Is It Exploitive To Photograph Others Who Are Culturally Different?

Is it OK for people to photograph those of other ethnicities on the street? What about houseless people? Do you need to get permission first? Should white people only photograph other white people?

An Asian Tik-Tok influencer with almost 100K followers is upset about this kind of street photography, especially when white photographers go to New York City’s Chinatown area. “Maggie,” who claims this style of photography is exploitive and therefore is not high art, started an online conversation with her video that was viewed over139,000 times.

Photograph of a male gardener pushing a hand lawn mower (1960s~1970s) by Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, part of the Tate UK archive

© Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)