In many places around the world, street photography is legal and permissible by society. I know street photography is legal in Japan, where I live, and in the US, where I grew up. However, my understanding is that in some countries it’s not legal. So, the legality of something is not really a helpful indicator to determine if something is ethical or not. I hope to apply my personal ethics universally, and since the legality varies, it is of no use to determine the ethics of street photography one way or the other.
I believe that there is no on-size-fits-all answer to the question of ethics in street photography and instead every street photographer must determine his or her own ethics. From here on I share my own street photography code of ethics. I invite anyone reading this to use it as a starting point for your own meditations on ethics with the goal of developing a personal code of your own.
Why Even Do Street Photography?
To consider how to do street photography ethically, it’s important to first define its value. Otherwise, if street photography has no value, then any questions of ethics should end with simply: just don’t take the photo. So, what is the value of street photography? I think there are two main benefits, or categories of benefits: the personal and the social. I cannot speak for other people, but for me street photography has immense personal value. It is a form of meditation or praxis, that allows me to observe, understand, and appreciate the world. Thanks to street photography I have grown as person, and I regularly return to it in times of hardship to help regain my sense of self. I would say that is a significant personal value.
But more importantly, street photography provides value for society. Street photography is not photojournalism, and I suppose most street photographers do not set out to document something particular, but that is where lies the inherent value. Whereas photojournalists and documentarians focus on subjects that attract attention, street photographers focus on the mundane, the ho-hum, run-of-the-mill flotsam of everyday life. Moments that could easily be ignored and forgotten end up in the street photographer’s camera. And to me, there is extraordinary value in the act of saving and elevating these instances of existence through photography. As Roy puts so eloquently in Blade Runner, “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” Well, with street photography, some of these moments can be saved and preserved, at least in part.
Sure, it’s not like street photographers are out there curing cancer or solving the climate crisis. I get it, we are not that special. All I’m saying is that there is some value to street photography. It’s not just dorks with cameras trying to make pretty pictures.
Going beyond the grand social benefit of preserving common instances of humanity, street photographs, like any form of art, give pleasure and interest to those who look at them. I know for a fact that many people who follow my work enjoy it for the simple fact that it offers a glimpse into life in Japan. Thanks to the internet I can share things that are commonplace for me but inaccessible and exotic for people living on the other side of the globe. People can cultivate their interest in far-off places through more mainstream media, but it can be hard for them to get a raw and authentic sense of what a place is like. Street photography can certainly provide that, at least in part.
Okay, so it’s certainly not an exhaustive list, but it’s clear that there is some value to street photography. With that, we can make decisions on whether it is or is not ethical to conduct candid street photography.
Street Photography and Utilitarianism
As a street photographer I run into a key ethical dilemma: should I take this person’s photo without permission? And if I do take their photo, should I publish it? Of course, it’s possible to ask for permission, but to me, that is not exactly street photography. Though to be clear, I don’t condemn asking for permission, it’s just that this kind of ‘interactive’ street photography is not what I am usually going for myself. So, when I encounter a subject that interests me, I have to weigh the impact of my actions. A number of questions go through my mind: will I cause this person stress by photographing them? Will it harm them if I publish their photo in a public forum? Would I mind if someone photographed me in the same circumstances (applying the golden rule)? And finally, is there some benefit to society if I publish this photo? Does the image have some social value?
There was a time when I didn’t ask myself these questions and I just photographed people with little to any consideration about how they might feel about it. In those very early days, I was focused simply on getting a shot, any shot, that had some emotional content or narrative interest. The homeless are a common sight on the streets of Tokyo, and in my early days I photographed them regularly. However, today when considering the above questions, it’s easy for me to discount homeless people as ethical subjects for my street photography for the most part. It’s not that they should be ignored, but the fact is that in many cases I was not photographing them for a good reason or with the right intentions. Such photos were merely low hanging fruit.
But I did say ‘for the most part.’ I would not hesitate to photograph a homeless person even now as long as the image had some artistic merit or made a statement about homelessness. I try not to degrade the person by simply exhibiting them as an object exemplifying hardship. Let’s look at another example: drunken people. Another common sight in Tokyo is drunken people passed out on the sidewalk. Again, they make for an easy target that results in an image with some kind of drama. But such images do not preserve the individual’s dignity. Sure, they may have made some bad decisions to end up drunk and sleeping next to a puddle of vomit. But what right do I have to exploit them?
Again, I have to weigh that consideration against any benefit I believe the photo might have to society in general. Just as with the homeless, I avoid photographing drunken people these days, though I am more likely to do so if I can obscure their face elegantly in the image. I get my photo and their dignity is preserved, or at least unharmed by me—a kind of win-win.
But if an image is good enough—that is, it has enough artistic value or benefit to the viewer via some interesting narrative hook—then I will shoot it and publish it even with the subject’s face in view, even if they are in a compromised situation, even if it may, to some degree embarrass or harm them. I do so only because I feel it does them only a little harm, while benefiting the greater good much more. To be clear, I also include myself in the greater good. As I mentioned above, a personal benefit is still a benefit. I think this is selfish of me, but it is what it is. The cost to the subject is the same in any case.
This is why I see my ethical approach to street photography as based on utilitarianism. I try to weigh the costs and benefits and act accordingly. I know it’s not perfect. And there is always a cost to the subject, though I believe in the vast majority of cases it is minuscule. That is, a regular person doing regular things has really nothing to lose by being photographed. (There is the question of privacy, but I don’t believe anyone has the right to privacy when it comes to showing their face in a public place, but this is a topic that warrants its own lengthy dissection.)
With all of the above logic, I conclude that if street photography has value to the photographer and to society, then it is worth doing it even if there is some cost to the subject. And if the value is great enough, the cost can be weighed against it appropriately. I am fully aware that this framework has a major flaw: it depends on the discretion of the photographer, not the subject. I am aware of that, and I have no good retort. I simply do my best to make decisions that are as optimally positive to all parties involved. To that end, these days I rarely go out of my way to photograph my subject in a way that shows their face unless they are intrinsically interesting. I instead opt to show people as passing silhouettes in my urban scenes. And if I do show a face, I try to only capture people in a way that presents them with the human dignity they deserve.