3 kitten photos / but is it moral to post them??

I'm not sure if the excessive posting of kitten photos reveals some kind of frantic desire for control on my part? Rather than photographing the world outside, I photograph my own little microcosm?

I suppose it is an issue of control in at least one sense; the control of an individual person over photographs of themselves. I mentioned in my dance festival post that it's a very touchy point just to photograph locals, much less use those photos in a public arena. Kittens, at least, don't mind if their photo is on the internet. Other people... well, that's a different story. I've only started to think seriously about this in the past year, as a result of being here in D'kar and learning just how big an issue it is to the people. There's a huge amount of suspicion and resentment towards tourists who show up, snap a bunch of photos, and leave without giving anything in return. There's an unreasonable paranoia that the tourists will use the photos for profit, which isn't usually the case, but sometimes true; and also a highly justifiable anger about being objectified as Traditional Tribal Zoo Animals. In a more general sense, however - do we have the right to own images of ourselves?

Back at home, people are running around TRYING to get strangers to photograph them - mugging for party photographers, street style bloggers, and so on - it seems that everyone wants a bite of reality TV fame. But those photos are (for the most part) taken and used with consent. In a foreign country, tourists often photograph the people around them, never asking for permission. Why? Awkwardness, timidity, fear of the foreign language, but also thoughtlessness and just plain old arrogance. Though the people photographed may never know what happens to their images afterwards, and it may never in a material sense affect them, do we have some abstract moral right over images of ourselves?

What if that image will be taken out of context? A man with a job at Komku, for example, who uses his email address to keep in touch with a friend in London, and likes reading the newspaper, may have his photo presented in a family slideshow or a church get-together back in America as a tribal savage of some kind. Look at the tiny ears! And those shoes, held together with duct tape... and the funny hair? Yeah, they were all like that... Or perhaps the photo will be used for profit, on a brochure to advertise tours of the area or as part of a photographer's portfolio. Should the individual be compensated? At the very least, should they be informed of the uses their photograph may go towards - should their permission be asked?

If we do have a moral right to control images of ourselves, is that right a modern, legal right - a product of this new age of information-obsession and copyright laws, in which an image may easily be reproduced a million times onto a million screens and make its owner rich? - or is it a product of a more age-old instinct, that to take someone's photo is to take their soul, to gain power over a part of them?

I don't really have an answer for this, and I have to get back to banging out spreadsheets for the Huiku study tour, but that question is part of the reason (along with my own neurotic craving for control over some part of my life, I'm sure) that I post photos of kittens rather than photos of other people. Kittens don't care, nor do they - as far as my reasoning and ethics go, anyhow - have any moral right over images of themselves.

... or do they? Just kidding ...