I had an acquaintance of mine that took a picture of her neighbors' house on fire. The fire burned the house down. She took about ten pictures of the house on fire. How do you, the forum-ers, feel about that?

I think it's without honor and indecent. It's disgraceful. While I recognize that it's human nature to gawk at tragedy, does it have to extend into immortalizing the tragedy in a photograph? That's the problem I have with Rotten.com. It's not so much the images, which I believe are unhealthy for the soul, but it's the whole notion of taking the image of a disemboweled man and posting that for the public to see. How would you feel if your cousin got nailed by a garbage truck while on a motor cycle and someone posted a picture of his brains all over the pavement on the internet? Would you gawk too and say, "Let the free market decide"?

These questions are valid because they could all happen to you someday. But let's not get away from the original question:

How would you feel if your house was on fire and a neighbor took a picture of it?

I might have to make it an absolute point to take photos of their house burning down, if you get my drift.

The Emperor:

I had an acquaintance of mine that took a picture of her neighbors' house on fire. The fire burned the house down. She took about ten pictures of the house on fire. How do you, the forum-ers, feel about that?

I think it's without honor and indecent. It's disgraceful. While I recognize that it's human nature to gawk at tragedy, does it have to extend into immortalizing the tragedy in a photograph? That's the problem I have with Rotten.com. It's not so much the images, which I believe are unhealthy for the soul, but it's the whole notion of taking the image of a disemboweled man and posting that for the public to see. How would you feel if your cousin got nailed by a garbage truck while on a motor cycle and someone posted a picture of his brains all over the pavement on the internet? Would you gawk too and say, "Let the free market decide"?

These questions are valid because they could all happen to you someday. But let's not get away from the original question:

How would you feel if your house was on fire and a neighbor took a picture of it?

I completely agree!!!  100%

A while back, i got fascinated by the rotten.com type stuff on another site.  I would go and gawk at it and watch the iraqi beheading videos, mutilations, wrecks, suicides, etc.  Then, i started paying attention to what people were posting there.  They were making fun of the victims -- pages and pages of it.  I thought, "what if one of the victims' family members saw this???"  It made me disgusted, even moreso than the images.  I haven't been back since.

McLovin:

The Emperor:

I had an acquaintance of mine that took a picture of her neighbors' house on fire. The fire burned the house down. She took about ten pictures of the house on fire. How do you, the forum-ers, feel about that?

I think it's without honor and indecent. It's disgraceful. While I recognize that it's human nature to gawk at tragedy, does it have to extend into immortalizing the tragedy in a photograph? That's the problem I have with Rotten.com. It's not so much the images, which I believe are unhealthy for the soul, but it's the whole notion of taking the image of a disemboweled man and posting that for the public to see. How would you feel if your cousin got nailed by a garbage truck while on a motor cycle and someone posted a picture of his brains all over the pavement on the internet? Would you gawk too and say, "Let the free market decide"?

These questions are valid because they could all happen to you someday. But let's not get away from the original question:

How would you feel if your house was on fire and a neighbor took a picture of it?

I completely agree!!!  100%

A while back, i got fascinated by the rotten.com type stuff on another site.  I would go and gawk at it and watch the iraqi beheading videos, mutilations, wrecks, suicides, etc.  Then, i started paying attention to what people were posting there.  They were making fun of the victims -- pages and pages of it.  I thought, "what if one of the victims' family members saw this???"  It made me disgusted, even moreso than the images.  I haven't been back since.

Disgusting.  But, that's what we get for exposing our youngsters to so much violence in movies and video games that they become apathetic towards violence.  Next will be public executions.  And I don't think it will be long.

A house fire is not quite as bad as some of the crap on that site

while I think part of wanting to see stuff like that is to some extent human nature, curiosity or what ever, I just think that people today have, or lack common respect for their fellow man its all about I, me, or my, that I feel is whats for the most part wrong with society today IMO, someone should have took her camera and threw it into the fire, then tookk pictures of her all pissed off.

Well, McLovin, I only knew about Rotten.com because I had a buddy of mine show me pictures when I was fourteen -- a nun naked, a guy's arm in the meat grinder, a man losing his brains after a motorcycle wreck. I wouldn't say it truamatized me, but it bugged me for a few days. I can hardly remember the images now; just the premise of them.

If you boil down every religion on Earth with rare exception, the logo for each religion is a variant of Jesus' Golden Rule. Whereas Jesus said "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," Confucious said, "Do not do unto others as you would not want them to do to you." Basically, treat others as you would prefer to be treated. So, it's an end-around way of saying I could not look at the pictures on Rotten.com or take a picture of a neighbors' house on fire because I would not want that to happen to me.

Although, as a weird sidenote, I had an uncle who was in a big car wreck in Illinois. He pulled out and a garbage truck creamed him. His head got cracked. He broke a hip. His leg was broken. He's mangled, he'll live, and he'll fully recover. What did my aunt do? She took pictures of him and posted them on Snapfish. I don't know what world I live in.

KSKBoys, I back your opinion to the hilt. It is because of violence permeating throughout our media that sites like Rotten.com can be shown or a 17 year-old girl doesn't have the sense to know not to take a picture of her neighbors' house on fire. I had a biology teacher last semester in 2007 that used to be a CSI agent or whatever. Anyway, on slow days when we had no work and she didn't want us to leave early, she would show us pictures from wrecks and murders and whatever. I felt it was disgracing the dead because she was not showing these photos for educational purposes. She was showing them to ogle and cause retorts. I left and went home and took a nap.

I appreciate your comments in this matter. At first, all I saw were Grizzly's comments. I wanted a little more opinion and you guys have given it to me. I'm not raggin' on Griz; just saying I wanted more opinion than strictly Grizzly's. The girl, by the way, is acting like I'm a bum for challenging her on this. She said, "I'm sorry you got offended by that." There is no justice in the world. Maybe somebody can take pictures of one of her horses as they have to euthanize it. I'll see what the neighbors think about that.

The Emperor:

I had an acquaintance of mine that took a picture of her neighbors' house on fire. The fire burned the house down. She took about ten pictures of the house on fire. How do you, the forum-ers, feel about that?

I think it's without honor and indecent. It's disgraceful. While I recognize that it's human nature to gawk at tragedy, does it have to extend into immortalizing the tragedy in a photograph? That's the problem I have with Rotten.com. It's not so much the images, which I believe are unhealthy for the soul, but it's the whole notion of taking the image of a disemboweled man and posting that for the public to see. How would you feel if your cousin got nailed by a garbage truck while on a motor cycle and someone posted a picture of his brains all over the pavement on the internet? Would you gawk too and say, "Let the free market decide"?

These questions are valid because they could all happen to you someday. But let's not get away from the original question:

How would you feel if your house was on fire and a neighbor took a picture of it?

If you were to post this on TexasPhotoForum.com, or any number of photography websites, you'll get some interesting answers...

I'll put this forward for consideration.....

There's a professional photography organization that is called "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep".  I'll tell you what they do, let you think about it, and then click on their website.

These professional photographers take photos of deceased infants. Did that get a definate emotional response from you? Now look at their website via the link below....

http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/

Did you get a different emotional response once you figured out what these photographers really are doing?  They're preserving the few moments mother, father, and the deceased infant will ever have together at request of the parents. All of those photos of child with mother are....sorry, it's a lot for me to think about.

I was asked about doing this, and to be honest there's no way I could. I can't even look at the website for very long without getting watery eyed.  The testimonials of the parents will rip your heart out if you can find them on the site. So many of them talk about having those few photos of their baby as a huge part of being able to get past the tragedy of it all.

The pressure of getting the photograph done perfectly to preserve that one single moment for mother, father, and deceased infant is too much for me.

I'm not equating any of the fire incident with this website, but I thought there is always more than meets the eye. That family may very well want to have those photos at some time in the future as a way of coping with the loss of the fire, you just never know.

That's fair, Salty. But since this acquaintance of mine would not specify WHY she took the photos, I have to assume it's out of bad taste because people are dumber these days.

Like I stated in my last post, my aunt took pictures of my uncle after a big car wreck he was in. That's how people deal with things. Fine with me. I just don't think the neighbors have a prerogative to share in a family's tragedy by taking photos. That's all.

P.S. I see the melatonin isn't working tonight, Salty.

The Emperor:

That's fair, Salty. But since this acquaintance of mine would not specify WHY she took the photos, I have to assume it's out of bad taste because people are dumber these days.

Like I stated in my last post, my aunt took pictures of my uncle after a big car wreck he was in. That's how people deal with things. Fine with me. I just don't think the neighbors have a prerogative to share in a family's tragedy by taking photos. That's all.

P.S. I see the melatonin isn't working tonight, Salty.

It works about as well as my perpetually unemployeed brother-in-law.

Actually, it does work pretty damn good, but I've got two massive new websites to populate over the next few days, bring in another 5000 addresses into database, start a new marketing campaign based on those new 5000, look up new avenues of print advertising, and start researching new turn-key T.V. advertising. I didn't even realize it was 3:45 am until I looked down there at the bottom right of my screen.

 Now to the fire, more than likely she's going to try and sell them to the local media outlets. TV and newspapers don't pay a lot, but they will pay if they don't have any photos of their own to air with the story. Unfortunately, there isn't a damn thing you can do to prevent her from doing it either.

Yeah, well, I have to deliver packages and shred papers at the campus post office at 8:30.

If she sells the photos to the media, then that's her business. I was just trying to prevent her from even taking the photo in the first place.

The Emperor:

Yeah, well, I have to deliver packages and shred papers at the campus post office at 8:30.

If she sells the photos to the media, then that's her business. I was just trying to prevent her from even taking the photo in the first place.

You know what's really messed up, if you did prevent her from taking the photos and she wasn't trespassing in doing so, she can take you to court over it. 99.9% of the time, she'll win too. There's reams of legal precedent protecting her rights to take those photos. Lots and lots of newspapers' attorneys made sure of that.

Salt, I have to agree with your first comment about "more than meets the eye".  Who knows why that girl took the photos.  Maybe she was doing it for all the right reasons.  We in nature are quick to judge the actions of others before we know their motives.  That's a huge human flaw.  However if she was taking those pictures for no good apparent reason other than she was fascinated by it, then shame on her.  Otherwise it's shame on us for condemning her without actually knowing the whole story.

The pictures have already been taken. There's nothing I can do about it but gripe. As the fire was happening, I was two and a half hours away to begin with.

And, Quickdraw, she won't tell me why she took the pictures. And what do I care? I'll still have my opinion on this matter. You'll still have yours. I just wanted to see if my perceptions were reflected by the general public or if I was out of touch with reality. It seems kind of mixed to me.

But, I mean, I've gotten all the milage I want out of this thread. You can lock it away and swallow the key if you want.

IMO the house was burning down either way....the fact that she was taking pictures in no way affected the outcome, or caused any greater loss to the victims of the fire, so I for one see nothing at all wrong or discourteous in her actions.....now if she posted them on her MySpace page and was making jokes about it or something it would be a bit different.

She might want to become a professional photographer, or she might just be a shutterbug.....if it were my house I'd be far too upset about the fire to worry about who was gawking/taking pics.

As for the violence in the movies/video games etc.......many cultures see this type of thing first hand, I've read stories from kids that were in Iraq during our first military actions there in the 90's and they talked about all kinds of gruesome things they witnessed first hand....I can't imagine what those people are going through that live there now.   We are so sheltered in this Country from so much of the violence, poverty etc. that so many other people around the World have to deal with every day that I think it is sometimes good for us to have to see it, and realize that we have it very, very good in this Country!

I recently watched a show where an American was talking about growing up "poor", and how they didn't have a nice car or television set.   One of the guests was from Ethopia and once she talked a little about growing up with kids combing the trash heaps to try to find scraps of food, or seeing children dying, starving to death along the side of the road, the American guest decided that maybe they didn't have it so bad after all!