Private / public
I shot the top photo on a sunlit Saturday morning in NYC, when I spotted a couple across the street enjoying long, extravagant sex. Cornelia Street is so narrow that their 5th floor window on the opposite side of the street is only a few dozen yards from mine and within the easy view of many other Village residents.Â
Now, the law allows photographing in public places where people "have no expectation of privacy." Indeed, just after 9/11, some NYC cops, citing terrorism threats, ordered me to stop taking photos in the subway, and when I refused, they issued a summons. The NY Civil Liberties Union backed me up and the summons was withdrawn. That’s the law. But ethics is another animal, with its own complicated bite.
The couple was, of course, not technically in a public place but … come on. They were right against the window and their expectations seemed to focus more on pleasure than privacy. Indeed the spectacle may have been part of that pleasure. I did conceal their faces in the resulting shots … cuz I’m not a total asshole.
Below is a man a few blocks away in Washington Square Park. A lack of privacy is likely integral to his life. And so here he sits, curtained by a garbage bag in an attempt to find a little private space to sleep or dream of better days.
Your opposables are always intriguing to me no matter the subjects or the locations. For some reason, this pair struck a nerve. Privacy is essential. Why do so many people reveal themselves so willingly on social media? Crazy. The lovers in the window, lost in their lust, let you decide how much privacy to give them, and you decided to celebrate their pleasures while protecting their identities, which seems to me to be an ethical choice. The poor soul in his (or her?) black plastic bags reminds me that privacy costs money. The viewer actually sees less of him than of the lovers, but to me he seems so much more exposed. Privacy is an expensive ingredient of security? You really got me going.
In street photography circles, photographing the homeless is a point of discussion, usually viewed as flirting with exploitation. This has always been uncomfortable for me. As a human I empathize with the arguers' point, but as a scientist (also a human!) and a photographer it conflicts with my innate, inner documentarian self. It is one of those inherently unresolvable issues, I guess. Reality is under no obligation to be self-consistent.
I've no doubt the couple in the window were *fully* aware of their exposure. That was entirely their choice, so no ethical issue exists. And that, I suppose, is the "opposable" juxtaposition here: circumstantial choice versus non-choice.