If there is one thing I try hard to avoid is being a hypocrite, this is why I question myself often. Now is one of those times :)
I deeply and sincerely believe religion is evil but I do photography, contributing to things like Wiki Loves Monuments I take and publish a lot of pictures of churches, monasteries and various other religious things and I also take photos at events like weddings and baptisms, where religion is a very important side. I know churches and monasteries are the bulk of historical monuments here (in medieval times very little culture happened in Romania outside the religion) and I know the society make the religious part that important in life events, but still feel a bit uneasy.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
It's very possible that on your photo camera worked religious people, atheists, pagans, people with communist convictions or nazi, hetero, homo, anysexuals and any other kind or combination of beliefs and customs. If your work have any value (and I believe it does) it's not primary because of the people that built the things you photograph or because the people that built your camera.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's a good camera and the photos maybe won't be as good using a lesser one. Also maybe they wouldn't be as attractive if you would photograph just stones in the river. So it's nice to acknowledge our ancestors who built those monuments even if we do not share their views at least as much as it's nice to say a silent "Thanks!" to the engineers and all the staff that helped creating the tools we are using.
I don't think hypocrisy it's about the place or the tools we are using. Hypocrite would be someone that pretends to be one thing while conniving in the back. I never heard you saying that you would be a religious man :)
yes, but I may promote or be seen as promoting or create things which may help others promote something I consider bad.
DeleteI know, even the stones in the river can be used for harmful purposes :)
Hehe :)
DeleteOf course you're promoting them. And as long as you keep making art as CC BY-SA people may use it for various purposes, some of them that you don't approve. Even if you'll enforce crazy copyright rules, after some time they will still become Public Domain.
Things are what they are, you may be able to control the Universe at some point but you will never be able to control one man, no matter how hard you try.
And that's the good thing about the world :)
And surely I want to promote the historical and cultural part and surely as a photographer I have to be involved in weddings and such. The Free licence is a choice I have no intention to abandon.
Delete