The ethics of shooting people

When the group gathered yesterday for the second and last day of the conference, it felt like we had all been on a mini-adventure together. It was as if the ideas of the previous day were still flowing through our collective veins and pushing our discussions to new and exciting territory. Attendees interacted like old friends and even competed as such.

For instance, the silent auction produced a few noted rivalries. Betty Udesen and Tony Overman were battling it out on paper for the right to pay more for a gorgeous picture. (I’m unsure who won the fight.) One framed print in particular produced an open melee of bidding, thus pushing the price near $200 – an adequate amount to prove one’s pride while donating to a worthy cause. Overall, the auction raised approximately $2500 for NPPA scholarships.

The excitement came to its zenith just before lunch when everyone piled into one lecture hall for the panel discussion about ethics. All of the big ideas of the conference were now subjected to one Grand Idea: how to act ethically. All of the fancy Photoshop tools and Website designs and shocking photos are potentially dangerous and must be administered to the public in a sensitive and transparent manner.

In terms of altering pictures, one often-mentioned standard is to only do what was possible, as one panelist put it, “back in the Dark Room Days.” This sounds reasonable to me and seems to be working currently, but this wouldn’t have been a true ethics discussion if there weren’t at least a few inconsistencies. For in the not-so-distant future, most photographers won’t know what the Dark Room Days were like because they were born in the Days of Digital. But that is a bridge to cross when we get there – assuming we don’t burn it first.

I would like to raise an ethical question: Is it right for photographers to go around shooting people all the time? Tony Overman admitted “you shoot 10 or 15 people at an event sometimes.” In retelling his experience at a Hutterite colony, Phil Schofield described how “first I starting shooting the kids…”

As a lover of language, I smile every time I hear about a photographer shooting someone or something. And I hope to come to next year’s conference and hear new stories about who is shooting whom and just how fast they were shooting. (Cameras and “rapid fire” normally don’t go together.)

Here’s to a great conference and the ever-expanding world of visual journalism. (clink, clink)

Computers have taken over the world (and newsroom)

"Technology is anything created after you were born." ~ Jim Tobin, presenter

I'm only 21 and I already feel that I've missed the train to Tech Town. Aren't I supposed to a part of the iPod-wearing, digital-picture-taking, click-and-drag generation? Then again, I don't particularly enjoy sitting in front of a computer screen anyway. (I even prefer listening to vinyl.)

However, my interest in page design necessitates computer skills and a good amount of time staring at a screen. Any newspaper job these days will want me to know how to use at least a one layout program plus photo editing software. Don't get me wrong, I think it's amazing what these programs can do. We can produce a publication faster than at any point in history, plus it can be delivered to almost any location in the world. I would just rather be out in that reduced-size world and not typing furiously in a controlled environment with fake plants.

But sooner or later I must acclimate to the operation of a newspaper or magazine. Hopefully this will be through a paid internship, something that now sounds bleak after hearing a gentleman in the audience at today's panel discussion vent about the current status of internships. To paraphrase his argument, he thinks the whole internship system does an inadequate job of preparing or inspiring interns to do quality work because it makes them a sub-employee. It has repercussions for the whole industry too: why hire a career journalist / photographer when cheap college labor is so abundant?

At this point in the conversation I inadvertently stopped being a blogger / journalist because I became so engrossed in the idea that I could end up doing the dirty work at my dinky hometown newspaper for my internship. So I can't relate the rest of the details of the topic, but it dominated the discussion for at least 15 minutes and sparked some fervent responses from the audience (a very exciting time indeed).

The panel discussion did however reaffirm my previous statements about the importance of being technologically savvy. All of the panelists agreed that if you're looking to be a photographer, it is no longer enough to just be a good photographer. Russ Kendall said he has roughly 150 applicants for one photo job at the Bellingham Herald. Besides tossing out the resumes and cover letters with typos, he said that he would prefer to hire someone with a bit of experience in another medium, be it audio, video, internet, or multimedia.

If you're feeling inadequate right now, don't worry...so am I. I don't think I've logged nearly enough hours in behind the screen. But be assured that techy skills aren't the be-all and end-all of being a visual journalist:

"Ideas are the currency of the newsroom." ~ Russ Kendall, panelist

People, places and things...but mostly people

To all of you web surfers reading this right now: Howdy. My name is Isaac Bonnell and I am a journalism student at Western Washington University. As part of a class project, I will be retelling the awesome adventures and rehashing the big ideas that I picked up at the Bellingham Visual Journalism Conference (2006). Consider this a live-action blogumentary.

It's Saturday today, and a very typical Bellingham saturday at that. (Read: cloudy) Despite the uninspiring weather, I sensed a subdued feeling of excitement around the Communications building when I rolled in. It was like being in a newsroom after sending to print but before the publication is actually printed: everyone had an air of accomplishment about them but a little trepidation about how the finished product would turn out.

I like that feeling and I like journalism junkies for that reason. Photographers, reporters, editors and even the head honchos in corporate are almost always excited about something. Excited about a story, a picture, a breaking news tidbit, or even the prospect of making money by simply selling space (in the case of the head honcho). But in general, I think anyone who would call themselves a journalist is interested in one basic thing: people.

Local photographer Phil Schofield's presentation about conveying a sense a place alerted me to the truth in that statement. He had a gorgeous picture of a tanker emerging from the fog near a lighthouse in Vancouver BC; under an archway of the lighthouse was a tiny silhouette of a person. Somebody in the audience asked how long Phil had to wait for a person to appear in the shot. I don't remember how long he waited, but he mentioned that it was crucial to have someone in the shot. I tried to imagine the photo without that tiny silhouette and it did change my perception of the image. It turned me off. The image was just a pretty picture without the human representation. But with a person -- even a silhouette -- the image came to life. Someone besides the photographer was there to witness that scene and I was now sharing that moment with them.

All of the multimedia presentations that Meredith Birkett of MSNBC illustrated this human interest even further. They were all focused on the human side of news events. A slideshow with audio of a soldier who lost his legs in Iraq and now has to readjust to being a father. A blog of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Etc etc etc.

More big ideas shall follow. Now is the time of day for eating and meeting people, two activities in which I am quite interested.

sibilance, sibilance

This is just a practice post to get the page up and running and to see if anyone knows what that big word up there means. Also, if you can tell me who used that word for a sound check, I'll give you a virtual doughnut.