Meet Terence Carter
Terence Carter is a travel and editorial photographer and travel writer. He literally lives out of a suitcase accompanied by a couple of bags of photography gear. He travels with his much more talented wife, Lara Dunston, fabulous travel writer and itinerary maker extraordinaire. He is Australian by birth, he has a Masters Degree in media studies and his home is Dubai, where he visits occasionally to empty his post box.
Check out my photography on my main website.Our 2010 Travel Project…
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Ethics? Who needs them?
A few weeks ago I was asked to do an editorial photography assignment about a company running its business in an innovative way. I won’t elaborate, because I owe the publisher a certain amount of discretion, as well as the subjects of the story who told me part of this little tale in confidence.
The assignment was pretty straightforward and deserved a very documentary style of shooting because of the subject matter. Despite the business being run in an innovative way, the industry itself didn’t lend itself to exciting photography. However the editor of the publication was enamoured with some photos that had already been taken of the subjects, which the editor gave me a link too. As soon as I saw the photo the editor really liked, I saw that it was so ‘set up’ it was ridiculous. This shoot was done for a leading global news and business publisher whom I sure would have not approved of how faked the shot was. The most jarring thing was that this shot was meant to represent part of the innovative way that this company does business – but it was a complete set up to make a visually arresting shot at the expense of authenticity.
When I went to do the shoot I asked the CEO of the company about the photo. He was mortified. The photographer basically had an ‘idea’ and ambushed the CEO and other managers in the company with the idea – which they all thought was ridiculous – because it didn’t really represent how they worked. The photographer had hired props and wasn’t going to take no for an answer, so they made the shot. Everyone thought it was unethical. The next day I met with other managers from the company who were equally embarrassed by the whole thing and wished they had not gone along with it.
Environmental portraits are meant to be about shooting people in their work/home environment. There is, of course, a certain amount of leeway granted in lighting and setting up the shot, but you’re essentially photographing people in their natural environment. When a photographer cheats it demeans the art, misrepresents the subject and robs the viewer.