Toronto Photography Meetup Group

If you haven't already heard about it, imagine someone being pushed onto the subway tracks right before your eyes. Then, rather than helping the person or trying to flag the train to stop, snapping pictures of him struggling to get back on the platform. Seconds later the man looses his life. Its a story with no happy ending. The tragedy is magnified by the NYT publishing the photo on the front page of their newspaper.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2242963/Subway-death-Man-killed-pushed-New-York-train-Times-Square.html

I can't help but draw parallels to Kevin Carters 1993 photo of a near death starving child. It reflects poorly on those who call themselves photographers and even the human race in general.

Regardless if Mr. Abassi (the photographer) or anyone else on the that subway platform had cameras or not...someone should have tried helping him.

What are we becoming??

It's easy to be an armchair quarterback and condemn the whole human race. But on a subway platform when as there was in this case a 2 person conflict which resulted in a violent altercation it was unlikely not clear to people on the spot that helping him was a safe action for anyone, except maybe a super hero. The most important thing you learn in life saving classes is not to drown while trying to save someone from drowning. Sure we wished someone had saved him so the story could have a feel good ending.

You're right about 'not drowning trying to save someone from drowning', but I'd imagine there was a lot of people on that platform. Surely they could have made an effort to help him.

It's not so clear from the video that this was the case even the camera person was not that close.

What is even worse, is that there were apparently more people than just him taking pictures. "Oooooo! This will really work on my Facebook page!"

Where's the actual photo?

It can be found in that pinnacle of Murdoch publications, the New York Post, better known as a bird cage liner by hard news types. The Chicago Tribune also reprinted it.

I can't judge .. wasn't there. The photographer says he wasn't close enough to help and was running towards the train trying to alert the train with his flash .. the photograph was a by-product of this action .. not sure if I buy that but whatever. And apparently there were people closer to the victim that might have been able to help. It's just a very sad situation. My condolences to the victim and his family.

Not there to make the call and not judging the response, however, I doubt I, myself, would start firing my flash in the same situation.

It's not a warning signal given the number of flashes I've seen in the subway system and the zero trains that slammed on their brakes. I'd actually be thinking the complete opposite...afraid that my flash would distract/blind the driver from seeing the person on the tracks, especially if I wasn't close nor in-line.

It is a sad story all the way around.

If he couldn't help, the photo is what it is...war photos are taken daily...but I found it a head scratcher to see it on a front page under that headline.

I admit I was a put off when the Globe recently printed a video frame of an unarmed Syrian prisoner getting shot...and it was on page 14. I thought "fair enough" given that it would be a violation of international law...and imagined the videographer clearly risked his life taking it.

Two very different realities. While many conflict images are hard to view, they are records of a people's fight for freedom from a leader who uses the army to suppress demonstrations which has now become a civil war with jihadists now entering the game.

I don't think people should turn away from photographs that make them uncomfortable, they need to see the true price of democracy for many around the world.

Ever wander what would the photographer would have done if someone pushed his Mom onto the subway tracks. I don't think his first thought would have been to take a photo. He probably would have tried to change the outcome — successfully or not.

I think everyone should read this not just to read what the photographer thought but to read the other perspectives from people who deal with this issue on a constant basis.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/medi ... -of-death/

and this analysis..

http://gawker.com/5965659/would-you-hav ... rs-respond

I'm not going to tar this guy and no one knows what they would do in a similar situation so it's a bit premature to burn him at the stake imo.

but yeah, if it was my mom, I'd be down there on the tracks and in fact when I was in NOLA during Katrina, this very thought crossed my mind and I think about it to this day.

and as others have asked, where were the other transit riders and why didn't THEY do anything if they were closer ?

I agree completely.

I didn't have a problem with a photo of the murder...bullets passing through someone unarmed and still standing...I'm just saying I must have missed a lot of uncomfortable photos in their paper over the years.

The people committing the war crime, in this instance, were the rebels so I wouldn't call the photograph an image of the "true price of democracy".

My hat is definitely off to anybody that would stick around and capture a war crime in progress...no matter who was responsible! The Bang Bang Club movie and Don McCullin's documentary were definitely movies to see.

I found the recent FoxNews and General Petreaus recording interesting....Fox asked the General what he thought Fox was "doing right, or wrong, or wanted to tell us to do differently" in it's war reporting on a theater of war the General was currently commanding. However, that is probably as common as the sun coming up in the morning.

I guess all this is for another thread.

IMO photographers that cover wars, rebellions, etc. have to turn off their fight/flight instincts in order to photograph some nasty things happening. If they are trying to help / attack / defend someone then they can't do their job of getting that image. It's an incredibly difficult task.

If the photographer that took the NY subway image was one of those types of photographers then I understand their action, it's an expected behaviour.

If the photographer was not then it appears to be atrocious behaviour.

fyi:
http://www.imediaethics.org/News/3640/C ... photo_.php

If you want to hear from the photographer himself:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/50416175

Considering when he heard the gasps, where the photographer was, and where the train was at that point, there was no way he could have done anything.

The person who was pushed was STUPID though in attempting to climb back up to the platform, rather than staying underneath the platform where it was safe, or climbing onto the centre section (avoiding the third rail) until the train passes through, and then walk to the end of the platform where there are usually stairs for staff to get from the tracks to the platform. As a rider of the subway I know these things, should someone happen to push me onto the tracks.

However, I don't put myself into the position to let myself be pushed by standing far enogh back from the edge of the platform.

Wow, calling the victim STUPID is incomprehensible. Where do you get off saying something so unsympathetic.

It's easy to say as much, and I hope for all of our sake that should any of us find ourselves in a similar situation we'd have the wherewithal to act in the way you've described. Unfortunately, things don't always work that way. It's hard to predict exactly how you would act and how well your normally logical thought process would work when you're suddenly thrust in a high pressure/stressful/dangerous situation.

Have you never seen an older person exit a subway station downtown and observed as it takes them quite a bit of time to orient themselves before they carry on walking to wherever they are going...? That's without the stress/danger component.

Little known fact as well, you can lay between the rails, parralle with them and as long as you don't have some massive beer gut the train will pass right over you without ever touching you. There is also a lip under every platform ledge that even an overweight person can tuck into and be safe.

These things all subway riders should familiarize themselves with for their own safety.

At the end of the day the photographers own conscience will prevail one way or the other. If he feels he did all that he could given the circumstances, he'll be at peace. If not, it will haunt him for the rest of his life. It doesn't really matter what our opinions are, we weren't there. The same goes for everyone else on that platform, it's not something that they'll ever forget; we don't have to remind them.