"Life is but an empty stage..." Shakespeare once famously wrote, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". Does that give the right to the photographer to photograph everything that happens , while remaining passively indifferent ?A recent photograph published on the cover of the New York Post has brutally revived the debate over photography and ethics. The image, taken by a newspaper freelancer, depicts a man about to die as he tries desperately to escape the subway rails he was pushed onto. The publication of the image has created an uproar. 
The questions most ask was wether the photographer should have taken these pictures and if the New York Post should have published them.

The photographer claims he was using his camera to flash warning to the conductor of the train and didn't really want to take a picture while the New York Post has, as of this writing, stands by its decision, saying it is no worse than publishing image of war. There has been many instances of photographers not intervening in deadly events happening in front of them. Most have happened in war zones or places of extreme desperation. Some have even won their creators prestigious photography awards. Most of the time, if not all of the time, there was nothing the photographer, as a human being, could have done to save the lives. Every time, the consequential result was a huge spike in worlds awareness. Every time, those events happened in far away places from where the images were eventually published. With the New York Post image, nothing of the sort happened . It was too close to home and the result of the image being published will not lead to anything. Most people are not so offended about the images being taken but rather disgusted at the New York Post to have published them, especially on their cover. 
There is no right or wrong here. Life is a stage And it's the New York Post, like any newspaper, role to show us what goes on while we attend to our little lives. To what extend ? What is fair ? What is moral ? What is acceptable ? There are no ethic committee to answer that question so we are left with our own personal moral demons. More so in this case, since all of us could also have been that man on the subway platform who took these photographs

Here is the sticky point in this story. While the accidental photographer said he was only using his camera to flash the train conductor, why did he then proceed in selling the images to the New York Post ? What was his thinking there ? 
With all of us now carrying a camera in our pockets, this sort of incident will happen more and more often. In fact, it will be rare not to see them. Is it ethical that the mainstream press publish them ? What does it matter? If it's not them, those images would have come viral on the internet in seconds. So where does the responsibility lie? In the hands of the image creator.
Not in trying to figure if it is proper, moral, adequate, sensible to take images but rather to publish them, to share them. Now that everyone is a news outlet, everyone should abide by the same guidelines as the official press. Will it happen ? Doubtful.

Paul Melcher