Home Movies & Slide Shows

My big project - converting home movies from film and tape to computer files - has introduced an unexpected problem: now it is too easy to find and view these relics from our past. Instead of feeling anticipation and awe, common reactions from the audience seem to be "I don't want people to see me like that," or "it makes me too sad" to see departed people and pets.

I've always taken pictures by some kind of instinct to capture an event or a person or a scene that I like. The choice of subjects has always reflected my mood at the time. Sometimes I feel a duty to be a recorder, sometimes I am caught up in color and composition, sometimes I just record something that makes me feel good, or something that strikes me as being special or significant. And, thanks to my evolving interest in family history, I may consider the possible value of an image to some future family researcher.

I also have always subscribed to the notion that the photographer is an artist who makes the decisions about what and how to take pictures, and also "owns" the resulting images. Thus I can - if I wish - produce shows for family consumption that show things as I choose to show them. Also I can - if I wish - obtain permission from individuals in these pictures for display outside of the family.

(Note that none of these comments relate to commercial usage of images.)

Electronic imaging and the internet have changed the game. Individuals who are photographic subjects now have concerns about unintended wide distribution of their images to unknown audiences. There is a new line to be drawn between legitimate privacy concerns and paranoia about the unknown dangers posed by Facebook, YouTube and a myriad of other social-networking internet services.

It seems as if both the photographer and photographee need to update their expectations.

On one hand, the photographer must respect a subject's trust by appropriate management of images. This means that images that were taken in anticipation of sharing only with a limited (family) audience should not be released to networks without appropriate provisions for privacy & security.

The subject must trust the photographer and respect his/her decisions. In general I, as the photographer, reserve the rights to my images including the decision whether to retain or destroy them.