Thread by @wheretheroad

I have a few* thoughts about @MSF and @MagnumPhotos behavour this morning.

(*Lots, over the sound of my grinding teeth.)

Three points (which are not new, really) that need to be hammered home in this debate over and over - are about #consent, #benefit and #circulation. 1/16

1. Consent
There is this standard defence for predatory acts along the lines of "well, they consented". This defence presumes/asserts a bunch of things that just aren't generally true. 2/16

It claims that the subject has sufficient knowledge about the purpose of the image, the motivations of the photographer (and broker: MSF in this case) and the political/economic afterlife of the image to be able to agree to the reasonable consequences of being photographed. 3/16

It claims that with the knowledge above, the photographic subject is (and perceives themselves as) free to make a choice without fear of potential consequences. 4/16

Nothing makes me think it is probable that either of these claims is likely when you are a rape survivor in an MSF clinic in the DRC facing a request to be photographed. 6/16

2. Benefit
The benefit defence that generally gets rolled out is a general form of "images like this are helpful to being able to assist". 7/16

The first question you should ask of a benefit defence is 'assists who?'. Because it is generally unlikely that the economic or political benefits of an image will benefit *this specific subject*. They will receive no royalties. They will receive no direct assistance. 8/16

So the benefit defence is *usually* instead claiming that, overall, images like this will generate money/support for the *broker* of the encounter, which will perhaps incidentally help the subject, but which is intended to help the group to which they more generally belong. 9/16

The benefit to the broker org (and middlemen: the photog, their collective, stock sites, newspaper profits, etc) makes the photographic encounter more akin to a *donation* by the subject of a valuable commodity (their pain), than a trade of photo-for-benefit. 10/16

The benefit defence also ignores/elides whether the broker org couldn't get this benefit some other way (different image, different approach entirely)

Reader: it is entirely possible. 11/16

The benefit defence *also* elides Q's of how far *others* are entitled to the value of the image. The photog. Their collective. Getty Images. Art Galleries. The collector.

These all ride under the defence of the humanitarian org's 'right' to the value of the pics. 12/16

3. Circulation

Photojournalism doesn't (want to) have enough of a conversation (imho) about the ethics of how images circulate and whose *duty* it is to control this. So orgs imply that circulation is not under their control/their reponsibility.

13/16

An image of suffering is not (morally speaking) like other images in at least the respect that how it circulates can make good or undermine the implied contract in why it was taken. 14/16

It is so obvious as to not bear saying, but an image of suffering becomes a different thing when you turn it into stock art (or, from stock art, into imagery on (il)legal porn sites).15/16

If those who take such images want to monopolise their economic and political power (a suspect entitlement), then it would behoove them to honour an implied moral contract with the subject - that these images will be used to help the sufferer above all. 16/16