Consent in Photos

Some images rattle around your body. You catch it for a second. A fraction of a breath. And in that moment you know that it will stay with you forever. I just saw an image like that. It's an image I didn't agree to see. And I'll bet my life that the man in it didn't agree for it to be taken either.

There are two types of consent in photography, and we as a society have seemingly lost awareness of both. So today, in my nauseated and slightly distressed state I would like to make a brief case for them. And maybe make suggestions as to small steps to reintroduce consent into our culture.

Firstly, consent of a subject.

When a photo is taken, it could be taken for a thousand different reasons, to celebrate, to inspire, to entertain, to compare, to memorialise, to shame, to unite, to divide, to entrap, to remember. But no matter what the reason is, there is one. Even in passive surveillance, like CCTV on the side of a building, whilst the choice to take an image is not dependent on the subject, the intention is to protect and if need be, to trap. When you take someone's photo, you are involving them in your own intention. Muddling their image with your own goal. This is then amplified a thousand times over when you share that image. It used to be that you would have to know someone, make them sit next to you as you flicked through photos and albums one by one, stories being told alongside and explained so that no matter how the image actually looked, nothing was misunderstood. And that is as far as it would go. Now, images are shared quickly, with little or no context or explanation. Suddenly a subject's image can be shared instantly, around the world, with no room for empathy or perspective and that’s just the humans that will see it. It doesn’t count for the millions if not billions of data-mining bots and algorithms being used to harvest as much information from people as possible. With more governments rolling out facial recognition scanning with vaguer and vaguer reasonings, and more for-profit tech companies actively repurposing then selling data, including images of people, onto the highest bidder with no repercussions.

Once an image exists online, your motivation no longer matters, only the motivations of for-profit tech corporations. So I need you to ask yourself, Do you have the same values as Meta?

Secondly, consent of the viewer.

I recently went to see the Lee Miller photography exhibition with my mum, and it was phenomenal. It had been curated in a way that showed the full breadth of her work and stages of her extraordinary life in extraordinary times. Some of those times were horrific. My mum had turned to me before, and said ‘I don’t think I will cope well with some of the war journalism, do you mind if we pass by that section?’ And before anyone gives me shit about us missing it you should know, the exhibition was set up in a way that made it so easy and accessible for those who needed to miss it, to miss it. There was a sign and everything. It was great! And for my mum, who has her own personal reasons for not wanting to see the more graphic side of war, she was still able to see photography from that era and be challenged without it destroying her.

War journalism is very topical right now, and vital. However, we are seeing a kind of circulation of imagery that is completely new and untested on the human psyche.

According to a study done by the University of Southampton in 2024, 14% of the entire world's population lived within 5km of violent conflict in 2023. That is one year. Imagine what that number would be if it were an entire person's lifetime. It stands to reason that the majority of us will experience this firsthand at somepoint in our lives.

As someone who worked in Film and TV for over 10 years, one of the things that is a constant conversation is ‘what is the impact on the viewer?’, ‘ what will the viewer understand?’, ‘ what emotion do we want the viewer to feel?’ In the Lee Miller exhibition, her photographic genius, coupled with the WW2 propaganda censorship, made for some of the most impactful and harrowing images of the effects of war. Coupling small everyday items, previously cherished discarded in the debris. This imagery was so culturally impactful both in the UK and US, it became a foundation of image storytelling that outstretched past medium and genre. A very good example was when it was almost directly copied in the Disney movie Mulan. When the soldiers singing their way lightheartedly to battle, suddenly arrive at a destroyed town and Mulan finds a small doll in the burning ashes. Something so cherished that should, by all the rules of nurture and humanity, be with its owner.

When a photographer takes an image, they are taking responsibility for the impact of that image. But when and how they share it dictates the impact.

It is vitally important that the horrors of war are recorded so that those who have orchestrated these crimes are punished.

There is a time and a place for every image.

I am not saying that this is the only way to war journalism. But I do think that when the platform I just viewed that harrowing image, one that is documenting a war crime with a man clearly not able to consent, was made to be used by 13-year-olds, maybe this is not the most suitable image to share in this way. There is a reason during every war, on both sides, a propaganda office is set up. Because motivation to action and unsolicited horrors are not the same thing.

There must be a better way to honour this man and his pain.

There must be more legitimate impact to these acts of violence than for them to temporarily evoke strong emotions in an unexpected viewer then, just as quickly, for it to disappear into the avalanche of content.

At the same time, I believe that this does nothing to help with the ‘empathy’ issue. For those able to empathise, either by lived experience or their own humanity. These images will never leave them. They will never be unshaken, never rest, never know peace. Just when they think they may have found an escape or built a life from the rubble of the old, they will be confronted once again by evil. But this time, in a place they thought was safe.

And then we divide the rest into three: those unable to have empathy. Either too blinded by the ‘Greater Good’, too tired and worn into apathy and fatalism, or those who were never taught empathy at all. Most people will focus on the first and last as the extremes, pitting them against each other as seeming opposites, but in my mind and experience the groups are remarkably similar. Same scars, same social skills, different goals. No, the group that concerns me are the middle ground. Apathy and Fatalism are completely at odds with everything a human needs to survive. And the constant wearing down of the human psyche by these images being shared without warning or consent. Will have a far more detrimental impact on a group or society’s ability to take action than I believe people have realised. I believe at this point it is having the opposite effect than intended.

A society in which people lose hope, becomes almost impossible to function. Without purpose, which is, in my opinion, a combination of hopes and actions, humans do not live very long.

People must take action. Movement is needed for life.

So, for this group of people being pushed towards apathy and fatalism, I believe they are the most in danger of the unempathetic. They are unempathetic out of necessity, not their nature. And when we start messing with human nature like this, nothing constructive can happen.

If this is you, if you are one of the tired and worn down, consider this. Things change in both ways, and if we look too closely, we don’t see the bigger picture. The tides of history move, and justice crashes in. And if that is too wishful for you, then maybe something practical? I know that Instagram isn’t good for my brain, but I keep telling myself I need it for work, or social events, or something. But really? Do I? I think I will be just fine without it. I’m going to try for a few days and see how I go. Maybe you’d like to join me in that?

At least until my own consent-based social media site is up and running… watch this space.