As photographers we live a sort of charmed life - we get to travel the world and, in exchange for loads of effort and exercising our art, we get to experience incredible people and amazing places. It’s not an easy life - certainly gets harder every year - but it can be magical. But despite that, we are, really, not very nice people - we are selfish, most of the time ignorant of the world around us, inconsiderate of others and, more and more frequently, downright nasty. I have always known that, but it was only recently that I felt, for the first time, its effects!
Last week - and not for the first time - I was a victim of the legacy some truly atrocious photographers had left behind. Before I had only witnessed that in Africa and it had left a really bad taste in my mouth (and the mouth of the people who were subjected to that behaviour) but until last week it had never actually impacted my work in any serious or meaningful way. This time, not only did it create a negative attitude towards me but it actually stopped me from doing what I wanted to. But please allow me to explain:
Let me start by stating the obvious: not every photographer is ethical, kind, considerate or even thoughtful. In fact, in my personal experience, most are not. We are, by our very nature, competitive, often to the point of allowing our desire for that shot to stump out principles, manners and all kinds of social decorum. In fact, nowhere have I been shoved, pushed, obstructed and witnessed subjects being treated like dirt than I have when working near other photographers, be that in the world of sports, travel or even assignment photography. And while there is nothing unnatural about this - in more ways than one, it’s human nature - it does lead to some truly ugly behaviour.
Until a few years ago the sheer number and frequency of such incidents was low enough to allow these “wounds” to heal naturally, for time to do its thing, and our subjects’ perceptions of photographers to stay largely on the positive side. But recently, with the advent of competitions, social media and the “need” by photographers to validate their ego, photographers have started to cross the line more and more frequently and it is starting to have a real impact. A really negative one.
It became real for me almost 7 years ago during my first trip to Ethiopia where me, as the purist, adamantly ethical photographer was shocked to hear the stories by tribes people of photographers treating them like objects, posing them in truly unnatural poses (in an attempt to recreate specific shots), manhandling them and generally using them. Back then I was - admittedly - shocked to hear how images were “made”, but I was horrified to experience it first hand, to see how photographers I crossed paths with treated the locals (and even other photographers). I have since been more attuned to this and have “collected” similar stories from many other countries - China, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mali, Tanzania, Kenya to name but a few - but until last week, I was never on the receiving end of their impact.
What happened? Well, I found myself in Siberia, having spent 2 days reaching the Yamal and the Nenets where I was scheduled to spend 4 days with two separate families engaged in a brand new experimental way of reindeer herding. The problems started when we arrived:
the mother from one of the families forbade us from photographing her and her family. Why? Because just 3 weeks earlier two photographers, one German and one Italian, had taken what I surmised were not-so-normal photos of her younger children (sleeping, in other compromising positions, etc) and then proceeded to sell those images. Somehow the mother had found out and as a result, blocked all photographers.
one of the reindeer herders refused allowing any pictures of the traditional reindeer slaughter “ceremony” (and one of the main things I travelled to photograph) because a couple of months ago two Russian photographers recorded the whole ceremony and then uploaded it to YouTube with a Ramstein soundtrack and the title “Vampires of the Yamal”. The video went viral to the point where the local authorities had to intervene.
And there you have it: the thoughtless, self-serving actions by three photographers not only caused these really kind and open people stress but also ended up severely impacting my entire trip. Money, planning and time were all for nothing. You know what the sad thing is? I know, without the shadow of a doubt, this will happen again - more and more, as people only look to themselves completely disregarding others, situations like these will become more and more frequent and embarrassing.
Unfortunately people won’t change - why should they? I am willing to bet quite a lot that neither the Italian nor the German or Russian photographers will ever visit the Nenets again, so why should they care? I am equally certain that the many photographers who treat the people of Ethiopia like objects don’t care either - they get their fake and unreal shots and if this makes the locals feel like fools, well, what do they care? Even worse, some of those photographers “lead” workshops and tours which not only propagate this behaviour, but also shows new photographers that this is okay - that taking a tribe elder and sticking them in an open hut door just to get a disjointed head image is okay as long as the picture gets 300 likes. The fact that nowhere are these people sitting in doorways with their neck sticking out like turtles is immaterial.
And for that, we really, really deserve what’s coming - the time when local people will start reacting and kicking us out. I personally will be happy when this happens - the world and their cultures and lives belong to them, not to us.