To pay or not to pay?

Great post by Jack Picone, full post published here,

My personal approach in photographing in socially sensitive situations is to shoot candid moments first (because I am well practiced people often don’t know I have photographed them but it is more then that it is also that this is where the most uncorrupted and beautiful moments can be documented) and this is where some of the most poetic images are to be found. I don’t feel like it is stealing something or deceiving anybody, I simply feel I am making a photograph and documenting social history, something we all part of and something I have not objected to when I have had the camera turned in my direction. I will shoot first, then I will join people strike a rapport with them and wait to they are comfortable with me being there and continue to make images in a fluid way.

Sometimes this can happen vice versa as well. One has to remember there are many situations where people really want you there to document their lives which sounds great but often this has its own layers of disadvantage as well.