Photojournalism Ethics: Empathy, Dignity, and Power

Welcome to the course Photojournalism Ethics: Empathy, Dignity, and Power!

This course is designed especially for photojournalists and documentary photographers to explore the ethics of their practice. It follows from the primer course The Photographer's Ethical Toolkit that introduced the basic principles in photography ethics. There are two other courses in the Photojournalism Ethics series: Awareness, Authenticity, and Accuracy, and Impact, Intervention, and Injury.

This course is divided into six sections:

• Section 1 provides an overview of the course and introduces the course trainer and photography experts.
• Section 2 discusses the basics of ethics in photojournalism and documentary photography.
• Section 3 explains into the significance of empathy when approaching the people we photograph.
• Section 4 explores how we can portray people with dignity through the content and the visual language of our photographs.
• Section 5 discusses the role of power in the photographer/photographed relationship and the importance of managing this power dynamic with sensitivity.
• Section 6 summarises the key points covered in the course and provides a list of takeaway questions to apply in your photography practice.

Each section will have at least one exercise for you to apply the concepts that we discuss in the course. In these activities you will be graded on your engagement with the activities rather than the "correctness" of your answers. Please respond to questions honestly in order to gain the most out of the exercises!

Additionally, you will be part of an online forum where you able to access additional updated material and discuss ethical scenarios with your colleagues.

Joining us in this course are photographers Tammy Law, David Degner, and Alessandro Penso.

The total course duration is 4 hours, and you can complete it across multiple sessions.

Written by the Photography Ethics Centre.
Produced by Thomson Foundation.
All rights reserved.