That’s what Tadao Cern did for his his art project, entitled Comfort Zone, to “explore how different surroundings can affect people’s behavior and inhibitions.”
When someone takes a photo of you in such circumstances, you suddenly find yourself in a gallery in front of a giant photo of this, while your husband busts a gut:
Of course it’s not ethical!
If you need some more hints as to why, read the tags below.
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Pointer: Althouse
Source: The Guardian
Ethics Alarms 
Jack,
Isn’t there some kind of second derivative ethical issue raised by you republishing one of the photos? I’d be curious to hear your take on the ethics of using examples of unethical issues as a means of clarifying ethical issues – is it an ends-means thing, are there generic ways around it, etc.
I was sure you or someone would raise this, and I thought about it, and continue to. It also comes up when I’m writing about a shaming incident, where the Ethics Alarms post is arguably continuing the ethical breach.
In this case, I didn’t take the photos, exhibit them, or profit from then, and the link I’m posting is elsewhere, in more highly trafficked sites. My job is to raise the issue, and it can’t be effectively raised in the area of ethical art without showing the art. Reprinting the photo and just giving the link is a distinction without a difference. In cases where I think helping to publicize the photo or document does real harm, I don’t even include the link. That’s rare, though.
If Ethics Alarms ever has the circulation of Althouse, which I doubt will ever happen, the calculation might have to change. But it’s a real issue, and you are right to raise it.
I disagree, Jack.
Can YOU identify any of the people in those photos? Answer: no, you can’t. Neither can anyone else, dare I say, even their spouses (unless the wife of the guy in the polka-dotted onesie made the connection).
If the people can be identified from these photos, then they are owed royalties at minimum – or right of refusal. But these people are unidentifiable. They are not embarrassed, except in their own minds. And dollars to donuts, the people fussing about this are looking for money.
Or are you arguing that photojournalism should go away?
1) Photojournalism has a code of ethics that I think is reasonable, and I have posted on that set of ethical issues here, and elsewhere. I think it’s a different issue entirely.
2) The point is that THEY can recognize themselves, and the spouses, and not all of the photos have faces coverered—that was the one I felt was most ethical to post. How about the second at the link?
3) I wrote about the next slide down the slope earlier this year, about the creep who takes peeping tom photos of his neighbors through their windows, and then turns the me into art, obscuring their faces. Yes, I know–they are in a private place–I don’t care. They didn’t consent, they would refuse if asked, and they would be embarrassed if they saw themselves hanging in front of a crowd—just like the sunbathers. I wrote:
I think the Svenson photos are clearly worse, but both are unethical, and for the same core reasons.
Other posts on this topic: here, here, and here.
I’d like to find someone who would turn the tables on him. It could be a whole new art form. The voyeur gets voyeued.
It is a public place. The same as any city street. How seeing a photo by people is different from seeing the same person in public beach by thousands passing by? Thats why it is alowed to take pictures in public places – because it is the same. If this is not ethical than any pictures taken in public places of someone without their agreement is unethical because they may feel shameful for any other personal reasons. And if a person in these particular images feel ok about this – than it suddenly becomes ethical?
As as someone mentioned it before – you cant even recognize them because their faces are hidden and I believe that artist decision to publish only that kind of photos is very ethical and respectful. Because he could have chosen to do it in the opposite way…
Every picture taken of someone without their consent that is then displayed or used for commercial use IS unethical. Easy Golden Rule verdict. Use my image, ask my permission.
And THIS—As as someone mentioned it before – you cant even recognize them because their faces are hidden and I believe that artist decision to publish only that kind of photos is very ethical and respectful—not thought through sufficiently. 1) THEY can recognize themselves, and that’s enough. Would you want a giant naked statue of yourself in the town square if you could be certain that nobody who recognized you would ever see it? It’s your image, and you have a right to control it. Going out into the public is not blanket permission for your photo to be taken and your image to be exploited. 2). People who don’t know what you look like won’t recognize you WITH your face visible, and those who do, may not need your face. I could recognize my father’s FEET and pick them out among a thousand.
4) The photographer showed the faces in several of the photographs, not that it matters—it’s wrong either way.
5) The issue is fairness and respect, not what you can get away with. Ethics, not law.
6) This: “Because he could have chosen to do it in the opposite way…” is a rationalization, and my least favorite one of all: “It’s not the worst thing.”
Look it up on the Rationalizations list.
And he didn’t kill his models either!
Ok. I’m getting your point.
But please tell me if a person is walking on a street and his picture was taken by a street photographer without asking and then this image exhibited in galleries, media, etc… This is unethical too?
There been many cases when someone tried to forbid showcasing their images that been taken in public spaces and for me personally it is the same as trying to fight with freedom of a speech. Because you are a part of a society and especially when you are in public, so if someone uses you(without excluding you as a person) for expressing an opinion about the same society – I don’t see anything wrong or unethical with that.
This case is not an exception – photographer is talking not about a particular person but about OUR habits etc. So if this is unethical – most of the street photography is unethical.
Did you read the various links I provided above? One of them involved an ethics code for taking photographs in foreign countries--I see nothing in that which does not apply domestically. Note that #1 involves permission if one is going to take a photo of someone or of their property. The reason cited: courtesy, a sub-value of respect.
The topic of the blog, and the post, is ethics—not law, and not rights. Free speech is a right, but there are many, many kinds of unethical free speech. Photography is often unethical and cruel to public figures who, the law says, have diminished expectations of privacy. Photographers have a right, for example, to take unauthorized photos of stars with their families on the beach, from unflattering angles, and can even caption them to mock their weight, cellulite or flabbiness without their permission. Is that unethical? Of course it is—it’s mean, cruel and venal.
“But please tell me if a person is walking on a street and his picture was taken by a street photographer without asking and then this image exhibited in galleries, media, etc… This is unethical too?”
Sure it is. What if that photo later ends up in an exhibition called “The faces of greed”? “Quiet desperation”? “The evil behind the mask”? What if you are exhibited along with photos of the mentally deficient, or deformed? Or not—-there is no way to draw those lines. My mother hated for my FATHER to take her photograph, though she was a beautiful woman (true: he was a terrible photographer). The idea of any photograph of her, taken at random without her knowledge, being seen in a gallery or publication would have horrified her. Such sensitivities should be respected; the possibility of such sensitivities should be respected as well. That goes for the African child whose photo ends up in National Geographic, and anyone else. Tell me: should children be fair game? A street photo could now be placed in a meme, or in other uncomplimentary settings, and seen, over the internet, by millions. Yes, it’s free speech—but it is intrusive, inconsiderate, exploitive, and potentially hurtful. Did you see the Seinfeld episode where a TV report focused on George eating a giant Sundae at a tennis tournament and looking like a pig? Do you think it’s fine for cameras to pick out people at a ball game while the announcers make cruel remarks about them? It’s legal. It’s just a lousy thing to do–that is, wrong.
Unethical.
This is not wrong. Wrong is being ashamed of something that is very natural. I see more sense in changing yourself than trying to change everyone else. Especially in this particular case when a photographer is saying that these images and people are beautiful and we should act more in a way as we are acting on a beach. Isn’t it ethical to state that everyone is beautiful?
And if you are saying that this is unethical presuming that these people would feel uncomfortable knowing that they are in the images – you are saying that there’s something wrong with them? Isn’t that unethical?
Stick to ethics, please. There is nothing unethical or ethical about any emotions, like shame—it may be unwise or unwarranted, but that’s irrelevant to ethics. You may not interfere with mu autonomy ethically, and cause me to feel how I feel, on the theory that I shouldn’t feel that way. Ethics involves empathy and concern for how the other persons or person is faring, not our projections and desires about how they “should” feel in our biased assessment. That’s the narcissist’s perspective.
Ethics involves action, not intentions and feelings. It isn’t ethical or unethical to say everyone is beautiful. It is unethical to use someone’s image without their permission when they don’t feel beautiful or when they just want to be left alone. The artist has no ethical right to use another human being for his objectives—pure Kant. And the Golden Rule requires that he consider the wished and sensitivities of his subject above his own.
I’ve been scouring past Ethics Alarms posts on the topic of parents posting insane numbers of photos of their non-consenting children to the internet. I guess there’s no specific post on the topic, but I certainly remember many derivative discussions from the commentariat on the topic. I can’t find those either.