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Vultures or newsgatherers? The issue of what the public has a right or needs to know and when that right is an insensitive invasion of privacy has never been an easy one to decide. I was recently faced with that question when our new reporter, Silvio, and I responded to a scanner tone of pedestrian versus auto accident. We raced to the scene to find firefighters working on a two-year-old boy that had been run over by a car in the driveway of his father's home auto shop. One paramedic was administering CPR as the other forced air into his lungs. I took a long shot from about 20 yards and then looked around me. A woman was standing near me, her hands as if in prayer in front of her tear-stained face. She was watching from over a fence. Instinctively I put the camera to my eye, thought a brief moment and then took two shots. I didn't know who she was, whether a neighbor or the mother or some other family member. All the while Silvio was seeking information from witnesses and cops. We heard the cops radios squawking with the information on when the airship was coming in to transport the little boy to the trauma center 60 miles away. I moved to get a better shot of the firemen doing their thing, trying not to show the child's bloody face. Again, I was frugal on the number of frames I shot, no need to be any more distracting to people than necessary. Soon after I stopped shooting I heard the EMTs tell the airship they were taking the boy directly to the local hospital. The helicopter didn't have to land even though it was directly overhead and I knew the child was not going to make it. Later it was confirmed by one of the firemen that the little boy had arrested and they knew he wasn't going to survive the flight so made the decision to get to the nearest hospital as soon as possible. As they put the little one into the ambulance I took some more images. His poor face was visible and one small arm dangled over the edge of the stretcher. His parents were really not around. I didn't understand why his mother wasn't right there with him. Why his father kept wandering around his mechanic's shop. They were fairly new to this country and I think they just didn't understand the seriousness of the boy's injuries or what was going on. I wanted to grab them by the shoulders and tell them to get going to the hospital right away, to not wait like they were doing. Their child was dying. It took them TOO LONG!! After Silvio got the details we went back to the office where I studied my images. Too many off them showed the boy's profile too clearly so I figured I wouldn't use those and chose one where his face was partially obstructed by some piece of medical gear as my lead piece of art. The hard choice to make was to use or not to use the one of the teary-faced woman who turned out to be his mother.
They chose to run the grieving mother in addition to the paramedics shot. So, here are both images. What do you think? I am still unsure.
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Lara
Hartley
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Contributor
since 1998
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Behind
the Viewfinder - A Year in the Life of Photojournalism |
