Stolen Shots

I was at home surfing the net when my friend arrived and asked if she could take turn to look into their organization’s site. Since I was already hungry, I gave her the computer and prepared my dinner.

While I was eating, my friend showed me some photos of their mountaineering organization during one of their climbs. One of our pals in the house happened to have a crush on one of the mountaineers. Suddenly, we had this crazy idea of copying some of the photos posted on their private site. And so we did.

While we were doing so, I remembered the class discussion in our Online Journalism subject and felt a little guilty. But then we still continued what we're up to.

The worldwide web has so much to offer and that includes the social networking sites. Even if we can't grab a person’s photo posted on a social networking site, we can still copy and save it to our hard drives.

Getting somebody else’s photos without their permission is not right but is done by many people. I admit I'm guilty of that.

I also remembered how unethical I am whenever I take photos of people without asking their permission first.

When I was taking Photojournalism, naturally, we're always set to take photos of various subjects. I prefer moving subjects -- people and anything that moves. And when I'm out in the field, I don't usually ask my subjects for permission to take their photos. My ultimate excuse: if you ask their permission, it's either they refuse to be photographed or everything will be scripted since they know there is a camera.

I remember how nervous I was when we were mounting our class exhibit at the Cordillera Coffee in SM Baguio. Our theme was 'Faces of Children' so expect random people's portraits. Some of the photos I submitted for display were 'stolen' shots. What if people claims they were misrepresented? That is rare, but could happen.

I think copying people's photos in their online accounts is similar to taking photos of people without their permission. Wrong. Unethical. But sometimes, in Journalism, taking photos secretly is the only way to capture the real essence of a story.

Ethical dilemmas. Ever since, Journalism students were already taught of ethical standards in media world. Although each Journalist has his/her own justification on deciding whether a thing is ethical or not when caught in tough situations. He/She has the final say, base on his perspective, on what he/she thinks is the best thing that should be done.