ethics

I have always been adamant about a few things when I take photos.
1. no unsolicited pictures of people. I don't want to intrude in their lives. images of people are, by far, my favorite to look at; but unto myself, I'm too fucking chickenshit and self-conscious. IT'S NOT MY BUSINESS.
2. no cropping. I try to be very scrupulous when framing shots. the iPhone experiment (aka this blog, in which all photos are taken with one) has posed many challenges. it doesn't have zoom, for example, so I've taken many pictures with dead space that drive me fucking nuts. as a rule, though, I need to lighten the fuck up, so I'm keeping them.
the photo below is the first one I've ever cropped.
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I saw her when I was getting off the bus downtown. I got to the end of the block and thought "fuck, I HAVE to." so I very quickly took this from about 60 feet away. and I feel gross about it. i took it because it's extremely visceral and immediate. it's how someone lives. and it pulled my goddamn fortunate, often oblivious head out of my ass a little bit.
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but... I feel gross about it.
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a few years ago the (odious) seattle weekly did a piece on homelessness downtown. the cover was a full-frontal, full-color photo of a homeless woman sleeping on a bench. it was a fucking great photo. and I was FUCKING FURIOUS. thinking about that cover this much later still pisses me off to the point of shaking. how FUCKING condescending and INTRUSIVE! how DARE they? in her SLEEP, defenseless, unauthorized: and she was everywhere for 7 days, un-hide-from-able, a reminder of her life. I fucking HATE the weekly for that.
...but it was a great photo. I still remember it. it affected me. it was a fucking slap. I wish there wasn't an actual human being with feelings and sensitivity and dreams and a past attached to it, that's all. and, really, that's everything.
I wasn't the only person appalled- the following week they posted some whiny defensive thing about freedom of the press and how photos taken in public are, well, public. so they didn't need to, and therefore DIDN'T, wake the sleeping woman up to get a model release. it's a free paper. it's a free world. fuck it, right? she's probably too fucked up to even notice anyway, right?
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so I'm conflicted as fuck. I would love some feedback and opinions about this. please know that I take how I represent things very seriously, even if it doesn't always seem that way...
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