ยฉ Walker Evans
Permission changes the photograph, not the ethics
There are portfolios you recognize at first glance: the subject did not know. The eyes are not prepared, the body has not composed itself, the face is still in the middle of a thought that has nothing to do with the camera. And there are portfolios where every person looks into the lens with something different, awareness, complicity, sometimes defiance. The two series can share the same theme, the same city, the same black and white. They are completely different photographs.
The difference is not ethical. It is visual. Asking permission changes the image before the photographer even decides on the framing. The subject who knows they are being photographed offers a version of themselves. The subject who does not know offers a state they cannot control. Neither is more true than the other. They are two different materials.
Walker Evans took this to the extreme. For his project Many Are Called, he hid a camera inside his coat and photographed New York subway passengers for three years without anyone knowing. It was not a provocative gesture. Evans wanted a precise state of the human face: what he called the moment when the guard is down and the mask is off. He knew that state vanishes the instant someone senses they are being watched. He built a physical device to access something that permission would have destroyed.
Evans was not making a moral choice. He was making a choice about which image he wanted. And this is the question every photographer should ask before going out, not after. Not whether it is right to ask, but what changes in the photograph when you do. If you want the mask, ask. If you want what lies beneath, you must find a way not to be seen. It is not a matter of courage or respect. It is knowing what you are looking for in someone’s face, and building the conditions to find it.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibรฉ’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.