Space Invaders:

Can't even go out in public these days?

Here is a man in a red jacket. He is carrying a grey rucksack and is purposefully walking down the local High Street:

He seems to know where he is going...

Suddenly he stops and changes direction...

Turning around, he begins to retrace his steps...

Until he is back where he started.

So far so ordinary, lots of people change their minds and walk back in the direction they came from, but the man (who is known to me) had not the slightest idea that someone with a camera was following behind. The camera was discreet (it was a mobile phone camera) and the man's pursuer (me) took the photographs unchallenged and quite possibly unobserved by anyone. My actions were, arguably, pretty pointless, but were they unethical? Did my quarry have a reasonable expectation of being able to walk the street without his movements being recorded? (This is to ignore, for the moment, the inevitable CCTV cameras which relentlessly and indiscriminately record the footfalls of thousands of city-dwellers twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year.)

One school of thought says that anyone in a public place is fair game for photographers. (It was Diane Arbus who famously said "One of the risks of appearing in pubic is the likelihood of being photographed".) Another opinion might argue that a person's right to privacy extends beyond the front door and out into the public arena, although attempts by the rich and famous to enforce this concession have proved fruitless time and time again.

For me, it's all about purpose or intention. In the example above, the intention was to make a point for this this pace of writing. It's all pretty harmless and no-one has been inconvenienced or upset.

This image, however, whilst similarly shot from a distance for the purposes of this exercise, carries with it a wholly different set of connotations and value judgements:

(click to enlarge in a new window)

Why is this one likely to ruffle feathers moreso than the series of my friend in the red jacket? It is a photograph of part of a family about to embark on a train journey. The mother has just left the table and is walking away to the left, the father is out of shot. The children (ah, yes... that's the contentious bit!) are clearly getting a bit fed up with the waiting. Taking this photograph was loaded with ethical issues. First of all, the family (we assume it is an intact family unit, but we cannot be sure what is happening really - is this a visit from an estranged father? a weekend swap-over? a final parting of the ways?...) is going about its business without the feeling of being watched. The children are safely accompanied at the railway station by responsible adults and have no reason to feel insecure, yet someone is watching them, recording their movements, taking their photograph. As it happens the 'someone' knows the father and has no malevolent intention. The 'someone' is also female which somehow endows a sense of respectability on the proceedings and removes all possible sexual or perverse connotations. However, the photographer can be said to have behaved unethically because the picture is of children - minors who have no understanding of the complex issues in which they have become entangled.

In the above example I, as the photographer, felt distinctly uneasy about taking that photograph, because I knew the people involved and I did not like to feel I was abusing the relationship. However, I also took this photograph of another child, about which I felt no guilt whatsoever:

(click to enlarge in a new window)

So what is the difference? Is ethical behaviour dependent upon whether or not the subject is known to the photographer? (In which case then, surely, it is less ethically sound to take photographs of someone unknown than someone with whom one has an acquaintanceship... the complete opposite to my own reaction.)

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