Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at IIT

Photographer's Code of Ethics

A guide for ethical business dealings, protecting the profession, the photographer, vendors, employees, subjects, clients and colleagues.

• Responsibility to Colleagues

• Responsibility to Subjects

• Responsibility to Clients

• Responsibility to Employees & Suppliers

• Responsibilities of the Photojournalist

Responsibility to Colleagues and the Profession

1. Maintain a high quality of service and a reputation for honesty and fairness.

2. Oppose censorship and protect the copyrights and moral rights of other creators.

3. Never advance one's own interests at the expense of the profession.

4. Foster fair competition based on professional qualification and merit.

5. Never deliberately exaggerate one's qualifications nor misrepresent the authorship of work presented in self-promotion.

6. Never engage in malicious or deliberately inaccurate criticism of the reputation or work of another photographer.

7. Negotiate licensing agreements that protect the historical balance between usage fees and rights granted.

8. Never offer nor accept bribes, kickbacks, or other unethical inducements.

9. Never conspire with others to fix prices, organize illegal boycotts, nor engage in other unfair competitive practices.

10. Refuse agreements that are unfair to the photographer.

11. Never undertake assignments in competition with others for which payment will be received only if the work is accepted.

12. Never enter commercial competitions in which usage rights are transferred without reasonable fees.

13. Donate time for the betterment of the profession and to advise entry level photographers.

Responsibility to Subjects

1. Respect the privacy and property rights of one's subjects.

2. Never use deceit in obtaining model or property releases.

Responsibility to Clients

1. Conduct oneself in a professional manner, and represent a client's best interests within the limits of one's professional responsibility.

2. Protect a client's confidential information; ASMP assistants should likewise maintain confidentiality of the photographer's proprietary information.

3. Accurately represent to clients the existence of model and property releases for photographs.

4. Stipulate a fair and reasonable value for lost or damaged photographs.

5. Use written contracts and delivery memos with a client, stock agency, or assignment representative.

6. Consider an original assignment client's interests with regard to allowing subsequent stock use of that work by the client's direct competition, absent an agreement allowing such use.

Responsibility to Employees and Suppliers

1. Honor one's legal, financial, and ethical obligations toward employees and suppliers.

2. Never take unfair advantage of one's position as employer of models, assistants, employees, or contract labor.

Responsibility of the Photojournalist

1. Photograph as honestly as possible, provide accurate captions, and never intentionally distort the truth in news photographs.

2. Never alter the content or meaning of a news photograph, and prohibit subsequent alteration.

3. Disclose any alteration and manipulation of content or meaning in editorial feature or illustrative photographs and require the publisher to disclose that distortion or any further alteration.

© 1993 American Society of Media Photographers