I love street photography, and I struggle with it… a lot. As with this shot, I struggle just a bit with the “should I”. You can barely see it, but he is holding a crack pipe in his hands. I could see it at times much clearer as I was thinking about the shot.
There is a movement afoot in the photographic community about the “ethics” of taking such a photo, or of the homeless as another example. There are many articles out there I’ve read about a responsibility I’m not sure I have. It’s fine if someone decides to not take a photo for their conscience’s sake.
First (and especially if you’ve looked out a fair amount of my work), one of my endearing loves both in life and especially in photography is what I call the Human Condition. I’m sorry, but the use of my camera as I see fit on public land is my choice. I want to tell stories that may make a handful of photographers (or viewers for that matter) uncomfortable.
Fortunately, I live in the US. There are the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America. They give me permission to tell the visual stories I choose.
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