This is an imaginary situation, but I think you will find it beneficial to think through this exercise.
The situation:
You are in the Middle East, and there is a huge flood in progress. Many homes have been lost, water supplies compromised and structures destroyed.
You’re a freelance photographer for a news service, you’re traveling alone, looking for particularly poignant scenes that you can shoot.
You come across Osama Bin Laden who has been swept away by the floodwaters. He is barely hanging on to a tree limb and is about to go under.
You have to make a choice: You can either put down your camera and save him, or take a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of him as he loses his grip on the limb.
So, here’s the question . . . and think carefully before you answer it:
Which lens would you use?
*E-mail Fwd
Comments
6 comments | Add your comment »
Kishore
May 19th, 2006 at 12:25 pm | #
Actually I read a similar version of this, in an email forward. The only difference – instead of Osama Bin Laden, it was George Bush..
Jo
May 19th, 2006 at 8:50 pm | #
Hi,
My first time here..came here via Desi Pundit!:)
As for the dilemma…I guess I would save him first and then make him poise for my Pulitzer Prize winning photograph
Saakshi O. Juneja
May 20th, 2006 at 8:39 am | #
Kishore – Ya..Bush would do to.
Jo – Welcome here. Your idea, not that bad at all.
nmandava
May 20th, 2006 at 9:29 pm | #
There are two ways to think about it.
One at the individual level and the other at the societal level. Given an individual is in danger and I have a self-interest also, should I save him? It is best left to the individual. Should government punish a person who has “refused” to “save” an individual? No again. For that will bring about a lot more unintended consequences.
If I were the photographer and if it were Osama down there, I wouldnt save him. I would go ahead and take the Pulitzer photograph!
Born a Libran
May 21st, 2006 at 12:40 am | #
If it were Bush, I would forget about him and forget about the photo… I would rather search for someone else to save… If it were Osama, I thought of the same idea as Jo…
Parijat
May 21st, 2006 at 7:37 am | #
Would one be allowed to put down the camera and help him lose grip of the branch? Of course, there is the question of whether that would make any difference to world terrorism. Perhaps not, but hey, haven’t you heard about the story of the man who threw star-fish on the sea beach, into the sea?