It is felt that there is something morally wrong with the abstract of reality offered by photography; that one has no right to experience the suffering of others at a distance, denuded of its raw power; that we pay too high a human (or moral) price for those hitherto admired qualities of vision - the standing back from the aggressiveness of the world which frees us for observation and for elective attention. Susan Sontag
About This Quote

The idea of a photographer being a voyeur is an interesting one. If that is the case, then photographers are depriving those they photograph from their very choice to feel the pain that they are going through. By taking photographs of those who are engaging in acts that can be seen as violent or aggressive, photographers turn those people into objects. Instead of giving those people agency over their lives, they take it away from them.

Source: Regarding The Pain Of Others

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