When does capturing images of the effects and destruction of war cross ethical boundaries? When, for instance, should a documentary photographer press the shutter? When should he or she step back, intervene, or console the subject?

These were some of the hard-hitting questions posed to the audience at the fifth edition of the Xposure International Photography Festival on Friday, February 12, at a seminar titled ‘The Ethics of Capturing the Suffering of Others’, held at Expo Center Sharjah.

British photographer SohailKarmani, also a professor at New York University in Abu Dhabi, led the audience in an engaging and interactive session, as he explored and discussed the ethical complexities and moral dilemmas of such questions.

Karmani asked the audience to visualise themselves in a war zone where they come across an elderly woman with tears streaming down her face, seated on a pile of rubble of what was probably once her home and the raw emotion of anguish, pain and suffering vividly seen in her eyes as the sun perfectly frames her face in a gentle glow. He then posed the question:“Do you turn your camera towards her to capture this moment which has all the visual elements of a powerful shot or would taking a photo of the distraught woman be deemed unethical?”

While a few opined their first instinct would be to console the woman as they would not want to exploit a tragic situation, others believed that war photographers had a moral duty to document the realities of war and expose its horrors to hopefully trigger positive, remedial action.

The second scenario he placed before the audience was about being witness to a brutal, physical violence by an armed soldier to a civilian in a conflict zone. This time, most of the audience agreed that they would document the evidence of human rights abuse to bring its immorality to light. The dissenting voices felt it was their moral obligation as human beings to help the person in question before taking the photograph.

Karmani said: “The purpose of this is not to present ethical guidelines to be a better human being, nor am I going to take a position. Instead, the intention is to foster a conversation in which we have an opportunity to think through, rationalise, and articulate our moral position.”