Welcome to the Photography Ethics Centre
We want to change the way that the world takes and shares pictures by embedding a culture of ethics in photography.
We are dedicated to promoting ethical literacy across the photography industry. We do this by offering a wide range of educational opportunities in photography ethics, including workshops, events, online courses, and free multimedia content.
What are photography ethics?
When we talk about photography ethics, we are talking about applying concepts like responsibility, power, and dignity to how we we take and share photographs. Everyone will answer ethical questions in their own way, based on their own life experience, personal judgments, and photographic vision. Ethics are fluid, contextual, and subjective. That is why we do not give photographers a checklist of ethical guidelines.
Instead, we teach ethical literacy. Ethical literacy is about having the skills to make sound ethical decisions. These skills include things like critical thinking, situational awareness, and cultural sensitivity. We help photographers to develop skills to think critically about ethics in their work and the language to define their own ethical practice.
It is extremely difficult to make ethical decisions in the moment, and often these decisions have to happen in a split second. We present examples and raise questions so that photographers are better prepared to face ethical dilemmas when they occur.
Experience of working through difficult ethical considerations gives photographers tangible tools to be more effective in their work. It helps photographers to build relationships, to communicate effectively, and to gain access to communities in a socially responsible way. It also prevents photographers from unknowingly breaching national or international laws and ethical norms about privacy and confidentiality, consent, and child protection.
Latest content on photography ethics:
