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I've been struggling with this and just saw Chase Jarvis blogged on it.

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2010/02/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot.html

If you come accross an accident, injured person, or other sensitive situation do you shoot it or not?

I take my camera everywhere. But I've never felt right about shooting personal misfortune.

I have a collection of accident shots on my facebook page. I drive truck for a living so I see my share.  Most arent stocky-worthy but a few of them have made it into stock ports.  I prefer shooting the more bizarre kinds of accidents.

my first "break" in journalism was in fact an accident.
i had at that time just bought the latest  SLR by Olympus (... OM2 .. lol, ya a long time ago).. and was driving home from the store when i drove into a traffic jam where the accident occured. i parked my car, grab the camera out of the box, load my camera with a roll from my emergency ilford film carton that i always carry in my glove compartment, shot every single move of the ambulance and paramedic , plus the wreck from every vantage point. then i drove off.
as i was driving off, the local reporter saw me and we stopped to chat a bit .
later i got a call from him asking me to sell him the roll as he was late to the scene.
i told him forget it. i don't sell to no one, esp some hotshot from the papers, lol.

i made an enemy in the local press, but i got a contract from their competitor when that photographer mouthed off about me at the press canteen. lol.

but no, i did not sell those photos. i felt it was too tragic after viewing the shots.
i wouldn't want the parents or relative of that driver seeing them. they already suffered once , no point in making them relive the horror.

but that's my own reason for not selling nor wanting to shoot suicide,  accidents, etc... i decided to be a photo correspondent covering everything except that.

Who was that guy? He took an extremely famous photograph of a starving African baby on a barren landscape, with a Vulture in the background, that looked HUGE compared to the baby, and it was like it was waiting for the baby to die..

Anyway apparently he took the photo home, but when people asked him how he as a human, felt about watching a baby in that position, he said he had only been thinking of how to make it a better shot, and he said he knew it would be a better shot if the vulture would open it's wings, which it didn't.. he later committed suicide a few years on, after scooping the Pulitzer prize, but he had said to friends that the whole thing haunted him, he just couldn't cope with it in the end.. very sad story but it did make me realise where that line is..

interesting anecdote, hqimages.

in some cultures, it is indeed a curse to photograph suffering. with other cultures, it is a belief that you rob someone's soul,aura, etc.. whatever they call it.  and yet in other cultures, they are said to put a hex or curse on you if you take their photographs.
so really, when it comes to shoot or not shoot, i'd give them the benefit of the doubt.
i'd sooner take photographs of people having fun.