Being a relatively young photographer, most would assume me to be driven only by my ambition and my own desire to wow the public with my work, however, I would like to say that students are faced with the internally tearing ethical questions we must ask ourselves every day; we are not immune to our own moral backgrounds or opinions.
On November 4th Ralph Shaw was struck and killed by a train.
On November 4th I was waiting for my train to Toronto like every other person on Belleville’s Via Rail platform.
On November 4th I witnessed the most traumatic and disturbing event of my life.
As a witness, I was able to hold myself together. It was not until I remembered that as a photographer it is my job to document the tragedy that I had just witnessed that I lost control of myself emotionally.
One might assume that I decided to shoot because I knew that this had the potential to be one of the most compelling images in my portfolio, but at the time the only thing I was thinking about was the fact that as a visual communicator I felt obligated to capture one of the defining moments in my own life; I wasn’t shooting for anyone but myself at the time.
I stood shaking and crying, with my own ethics tearing through my mind, trying to decide if pressing down on my shutter release was the right thing to do. Once I was able to put my camera into my hand I became a photographer- I was no longer a witness. There is a feeling of disconnect you have when you go into ‘work mode’ as a photographer: the glass between yourself and your subject protects you from the way you would feel if you were simply an unfortunate bystander. You shoot because you have to; because that is what you have been trained to do; it is an action that has been engrained in your being.
After I took the time to walk away from the scene, I felt obligated to both the public and myself to have those photos published.
The photograph that was published in the Pioneer was not, per se, the one I would have chosen, but I could not have edited them myself- I was and still am- emotionally involved with those images. The decision made by the editor was backed by the need to inform the public, to expose truth and not to shield anyone from the harsh reality of our world.
As a publication it is and was their duty to provide their readership with an image that was placed in their hands. No other publication had anything even close to what they published- simply by chance of them having a photographer at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Of the thirty-something photos I took that day, there were few that were not disturbing or grotesque, there were only a handful that were publishable in any way, and I am proud of the Pioneer for using their own ethical guidelines and choosing an image that is shocking, yes, but holds more value in its information than in its sell-ability.
Journalists are journalists because they are driven by their passion to inform; if we are restricted by our public’s inability to accept reality then there is no way for us to do our jobs. We are the experts that have been entrusted with publications whose only purpose is to provide information; our own judgment is our strongest tool and we should be given the right to decide both for ourselves and for the public what holds news value and what does not.
