Only Fleeting Glimpses Captured

Yesterday, ferreting around on Flickr, I noticed that someone had just uploaded a photo of Ha Long Bay, a beautiful place in Vietnam that I had spent a few days in last October. Checking out the other photos in the set, I came across a photo of a Hill Tribe woman, from one of the ethnic minorities that live up in the Northern Mountains of Vietnam. My self righteous streak emerged and I put in a comment noting that many of these people don’t like to have their photo taken and wondering what the lady would think of having her photo on the net. The photographer commented in reply that this particular woman had willingly posed for a number of photos.

Fair enough about taking the photo to begin with then. When I was up there, I came across some people who were willing to be photographed, and seem to enjoy then looking at their photos on the back screen of my camera, however there were others who clearly didn’t want to be photographed and some appeared fearful of the prospect. I approached a group of colourfully clothed women at Tam Duong market who all scattered when I showed them my camera. My photos of Ban Hon village of the Lu people looks like shots of a ghost town – even people in the distance ducked around corners when they saw the cameras come out. The Black Mong of Lao Chai were however too busy selling us things to be worried about the cameras, and I have a wonderful photo of six Flower Mong women sitting resting at the edge of Cochy market. In that instance I showed them the camera, a couple nodded, none ran away, and so I took the photo – most of them had a look afterwards and seemed happy.

There is a whole related issue as to whether touring in such relatively remote areas of rather vulnerable ethnic minorities makes the visitor more part of the problem or an acceptable solution to the future of their society. One day we visited a couple of villages which only see tourists about once a week (accompanied by a local guide who was actually a local policeman making sure we weren’t promoting unrest). Their children are taught in Vietnamese rather than their own language and tourists such as myself model western clothing and behaviour and tout english are a new language of commerce. In these villages, the children seemd curious, the adults a little suspicious and weary of us. In areas closer to the central tourist base of Sapa, the children of some villages appeared to spend their spare time trying to sell (in quite good english) handbags and cushion covers. I couldn’t help wondering what would be left of their culture in ten years time and whether there was any alternative.

My concern here though: does taking a photo (a photo of a specific person in the street rather than a streetscape or crowd shot or a performer or other public figure) of another member of the public, even with their permission, entitle me to place that photo on the internet? I suppose an associated question is whether my photography as a private citizen is any different (apart from quality of product) to a photojournalist who might place a similar photo in a newspaper, magazine or on the web. I experienced this outcome myself when, vainly googling my name, I came across a website of a couple who were part of a group I had travelled with a few years back. They had put up many of their holiday snaps, including shots of myself, with my full name. There had been no mention of this, and I hadn’t seen them for ages. It felt rather strange to be published in that way – when I had posed for those photos, if I thought about it at all, I would have assumed the images would be for personal use and for showing friends and family. As a generic middle class westerner this doesn’t impact upon me financially or spiritually, though I wondered whether it did infringe a little upon my privacy. I do wonder what the hill tribe people would think of photos, taken in their equivalent of the local shopping mall, being published for the world to see.

I’d be interested in anyone’s opinion on this. Perhaps you’ll convince me its alright to post that photo of the Flower Mong women.