A day late, but, looking at the situation and reading Devon's comment, I am of that same mind. I am a photographer, but I believe not all situations are meant to be documented the same way.

However, I don't believe that there is no reasonable way to take photos in this situation. This would start with clear thought and a point of view.

I've been on photo mission trips to Brasil and Morocco and have watched people just ripping off photos of shanty towns/favelas right in front of residents. They said the photos could do good. I said, yes, that's possible - now, show me the plan you have for your work and the people you're working with and the narrative that will accompany them. ...Silence.

Photos can help, but without thought and a philosophy of taking them and their use and without involving people who live in these places, the likelihood of voyeurism, opportunism is nearly 100%.

Once the earth literally crumbles, we don't need pictures we've already seen, i.e. 3w tragedies from earthquakes to poverty to aids. We need to help. And if we take pictures, let's find out from the people there how they can do the most good.

I'm not saying there aren't photographers doing this. I'm open to seeing/hearing who they are, though.

Thanks.

Devon re-read your posts 5 & #10...you are clearly disturbed by what the journalists' did...even though it was their job you are upset about it

FYI MIKE..It was the first thing out of the guests mouth and you need to read the caption under the pic smart boy...say "looter"

@truth: i'm not saying that Americans are not opportunist. While we obviously have privilege we need to rethink and approach things with compassion and an intelligence today, since "the world is our oyster."

DEVON...Americans are mostly opportunists! and the world is their/our oyster!

HJS - I would find something to eat somewhere also, by any means necessary but...."looting" just doesn't seem like the proper word is all.

I am having a problem submitting responses tech folk!

Truth, you need to listen closer. No one on the show called these people looters - they were discussing the fact that Time magazine captioned the picture with that word.

It is morally WRONG to follow natural disasters to take photographs for self promotion disguised as charity.

These people aren't being helped by these photos, but the photographers are being paid.

Tell these earthquake (or tsunami) chasers to stay home and start thinking about their own practice.

Tell them to go read Vilem Flusser's Towards a Philosophy on Photography.

PHOTO JOURNALISM DIED WITH THE STREET PHOTOGRAPHERS!!!

Let's help struggling people!! Stop humiliating them!!!

So many of these white journalists believe the black and brown bodies are akin to animals in the wild, even in death. It's very National Pornographic...I mean Geographic.

truth
i would loot after 5 days!

here's a suprise the photo link does not work, i guess WNYC isn't ready for 100's of people clicking on their links.
and we can't submit comments either. get it together already!

It's OK for Americans to photograph brown bodies overseas after a disaster. Foreigners could not do this on our soil. There would have been an eruption if 9/11 was documented like this.

How does this help. It lacks compassion.

2 Haiti photos that hit me (I don't know if these links will work):

(woman in rubble)
img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2010/haiti_earthquake/haiti_01.jpg

(two distraught children)
static.businessinsider.com/image/4b4e1bc80000000000373090/haiti-earthquake

There was a young girl about 12 or 13 with glasses featured on CNN. She died couple of days later from her injuries. Just can’t get her out of my mind.

let's be honest about that lebanon photo -- @ least one is a "poor" nyu student -- after reading "the rest of the story" i found my first impression to be accurate and the image entirely informative!

This is an interesting history of manipulation in photography.

http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/

Can't believe WNYC is reporting about this.

Americans can go abroad and photograph brown bodies being pulled out of rubble. I wonder how we might have felt if a foreigner photographed people being pulled out of the rubble on 9/11, on our own turf.

Photographers rushed over to Haiti to stick cameras in their faces seeking the next award winning heart breaking photo. Truly, it lacks compassion.

also: http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/

OK wrong right out of the gate! Are you all calling these people "looters" I wonder what you would be after 5 days of not eating!! OMG

Classic - the duo from 1994 invasion of Haiti captures everything that's ridiculous about our willful self-delusion about media images!

interesting -- for a decade I have considered photography/photojournalism as journalism for the "too busy to read" crowd (with audio fitting into this category somewhere too)

...certainly look forward to this conversation tho...