I know that one day search via facial recognition will be good enough for people to find these kinds of photos of themselves. Snapped candidly in public, without their knowledge.
I hope they don’t mind. I know I wouldn’t. I feel candid street photography goes a long way to creating a historical document.
I was always curious to see what I looked like when asleep so a few years back I went through a lot of trouble to get a photo. Setting up a tripod and timed release etc. It wasn’t all that amazing. Maybe one day I will try to capture sleep using some time lapse photography.
Recently I woke up in an airplane seat realizing my jaw was hanging open and drool was on my chin, meaning I had been sleeping like the Grandpa on the Simpsons because I was so exhausted. Plenty of people would have wanted to see that picture to point and laugh at me. I can understand you do not have a problem with this, but you have to realize you do not live internally with the cultural construct of being imprinted from Day One that your primary function is to be looked at and admired, like women are: http://www.beautyredefined.net/to-be-or-to-be-looked-at/ For those who are imprinted like that, what you do here could be hugely distressing.I dislike being photographed because I really never like the results. In a photograph you have no chance to redeem yourself with your thoughts or personality; all that is there is that image representing you, often when you are really not at your best. Which is why most of the pics of me out there used to be selfs, nothing else. But now facebook has made the party snap unavoidable. I only consented to work with two (semi)pro photographers when they asked once I realized they had as little interest in me publicly looking stupid or ugly as I did, so I was ready to give up that control to them.
You are opening a philosophical can of worms here I guess. If I had dropped this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianpayne/5725350255) photo into the blog would opinions be different?If we let vanity get in the way of a photograph I imagine portraits of people would be a little thin on the ground. Maybe history would look a little different.Pandering to those that think a photo records all there is to a persons identity is a dumbing down I am not happy to partake in. Perhaps the proliferation of images in our social networks will cure this and we will begin to see an image as a glancing representation of that moment.
Two things: 1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianpayne/5725350255 comes up as a 404 on flickr. 2: I can absolutely see where you are coming from on the candid photographer front, but I can definitely see where the above commenter is coming from when they talk about male gaze and lack of permission. I would be creeped out if I know someone posted a candid picture of me asleep without my permission or my knowledge, and not for reasons of vanity
it’s not like she’s doing anything illegal! and noone knows who this person is. maybe one day in the future when tech can find anything for us like christian says, but until then i don’t know what the big deal is.
I am reposting the other link here as @FaintDreams did as a ‘)’ got in the way..http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianpayne/5725350255As regards to the objectification of women link.. I guess you must think I have degraded this woman by taking this photo. Is this your interpretation?Would you have felt the same way if I had posted a photo of a guy asleep? Lord knows I have way more of them. They tend to fall asleep in public more it seems. :)For me it’s more than that. I think it’s a shame when people can’t see the story in an image.
I think a photo taken of any adult, asleep without their knowledge or permission is slightly voyeuristic. I imagine I would have had the same first thoughts no matter the gender of the subject. Those thoughts were ‘Oh that seems unfair’. Personally I am just wary of others designating my face / image as being in the public domain, when I strongly feel it isn’t, its intrinsically private and part of me 🙂 I have never discussed this with any photographers, but did discuss it with a lady who performed at notting hill carnival and ended up on a royal mail stamp. She said that taking part in carnival was something she had done for many many years, and she absolutely expected (and would willingly pose for) pictures in costume. The Royal mail’s use of her image was upsetting because nobody asked her, and seeing her image on billboards, and stamps and associated ephemera was unsettling. It was also an image which could be internationally seen because of the way Royal Mail distributes collectors stamps.I’m not saying you snapping a candid photo of a stranger on the train is comparable to taking someone’s image for a major ad campaign / product, butI do feel it is similar. Is there a photo story there? I’d say yes – should you have shared it without the subjects permission? I’m unsure. This woman isn’t part of some larger photojournalistic report, she is (presumably) not someone in the public interest, she’s just a person going about her business and caught unawares at a vulnerable moment.I might be being inelegant in my communication, but yeah the voyeuristic aspect is what (suspect) makes me uncomfortable with the photograph.
faint – in that case, what about taking photos at an event / concert where people have been told not to? we do it anyways because we all want that happy snap of (insert funky musician here) ..
The purpose of using a person’s image who was asleep was to highlight just what we are talking about in this post.I too don’t think it’s fair to make a commercial gain out of a person’s image without them giving permission and would not do this unless the image was taken in a journalistic context.There are some ethical arguments I would truly like to see fleshed out around this subject but I feel a conclusion may never be reached. I also think that with the proliferation of CCTV and talk of this footage being made public more and more our opinion on this matter will no doubt change as time goes on and we are conditioned one way or the other..That said, if every subject of a candid image taken in history were asked first if they minded having a photo taken, I feel that that both art and our historical glimpse through the lens would have suffered incredibly.I kind of wish I had chosen a better photo to lead this blog now. A slightly soft hipstamatic shot doesn’t seem to do the subject matter justice.. At least it has started a conversation I guess.
@tomfee your point about candid photos at concerts (and other public venues where photos are expressly forbidden), is a good one I shall have to ponder.@Documentally – I’m sure you have pondered these issues a lot more than I and you are right, how we interpret the public / private sphere is forever evolving.As to historial context of candid photos – again – I’ll bow to your superior knowledge on that one. Your posts are always enlightening / entertaining, but in the short time I’ve known about you, I think this has given me the most to think about.Thanks for posting.
It’s not the quality of the photograph that is the issue here, at all, it is you making something permanent and public that the owner of the face might not have consented to make permanent and distributed. Especially since, as you point out, the person will soon no longer be anonymous. 3 years from now, between Google PeoplePhotoMatcher(tm)(*) and her possibly bad facebook settings that allowed Google to scrape her pics for the database, you would be able to come home and identify her. And everyone else who comes to this page. I just also want you to be aware of the gender differences about being looked at, how the impacts differ because of how people are treated as they grow up. I truly think male in general and female in general candids are not equivalent. When you say “It wouldn’t bother me”, well, you have chosen to expose yourself, and you are comfortable with it, and you are of the gender that doesn’t get put out for looking ugly(**). You can’t make that choice for everyone based on your parameters.If she is reading this, what is your answer to her if she wanted you to take it down? (*) A fictional service, but you know it is coming(**) You don’t look ugly.
As a people photographer I love these kind of shots. Not to belittle or to make fun of anyone, just to appreciate what we are as human beings. It is voyeuristic but I believe voyeurism is perfectly ok, it is when it becomes perving I then have a problem. I really enjoyed reading the to be or to be looked at blog post and also all of the comments above… a very hot topic for me at present… in working toward an upcoming exhibition next month I was faced with tremendous photo block (or photo constipation as I was calling it) so to get over the block I started making a visual diary and was faced with huge objections by my loved ones… not able to comprehend why a visual diary was important to me (not only to cure the block, but I also have a terrible memory) and more concerned about what they were wearing, the make up they weren’t wearing and the sofa that they were slobbing on – oh no, slobbing out is such an unnatural perverse pastime, no one else does it, I can’t let myself be seen doing that! Seriously though, it made me think, that one, I am definitely here to be and not to be looked at. In fact, looking (male gaze) at me tends to annoy me somewhat… in visual terms, I suppose I wouldn’t get chucked out of bed so to speak, but there’s so much more that I get annoyed that I am spoken to sometimes only because I may look nice at the end of someone’s ahem… so I suppose my own opinion makes me find it so difficult to understand the people who find their looks so important and this has inspired the project I am now working on and am able to shoot again… inspired by social networking, particularly facebook, where people create a filtered version of themselves and the effects that it has on themselves when they struggle to live up to their digital creation…and back to pictures of people asleep… this was a facebook profile picture of me and my ex, I loved the image to be honest 🙂 like twins in slumber: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3667818&l=c25628e1a1&id=523185363
Morality and Love (unconditional), don’t live in the same house. Cannot, ’nuff said. If they did, for what purpose? Punishment? Justice? Justice for Love is the salvation of those who moralists want to judge. Love – Loves; All or none, otherwise Love would not be Love. Christian’s photography, which is art not quality or anything dissectible, has a purpose. Since being moral is still prevalent, we aren’t ‘there’ yet. But art will get us there, because it, just as Love is, is beyond good and evil. Get rid of all art otherwise and with it us… Maxxxs @orbitalsun
@FJ If asked I would totally take it down. I have taken down images before. Quite recently in fact. And not so long ago when I inadvertently photographed a guy later accused of a serious crime.I hope that if and when the lady in the photo sees this post, she sees past the gender stereotyping and shallower facets of what we allude to be the general public’s opinion of what may result from candid photography and joins in the conversation.My comment on wishing this was a better photo was an attempt to leak a little of my own vanity into this post to balance it out. ;)We all have insecurities. People always hurt one another. I guess I’d like to try to look at the bigger picture once in a while and hope our captures and observations can be a part of something bigger than our general failures.
Have to say I agree with the comment that suggests candid photographs are not the same for men as they are for women. My main experience of being photographed without my knowledge revolves around men taking images for their, um, “personal use”. A close friend of mine discovered that images taken of her while she was asleep had ended up on an anonymous forum thread filled with folks discussing in graphic detail what they’d like to do to her sexually. Those experiences make me extremely wary about my image and about how it is used, and I don’t think I’m the only one.That said – @documentally you’re right that without candid photography we would lose a lot of art. There’s a balance to be struck and that balance changes for each individual. It’s changed a lot since the internet enabled candid images to be shared widely beyond the original intended audience (see also: Epic Boobs Girl) and it’ll change again as technology advances, as you say. Is there such a thing as the right not to be photographed?
I wouldn’t mind. Generally speaking I hate having my photo taken if it’s a posed portrait, my smile goes funny and it all looks forced (as seen here – http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianpayne/3171356951/ ), so any shot taken when I don’t realise automatically looks better.I think there’s a big difference between a candid shot and something much more pervy and secretive
I don’t have a problem with this image but this is a tricky area. The balance of the right to privacy for the individual has to be balanced with that of freedom of expression for the photographer. How the person is represented and the intended use of the image is very important. If someone made an image of me like this I would have no problem with it. If I was open mouthed and drooling and the photographer was doing their best to produce a degrading image and then make it viral I would be pretty upset.I appreciate the argument about the objectification of women but do not think that’s happening here.. Although asleep she looks like a strong and self assured woman.I was looking for a link to Walker Evans’ candid images from the New York Subway and stumbled on this:http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/exposure/default.shtm
In Canada, publishing – without prior consent – a photography of a person taken in public can be considered a violation of privacy. Supreme court ruled about this in 1998. Details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubry_v._%C3%89ditions_Vice-Versa_inc.
(… need to add the “period” at the end of the previous link for it to work… sorry. Or use this: http://tinyurl.com/6becy3 )
la vie privee c est la vie prive,l image est parfait extra , j aime
Great photograph. Captures life as it is. Nothing more nothing less.