How we present our face to the camera

“Stare….

it is the way to educate your eye, and more.

Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop.

Die knowing something.

You are not here long.”

Walker Evans. CA, 1960

“The street is a public arena…”

In front of the camera…

Internalization of the gaze:“Once I feel myself observed by the lens,

everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of ‘posing’,

I instantaneouslymake another body for myself.

In front of the lens, I am at the same time: the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he makes use of to exhibit his art.”

Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes, 1980

Many are called…

“The street is a public arena…..The subway …is a neutral zone in which people are free to consider themselves invisible;

time spent commuting is a hiatus from social interaction. Since the protocols of subway riding advise turning your gaze inward, you can take off the face you wear for the benefit of others, let your posture go slack, allow your age and self doubt and fatigue to resume the positions they occupy in the privacy of your own home.The subway rider, then, is naked.”

Walker Evans. CA, 1960

Walker Evans

Walker Evans

Walker Evans

Henri Cartier Besson

Bruce Davison

Bruce Davison

Surveillance

Dictionary definition: 1. The act of observing or the condition of being observed.

2. Close observation of a person or group, especially one under suspicion.

The word surveillance may be applied to observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment (such as CCTV cameras), or interception of electronically transmitted information.

Panopticon

• An observer to observe without the observed being able to tell whether or not they are being watched.

• This surveillance is based on a system of permanent registration.

• Behavioral changes/ Internalizing of the gaze: An inmate must never know that he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be.

CCTV

Surveillance of the public using CCTV is evident around the world and is most prevalent in the UK, where it is reported that there are more cameras per person than in any other country in the world.

The increasing use of CCTV in the public domain now raises issues about security versus privacy.Do we even notice it anymore – let alone question it?

CCTV legally takes your picture constantly without your permission - you have no control over it or what happens to it. But if your picture is taken by an individual on the street, by an amateur or professional photographer do you have more control?

Legal facts

• There is no general legal requirement to obtain someone’s authorisation to take his or her photograph.

• • However, there are situations where photography can infringe on important social interests such as national security, protection of children, right of privacy, etc.

• Most of these situations are strictly controlled by national laws and regulations.

Legal facts

• People are not protected by intellectual property rights.

Legal facts

• You can usually photograph someone in a public place

• But if you surreptitiously or without permission view and photograph people inside their homes, business or other private areas, then you are likely to violate their privacy rights.

Richard Gordon

Shizuka Yokomizo

• To be in the clear from a legal perspective is not enough.

• While understanding the laws applicable to photography may help deal with the legal aspects of taking and using photographs, it is highly advisable that photographers and users of photographs also formulate their personal ethical code.

Legal facts

Ethical

• legal/ethical• cultural/religious

• Schopenhauer: “someone may be objectively right concerning the issue at hand while being wrong in the eyes of others and, sometimes, even in his own”

Photographer’s ethics

Human beings act in consequence to their morals -photographers do as well.

Street photography is mainly about picturing people and the environment they are in.

Is it then invading their privacy if they are just part of the general scene?

Bruce Gilden

“ I have no ethics”Aggressive on-your-face

photography

Click

Evolution of Street Photography

Large number of changes in the years:

- instrument (more affordable, digitalisation,size...)- way of printing (from darkrooms to digitalisation)- role of photographer (no need to be one) - manipulation of image (from darkrooms to photoshop)- technology (smartphones, laptops, Ipods..) - distribution (from post to email, sms, mms, blogs...)- etc...

Photography as a way of communication

“Photography has become one of the principle devices for experiencing something, for giving an appearance or participation”

Sontag, On Photography

Personal Sharing

• Share unlimited amount of pictures

• Quick (click of a mouse, takes seconds..)

• Flickr, Facebook, (TUBECRUSH!!)

• Smartphones

Facebook: is the largest photo sharing site on

the internet with 14 millionphotos uploaded daily.

Photography as a way of communication

“Photography has become one of the principle devices for experiencing something, for giving an appearance or participation”

-Sontag, On Photography

Too far?

“Modern photography has created an overabundance of visual material”.

“Just about everything has been photographed”.

- Sontag, On Photography