Princess Diana has died...

[Jim Gratiot]

Hard to believe it's been nearly 10 years.

I was just curious on everybody's take on the current uproar regarding the unpublished photos of Diana.

If you had been a passerby and photographed "unflattering" or "disturbing" photos of the dying princess, what would you have done with those photos?

Published them?

Held on to them but shown them selectively?

Destroyed them?

Just curious what everybody thinks about this.

 

[hovis]

I kinda think that the world should respect the wishes of the family - Wills and Harry. They have just stated they want no publication of photos, the world should respect that, same as they should for anyone. If I'd been there, if I'd had photos, I'd have them in my private album for ever, but publish? No.

 

[mysteryscribe]

Strange I have been in the photo business on all kinds of weird jobs. I have photographed autopsies and the like.

So I would have been working if I was there, would I sell pictures of a corpse, yes. Would I sell pictures of this woman, yes again. I would give the family the option of purchasing them at the fair market value before I tried to get rich on them. In that way I would recieve pay for my work and they would know that my images would only come to light if they published them. Good intentions are fine but it makes for better paving stones than real life outcomes. The family isn't poverty stricken so it's a fair solution for me and them.

If I had the pictures that is and I'm not saying i do... rofl

 

[Don Simon]

I can see how this raises questions of ethics, but I can't seem to focus on that. Because personally I just have trouble getting past the fact that we can't seem to go a week without a Diana-based news story (especially in the Express). Even if it was nearly 10 years since the second coming of Jesus or a Martian landing, I would expect them to give it a rest by 10 years later. I don't think I'll ever understand the British press...

 

[Mike_E]

Had I been in a position to advise her kids, I would have suggested that they say that they are their mothers children but that they are also the children of their father and his before him and so forth and interestingly, "our family has a long memory"

From what I saw the only passers by that could have gotten in there were the paparazzi and I don't do that work, therefore I wouldn't have had them.

Just for kicks and giggles though, I most likely would have given them a miss anyway- though I might have taken shots of all the people taking shots of her (That was the real carnage in my opinion. And probably more sellable too!)

mike

 

[EOS_JD]

Very hypothetical. Who knows what one would do with millions of pounds on offer!

 

[Mike_E]

Is it better to photograph someone being eaten by sharks or to photograph the sharks eating someone?

mike

 

[JimmyJaceyMom]

Is it better to photograph someone being eaten by sharks or to photograph the sharks eating someone?

mike

Haha. You're funny.



I don't know what I would do. Personally I dont htink i would have been able to take yucky photos - I dont deal with that stuff too good but if I did Mysteryscribe's answer makes sense to me.

 

[sabbath999]

I would have sold them in a minute. No question about it. She is a famous person, and it was a news story that shook the world. Absolutely I would sell them.

They were news.

One of the hard parts of being in the news business (I was a newspaper editor for eight years) is realizing that your pictures and stories are going to hurt families when they are printed. It is not the coverage of the story that causes the real pain, it is the death of their beloved family member.

So I would have sold them, right away, gotten them out there while the story was hot.

Now, they are not news, they are history. I still would sell them, but for me if I had them in my possession originally, it would not be a question since I would have put them out there right away.

If you are a news person, and you have photos of the most famous woman on the planet in a fatal car crash, you publish them. Hard fact of life.

 

[Mike_E]

BTW, I saw one of the pictures shortly after it happened. It wasn't pretty nor was it, I believe, anything that would have added to the story. Just a beautiful lady turned into a bloody mess.

 

[DigitalDiva]

I was living in England when she died. It's sensationalistic. A beauty in her death cab. The world was fascinated with her and for any struggling photographer, the temptation to profit from this misfortune may be too great to resist. She was born to live a privileged life. Photographers may not ever get that chance to be successful. It's a pity someone would make their money from a tragedy. If they did, I can't say as I would blame them. Now whether they were responsible for the crash....that would be the real tragedy.

 

[Seefutlung]

Firstly, I was living in Paris at the time of her death. A friend picked me up early for breakfast and we spoke of her death that morning as we drove to a restaurant. As we scooted through an underpass we saw some flowers on the medium ... our eyes nearly popped out of our heads when we realized that the flowers must be marking the location of the accident (we almost hit the wall when Jerome rubber necked another look). When we came out of the underpass there was more flowers, media and a small crowd.

As a former press photog I would have no hesitancy to photograph or sell/publish the photos. As with all photos I published, I would edit the photos, only submitting images which were a factual representation of the event, had impact and were in good taste (reflecting the sensitivities and values of the paper's marketplace.) I would take into consideration the family's wishes and offset them with the public's right to know ... in this case the public wins.

Gary

PS- I wouldn't publish a mangled and bloodied body ... there are other ways to indicate/picture death which have deeper meaning and less gore.
G