Saturday, October 05, 2013

The Picture of a Lifetime and the Ethics of Photojournalism

I resist the Great Man Theory of History, but when I think of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, I wonder.

Anyway, the ethical aspect? The photographer admires the man. He sees him shot down. He takes the picture. He is not the one kneeling beside the man he admires. He does his job, which is not to intervene but to take the picture. Note the very last sentence.



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3 comments:

Natalie Bean said...
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Natalie Bean said...

Maybe he wanted to make the most ethical and sincere story of the man he admires. He needed the picture, but we can't judge what he was feeling at the moment

....J.Michael Robertson said...

That is true. He may have been in shock and simply reacted. He may have thought fast and concluded there was nothing he could do. Subsequent events - it turned out there was nothing he could have done - may influence our judgment.