Sad feelings from mosaic-processed photos

Ruling Saenuri party floor leader Yoo Seung-min and around 20 lawmakers attended the party’s Supreme Council meeting held in the National Assembly, Yeouido in Seoul, on Thursday morning. The venue was packed to accommodate reporters with laptops and 50 cameras from daily newspapers, TV stations and Internet media. The number was less than usual since the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) also held a meeting at the same time, attracting some group of journalists.

The space is fixed but the number of reporters has increased, making it more difficult to take pictures in the National Assembly. In addition, photo journalists accredited to the Assembly are having shorter breaks since more and more events and sessions are held in the parliament.

Nonetheless, photo journalists like to go to the Assembly. Because press photographers in the parliament have little issues about "right of portrait." One of the biggest challenges for current photographers is the right of portrait. Except for the entertainers on the stage, politician is the only profession that does not claim the right of portrait. This explains why it is not hard to get photos of politicians, for both photographers and publishers.

Not just the middle-aged but also younger ones who love to upload their pictures on SNS don’t like to have their likeness published in the news. This can be attributed to a cultural characteristics in which Koreans don’t like being taken picture of by strangers, or maybe, it causes inconvenience in life when their likeness are published in such a small nation.

Thanks to advancement in the optical technologies and internet, it is getting easier to take and distribute photographs. Therefore, it is natural to put emphasis on the right of portrait for protection of privacy. However, practices to protect the right of portrait in the Korean society requires too strict and unrealistic criteria. There is no guideline or social consensus for journalists to keep. Citizens who feel their right of portrait has been infringed ask for help from the Press Arbitration Commission. In such cases, the press is likely to lose most of the times. But the problem is that the arbitration commission has no expert who can understand mechanisms to take pictures or image on the scene.

Against this backdrop, concerns are growing for the photo journalists who have to take pictures every day. Journalism Professor Kim Young-soo at the University of Kentucky compared his experiences as a photo journalist in Korea from late 1990s to early 2000s with the journalism in the U.S., and said the Korean practices to protect the right of portrait are too strong. Professor Kim pointed out American media rarely publishes blurred or mosaic-processed pictures in the news.

The Korea Press Photographers Association is preparing for a photo exhibit that traces back pictures taken by photo journalists last year. However, there is no picture that depicts sorrow of families of Sewol ferry victims. The bereaved families strongly demanded not to disclose such pictures and press photographers actively collaborated to protect their right of portrait. In fact, photographs that expressed sadness caused by the deadly sunken ferry were all processed with mosaic or not published.

The reality where only faces of politicians and celebrities are exposed and remembered leaves sad feelings. As a press photographer, I wish lives of the ordinary people can be captured by the media and remembered in our society.