Alex Reynolds: On taking a step back
In this episode, we talk with Alex Reynolds about taking a step back. Alex reflects on her own practise and how she first learnt to consider ethics within her work as a travel photographer. She explores the role that social media, this need to share online, and a culture of centring ourselves, plays within the ethics of travel photography. Alex also discusses how she handles the balance of being a tour guide while educating visitors on photo ethics.
What you’ll find inside:
‘With time I started to realise that, I mean, people often just centre themselves and just kind of take other people and use them as props a lot in my industry, and just are trying to craft the visuals that we are expecting to see in a sales pitch about insert destination here.’ (4.05)
‘It really was a matter of seeing that, recognising that, being extremely uncomfortable about the fact that I too am promoting these kinds of images. And then wondering, how do I not do that?’ (9.56)
‘Sometimes you don’t have enough time in a situation to accurately portray it in your photography and then I think an important question that a lot of us photographers at any level need to be asking ourselves is are we then suitable to be representing this?’ (12.37)
‘That’s something that a lot of people struggle with in our culture where everyone is constantly sharing everything all the time because that’s what you have to do. Sometimes we do have to step back and decide that, no, this is not appropriate.’ (17.21)
‘A lot of people are interested to learn these things but they need more tangible examples to help them actually grasp visually what these suggestions are all about.’ (19.55)
‘My business partner actually had a much better way of approaching it. She asked him, what is that camera lens for? It’s like really big. Like what are you shooting with that? What do you use that for? And he was like well people use it to shoot like wildlife and stuff like this. And she said, oh, so you think humans are just animals then?’ (23.55)
‘But simultaneously it’s true that when you go to a place, you’re going to have a very shallow experience with it, you’re only going to see a certain set of things. And so it can be useful to have someone with that like novelty in their eye, come in and represent this place.’ (26.18)
‘We’re all trying to get the Instagram shot, the beautiful girl in the beautiful location but like smack in the middle of the beautiful location and so you have all these people descending, and swarming, and trampling, and just taking over. Not so much to appreciate the beauty but more to have someone document them in the beauty. And so I think that if we kind of took our step back and reverted to actually looking at the things that we’re theoretically coming to appreciate then I think that would remove a lot of the damage.’ (34.35)
What does photo ethics mean to Alex?
‘Ethics for me is about making sure I’m not harming people and that can come in a variety of forms. Like perpetuating harmful negative stereotypes is one, putting people at risk of danger or otherwise is another, not exploiting people is a kind of harm, not destroying a location maybe like what we were talking about with revealing it to too many people could sometimes come into play. When I create an image, and I share that image, I would hope that it has a net positive effect on the world, and not just my own ego.’ (37.00)
Links:
Alex Reynolds is an American travel photographer, writer, and solo female backpacker whose work has been featured on Lonely Planet, BBC Travel, AP News, and more. She’s scrambled up fortress ruins in Afghanistan, watched God’s dance in south India, galloped horses across the Krygyz step, and motorbikes all over Pakistan. She blogs at Lost with Purpose to encourage more responsible travel as others do the same.
You can see her work at https://www.lostwithpurpose.com.
Thank you to Redeye, The Photograph Network, for partnering with us to produce Season 3 of The Photo Ethics Podcast. Redeye is a not-for-profit organisation with a strong ethical focus, offering support and opportunities to help you advance your photography and your career. Find out more at http://www.redeye.org.uk.