Not being understood

Since I have been giving more talks recently, I have also had more direct questions about things like ethics and my own rules.

Last weekend I gave a talk in Eindhoven and said there: “My own rules: I do not photograph homeless people, I do not photograph disabled people, and I do not photograph people putting food in their mouths.” The thinking is that homeless and disabled people are more vulnerable on the street, and that food going into a mouth never makes a good photo.

From the back of the room a finger went up. A street photographer in a mobility scooter asked me: “Why not disabled people?” I had never really thought about it; it was more of a given for me. We used to live opposite a care home and I took my classmates there on a tour for a school talk. But it was only in Eindhoven that I realised how generalised my assumption was. Vulnerable in what way?

Of course, as a disabled person you can sometimes end up in situations on the street where you need help sooner, but most of the time nothing much is going on and you are simply someone on the street. Why would I avoid that as a street photographer? It can be interesting to start the conversation, and to make a portrait along the way, just as it is with anyone else. I have no idea why I made this exception with what were really rather limited ideas.

It has stayed with me, I notice. Do we as street photographers not simply have the objective task of documenting, within all our ethics and personal boundaries, without judgement or preconception? Perhaps we do.

Many of the rules we set ourselves come from not understanding, and perhaps starting the conversation is the finest way there is to discover, narrow or widen your own rules.

I was in any case very grateful for the question. You are never too old to learn something about yourself.

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