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Photos of the dead or dying, would you?

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John Spaar said:
As far as it being part of the natural occurance of things, so is urinating or deficating, but I don't want to see pictures of it....
Just my 2 sense worth ..(Pun intended.)
--
A purist at heart to protect the art
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We in the West have a fetish about the above. Others don't share this fetish. They often take such images, often making them hysterically funny, or sometimes even profound. Just like you wrote "Passes" for dying, you demonstrate our fear of the natureal process of Life.

Don't confuse cultural obsessions with some notion of what is moral or not.

Dave
 
As a professional photographer - newspapers - death is brutal. So is the fear of one's own mortality. I was taught to take the picture. That was my duty as a photographer. If I wished to weep, later, that was my business.

The hardest ever was to take family shots of my mate who had months to live. A brain tumour. He knew. I knew. So did his wife - who requested the photo session - and the eldest kid. It was hard. I kept the B+W for five years then ... handed them over to the family. They wept. Me, too.

As a photographer, I had to get it right. There was no return.
 
Please just except it for what it is, and not some Existential B.S.
It is a morbid curiosity . Plain and Simple.
Some choose it , some do not.
Honestly,

There are many people who go to auto races to see the race and hope no one gets hurt. There are others who attend in hopes on seeing a wreck(preferably with injuries or fatalities).

There are people who approach a car wreck in hope to help someone , either to easy their pain or possibly save their life. There are others who just want to see the carnage.

There are people who will try to talk someone out of a suicide attempt and others who show up outside the building to witness the jump.
I deal with both types every day.
I choose to be a type I. My choice..
Question is which type are the others chiming in on the discussion.
LET'S KEEP IT SIMPLE FOLKS...Just vote type I or type II.
I started it.. Who's next. Chato..maybe?
--
A purist at heart to protect the art
 
John Spaar said:
Please just except it for what it is, and not some Existential B.S.
It is a morbid curiosity . Plain and Simple.
Some choose it , some do not.
Honestly,

There are many people who go to auto races to see the race and hope no one gets hurt. There are others who attend in hopes on seeing a wreck(preferably with injuries or fatalities).

There are people who approach a car wreck in hope to help someone , either to easy their pain or possibly save their life. There are others who just want to see the carnage.

There are people who will try to talk someone out of a suicide attempt and others who show up outside the building to witness the jump.
I deal with both types every day.
I choose to be a type I. My choice..
Question is which type are the others chiming in on the discussion.
LET'S KEEP IT SIMPLE FOLKS...Just vote type I or type II.
I started it.. Who's next. Chato..maybe?
--
A purist at heart to protect the art
Click to expand...
I can start off with the old joke of, "There are two types of people, those who divide everyone into two types of people and those who don't."... :D

Sorry, no, it's a bit more complex then that.

Where does "Morbid curiosity come from?"

Who are these people who yell "jump" when some troubled individual is hovering on the edge? Could this be a reflection of alienation and dehumanization, where that potential sucide victim is not "real?"

Let me pose a question here. If that person screaming "Jump, jump," suddenly recognised that the jumper was a family member, a friend, do you Still think they would be yelling for them to Jump? I don't think so.

And the obvious conclusion is that to the yeller, the person on the ledge is some figure in a movie comedy. They are not real. And death in the West is such a well kept secret, and we have so many adjectives to avoid facing it, so many facilities, that keep it a "secret." Morbid curiosity is almost by definition a disease. We create it bby our attitudes. Just as we create alienatuion by the way we function as a society.

I always help, and I'm sometimes curious. My humanity isn't negated by my curiosity. And I damn sure do not allow that normal curiosity to become morbid. the Only choice I made was to think this through.

Dave
 
John Spaar said:
LET'S KEEP IT SIMPLE FOLKS...Just vote type I or type II.
Click to expand...
Lets keep it simple for those who can't understand the whole gamut of human emotion when faced with someones final moments.

In reality there are as many reactions as people, as our life and experience will shape that reaction.
 
Mark Smith said:
John Spaar said:
LET'S KEEP IT SIMPLE FOLKS...Just vote type I or type II.
Click to expand...
Lets keep it simple for those who can't understand the whole gamut of human emotion when faced with someones final moments.

In reality there are as many reactions as people, as our life and experience will shape that reaction.
Click to expand...
When a complex problem is reduced to yes and no. Yeah, right, that's the ticket. Your either a ghool or a person. You inbuilt and innate curiosity is evil.

Guy was shot dead around the corner from me very early, about 4 AM. I found out this morning while walking the dog. Nothing to see except for the police tape blocking off the sidewalk and the cute little "numbers" they put up to mark where the shell casings were. I guess I'm a "ghool, because I went over to look. Even took somne photographs.

And if I HAD been awake I would have walked over to look AND take some photographs. Proof that I'm a ghool... :D

Dave
 
Yep

You see a guy on top off a building you've got to shout 'do it' or 'don't do it' the whole range of feelings and can thus be reduced.

Possibly I'd walk on, but that would create a third type of person the ambivalent...
 
It always seems that those who disagree with the idea of absolutes spend most of their their time absolutely disagreeing.
As far as the Alien..and Hehuma... It is quite the opposite.

Most westerners are not kept away from death or suffering, We are bomarded with it through the media. ie movies, sitcoms, etc.

Some over dramatizing it, some making light of it, and the worst making fun of it.

So, when someone has already seen over 10,000 suicides, 50,000 murders, 5,000 rapes, and all done if one of the 3 various lights....
This is what has desentized them to suffering and death.
As far as the jumper being ot not being related to me.
I do not adjust my humanity by my familiarity.

My heart breaks seeing anyone suffering or dying whether or not we are from the same gene pool or socialize together.

It is funny that so many Americans choose to except many answers to the same question or allow for many paths to the same destination.They don't want to be limited to one or the other.

BUTTTT, when it comes down to the most important decisions we can make once every 4 years , most , rather than select all the individual paths or individuals , choose ...either R or D.
Beleive me it is not out of sense of wanting absolutes, it is convience.
It is easier and quicker to pick Rep or Dem at the booth.

It is easier to do want you perceive as right rather than adhere to a set of rules that previously defined it.

It is easier to force someone else to accept what your morals are than adhere those that were established in the country from the beginning.

Nothing new.. Been done since the beginning of time...

Even Kings or Royalty that did not agree with or were comitting acts outside the existing laws.....Just rewote the laws or even better , just abolished them...
Sound familiar?
--
A purist at heart to protect the art
 
If a higher power offered that you would be allowed to stop everyone from commiting suicide, but you then had the responsibility of solving all their problems and getting them to be permanently happy would you do it? I think that puts it into perspective.

People have been witnessing the variety of dying for thousands of years, that is unless you can ascend as a master and some have witnessed that too.
matt simpson said:
Saw this piece of news on the net today, its in regards to a girl who committed suicide and the people that took photos of her dying.

Ok, these people arent true photographers, but if you were there with your camera would you do it too?

I know that one or 2 people on here would, as we have already had this discussion in relation to road traffic collisions.
I personally think its cold and immoral, but whats your views...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100811/tuk-ghouls-took-photos-of-dying-suicide-45dbed5.html
--
Matt Simpson

Click to expand...
--

Torch
 
Torch said:
If a higher power offered that you would be allowed to stop everyone from commiting suicide, but you then had the responsibility of solving all their problems and getting them to be permanently happy would you do it? I think that puts it into perspective.

People have been witnessing the variety of dying for thousands of years, that is unless you can ascend as a master and some have witnessed that too.
Click to expand...
 
Torch said:
If a higher power offered that you would be allowed to stop everyone from commiting suicide, but you then had the responsibility of solving all their problems and getting them to be permanently happy would you do it? I think that puts it into perspective.

People have been witnessing the variety of dying for thousands of years, that is unless you can ascend as a master and some have witnessed that too.

Torch
Click to expand...
Not sure if i understand what you are saying.

I cant understand what 'stopping everyone from committing suicide, but having to sort out their problems' has to do with photographing the dying.

All because u dont want to sort out everyones problems doesnt mean i want ot see them kill themselves.

Also, yes, people have died ever since time begun, and people have watched them die too, but equaly lots wont have watched them out of choice, and even fewer will have photographed them.

BTW, being a police officer is like trying to sort out everyones problems.
--

Matt Simpson

 
matt simpson said:
Torch said:
If a higher power offered that you would be allowed to stop everyone from commiting suicide, but you then had the responsibility of solving all their problems and getting them to be permanently happy would you do it? I think that puts it into perspective.

People have been witnessing the variety of dying for thousands of years, that is unless you can ascend as a master and some have witnessed that too.

Torch
Click to expand...
Not sure if i understand what you are saying.

I cant understand what 'stopping everyone from committing suicide, but having to sort out their problems' has to do with photographing the dying.

All because u dont want to sort out everyones problems doesnt mean i want ot see them kill themselves.

Also, yes, people have died ever since time begun, and people have watched them die too, but equaly lots wont have watched them out of choice, and even fewer will have photographed them.

BTW, being a police officer is like trying to sort out everyones problems.
--

Matt Simpson
Click to expand...
Without going into the moral question of suicide, what the hell kind of problem that a teenager has could be worth killing themselves for? I recognise that to some kid in emotional pain, their "problem" will seem to be just as important as any problem I might have, but to say, that if I save their life, and I'm NOT prepared to strighten out their problems then I should just move on, is total BS. Man's got to be kidding.

Dave
 
Chato said:
matt simpson said:
Torch said:
If a higher power offered that you would be allowed to stop everyone from commiting suicide, but you then had the responsibility of solving all their problems and getting them to be permanently happy would you do it? I think that puts it into perspective.

People have been witnessing the variety of dying for thousands of years, that is unless you can ascend as a master and some have witnessed that too.

Torch
Click to expand...
Not sure if i understand what you are saying.

I cant understand what 'stopping everyone from committing suicide, but having to sort out their problems' has to do with photographing the dying.

All because u dont want to sort out everyones problems doesnt mean i want ot see them kill themselves.

Also, yes, people have died ever since time begun, and people have watched them die too, but equaly lots wont have watched them out of choice, and even fewer will have photographed them.

BTW, being a police officer is like trying to sort out everyones problems.
--

Matt Simpson
Click to expand...
Without going into the moral question of suicide, what the hell kind of problem that a teenager has could be worth killing themselves for? I recognise that to some kid in emotional pain, their "problem" will seem to be just as important as any problem I might have, but to say, that if I save their life, and I'm NOT prepared to strighten out their problems then I should just move on, is total BS. Man's got to be kidding.

Dave
Click to expand...
With kids (and i have dealt with a lot, for various reasons), they have little life experience, and believe that when something goes wrong, its the end of the world. Where you and i know that tomorrow is another day and time is a great healer.

I have helped many people (or tried to), with many problems, but that doesnt mean i am going to invite them home for tea and biscuits afterwards.

I am not sure if Torch's first language is English, or his meaning has been lost in translation.
--
Matt Simpson

 
I have raised 2 children to adulthood and I am still working with the 3rd(17 now).

Their world is so limited in terms of emotional problems and resolves that only age and experience can help.
I was fortunate to have both parents and grandparents to learn from.

A lot of children only have 1 maybe, and a school system void of moral strength, TV(no help) Internet(not even).

I have been able to pass on success and failure experiences to identify and help my children.

When I think back to my high school days. I remember losing an english book in 8th grade and having to replace it. $1.62 . My world was over. I remember hearing one certain song on the radio that had me so depressed that I almost wasted an entire summer moping around.
Don't even want to mention that call from a girlfriend and her being late...

These things pale in comparison to 2 Divorces, losing best friends to cancer, businesses wiped, near fatal car accidents, etc . all of which I , like others our age, have dealt with , all with the help of divine intervention.
But back in those times they were devestating. I still remember $1.62 .
People today aren't just weaker , they lack the support systems we had.

We definately didn't have to be exposed to the unsolicited images that the media is forcing on us by trying to capture anything that will shock, frighten, or just plain disgust us.
--
A purist at heart to protect the art
 
Yes, I think I feel that I am comfortable taking pictures in any situation. However most of the iffy pictures remain private and no one else sees them. I think when I get old and feel like my death is imminent, I will print some of these photos and leave them for the next generation as a documentation of the world around me throughout my years.

And anyway, I feel that many such iffy pictures are of little value to anyone else but the photographer. When I see a picture that I have taken, I am taken to the scene in my mind and I again experience some of the feelings that I felt when I took the picture, which is what makes the picture valuable to me. I do not think it is possible for anyone else to experience the same 'intensity' so I doubt anyone would even want to look at the pictures...?

Sarang
 
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