Shootswithcoops Podcast .1 - morality/ethics in street photography ft Hashem McAdam
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2023
- you can listen to the podcast here
open.spotify.com/show/4I27z9g...
Episode 1 of my new podcast series on analogue photography, I get together with fellow film shooters, talk about what we love, with my little flavor of no holes barred comedy
To see Hashem and more of his work on his youtube channel head over to pushing film
/ @pushingfilm - Zábava
'Coops Carries On'.... 'A Cacophony of Coops'..... or 'How to diffuse a situation, but Coops tells everyone to *%$# off' 🤣🤣
Hahaha
Cool conversation! More of it. The very most sort of objection I personally hear when taking a photo out on the streets which includes people is hey I haven’t given you permission to take my photo. Sometimes I’ll reassure them and sometimes I’ll simply keep walking. I completely agree with Hashem that listening to them and let them “vent” is the way to go and most people will accept that you’re simply a street photographer working on a project and sometimes I just show them my IG which I use sort of as a revolving portfolio.
As far as shooting homeless people.. the place I shoot my project at is Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas and there are quite a few homeless people there and some of who I’ve come to know quite well and helped a lot. They are there and my policy has always been to include them simply because you’ll see them when you are in Deep Ellum. I personally feel they deserve representation and if I were to represent Deep Ellum in a too euphemistic way it wouldn’t feel photographically and conceptually adequate to me. Plus I treat them no different than anyone else and a lot of them actually love having their photos taken which I’ll then print and give a little 4x6 to them.
Unfortunately confrontation and rejection will happen in street photography and that’s okay. Different people have different views about what’s ethical or moral. And different cultures react differently indeed even within the same country. New York is completely different from Texas.
Great convo guys!
Thanks mate. Any re your homeless pictures, sounds like your genuinely interested and following through with the work, nice stuff
Good topics and great conversation - well done gents. Oh maybe The Scoop with Coops?
Really good topics and enjoyed the format. Looking forward to the next one!
Ah yes, another chat with the crazy man. I feel refreshed nw.
Nice chat guys! A key takeaway for me around the 36:00 mark. Totally agree with "extinguishing the situation" and I'm gonna extend that to any kind of daily life confrontations. If people just paused for a second, try to think where the other person is coming from and be less aggressive/defensive, it would make everyone's day much more pleasant with less conflicts. Though I do understand that depending on where someone lives and with the amount of stress that we all have at times it can be pretty hard.
Awesome discussion. so many great points of view. one thing on protests I don't get - you're there protesting about something to bring it to the public's attention, by its very nature you are wanting exposure - to then whinge about being photographed is utter BS.
Just found this Coops . Got to get rid of the flickering Green strip very distracting. Street shooting i think is documenting time space and place
Definitely people are now overexposed with phone or they are suspicious of the photographers intention as well as privacy
8:21 awesome point about the issue of photographing homelessness; The intent behind the shot matters
I used to have a friend here in Perth, that I probably shouldn’t name (although you have met him before Coops and runs an online film lab👀) who took a shot of a homeless person with the intent to submit it for an art exhibit and, he won 1st place for it
To me, that would suggest that he did it with the primary intention of financial and personal notoriety gain rather than having the altruistic intent of bringing awareness to it.
To me, that’s wrong and sounds like greedy exploitation. When questioned, his said his intent was to bring awareness to it but if that were the case, why submit it for an exhibition where you know there’s prizes/money involved?
I think by beginning the conversation with “not being a piece of shit” or however you framed it shows your insecurity about this topic. I look at it like this. I’m not an artist. I do street because I like to document the world around me. People are intriguing, from every social and income class. The poorest to the richest, I want to photograph them. I’m inspired by everything around me, even scenes that are often criticized as being insensitive to the subjects. In today’s world, and especially social media a lot of the photos are staged showing the perfect life. Life isn’t staged, why show the very best or “ethical” whatever that means side of life. Just like people enjoy your rants because they are “real” we should apply the same theory to street photography. We should be able to show the best and worst of people in our world. Why all the ethical posturing. And to the homeless situation, a part of documenting life is critiquing society. Since I live in ground zero of homelessness, it’s interesting seeing how we are all going on about our lives while people strung out on drugs are rolling around on the sidewalk. I’m sure a lot of people do the homeless photos because they are easy, but it shouldn’t keep you from taking those photos anyways. End of the day, take the photo if it inspires you. You don’t have to show it to anyone. Maybe in 10 years you’ll be past any hang-ups with it and have a nice project. And btw, I have John Free’s book. It’s great. I could ship you guys one if you want. I’m in LA so shipping might not be too salty to Australia.
The west are very 'sensitive' about getting their photo taken on the street but they are quite happy to be surveilled 24 hours a day. Forget about taking photos of kids. It's pretty wack. But it doesn't stop me.
White lies not sure about it ? I prefer to wear a photography neutrality hat ( metaphorically) and be detached to the politics and focus on the frame without bias fear or favour. It’s dealing with my internal emotions and inhibitions putting them to the side and defusing abusers by what ever means possible to appease the disturbance. Detached Intention