Robin Hammond: On balancing impact

In this episode we talk with Robin Hammond about balancing impact. He explains how ideas of impact fuelled his motivation for starting Witness Change, an organisation dedicated to advancing human rights through visual storytelling. Robin describes some of the difficult ethical decisions he made as a photographer, and he emphasises the importance of talking with local people and people with experiences from the communities he is photographing in order to navigate such ethical decisions.

What does photography ethics mean to Robin? 

“Ethics makes me think of truth, and I know that that’s such a wobbly term in the world of journalism, but I think it’s like trying to be authentic to the folks whose lives you’re documenting. I feel like, also in the process and the way that we document, I feel very strongly that we need to be making it clear about our process as storytellers in that we need the audience to know whether an image is constructed or not … I think it’s about respecting the people and the communities whose lives we’re documenting.” (32:55)

Links:

Witness Change

Peter Singer

Eugene Richards