps this conflict is present in every piece of journalism be it written or on television or in the form of pictures. I have not found a way to solve this problem and until I do, I will always have the feeling of being intruding someone’s intimacy when dealing with news coverage about human suffer.