Misuse of images of Roma can be obvious or slightly more subtle. In this excellent post Ciara Leeming analyses and protests against the misuse of her photographs of Roma individuals to illustrate stories about dishonest, even criminal, behaviour. She describes how appalled one Roma woman was to discover her photograph being used to illustrate a story about Roma squatters. Leeming’s story touches on some similar themes to those discussed in Chris’s post here. But in this case more is at stake:
For me this has been a real lesson. Of course it’s annoying when people lift your photos and use them without permission, ignoring your byline and infringing your copyright. But far more serious to me is what I see as the abuse of the very essence of my work and of Ramona’s image – I described it in my complaint emails as defamation through the use of photography, and I truly believe it is. I am going to have to be very attentive from now on about how my Roma work in particular is being used and abused.
I am CONVINCED that had the criminals and/or alleged benefits tourists in these three news stories been ethnic Romanian (for example) as opposed to ethnic Roma, very few people would think to use photographs in such an ill-judged way. Nowhere I have worked would we ever have used an identifiable photograph of some random person to illustrate a story about criminality committed by someone else simply because they happen to share an ethnicity….it would be big trouble if we did. So why is it ok to do so just because someone is Roma?
Read the whole piece here.