Moral Dilemma


This is an imaginary situation, but thinking about it will provide insights into your internal ethic proclivities.

The situation: You are in the Middle East, and there is a huge flood in progress. Many homes have been lost, water supplies compromised and structures destroyed.

Let's say that you're a photographer, like myself, getting still photos for a news service, traveling alone, looking for particularly poignant scenes.

You come across Osama Bin Laden who has been swept away by the floodwaters. He is barely hanging on to tree limb and is about to go under.

You can either put down your camera and save him, hoping to redeem and convert him, or take a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of him as he loses his grip on the limb.

So, here's the question, and think carefully before you answer it:

Which lens would you use?
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hhahahahahahah.... You had me until the very end !!! Thanks for the laugh.... : ) Sean
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I'd give him an f5.6 at a 250th followed by a sharp rap on the knuckles with the camera.
I'd be thinking to myself,"I hope that I have all the settings on the camera set correctly, click"
I can put down the camera and...
BRAKE THE TREE LIMB
because I'm an audiofile, not the photographer.
You know, you're all sick bastards! Why take a still shot when, if you used a camcorder, you could capture the terror in his eyes going under for the last time, knowing that he could never again harm another human being. God Bless...
I throw him an oxygen tank or life preserver, pull his sorry ass outta the water, AND THEN TAKE HIM HOME AND TORTURE HIM SLOWLY!!!

(Or did you mean convert him to audiophilia? Maybe that would be even worse!!) LOL!!
Lens: A telephoto. Because if I were to save him, he would get a grip on the longer, tele, lens. If again, I don't or cannot, I can get a better ("Pulitzer-prize") close-up.

My spontaneous reaction would be to save him: a) I probably couldn't watch a live being die, without doing smthing
b) saved, he can stand a bog-standard trial. I'd hate for him to benefit from the old paradox: "kill one man and you're a murderer. Kill 1000, and you become a hero".

As with Sean, you had me reading to end, though! :)
You pull Bin Laden out of the water,we preform a sex change operation on him and send him back toKabul in a miniskirt.
Use the lense that's sitting on top of your Smith and Wesson riffle. Here's a better option. Some of you may have heard this suggestion before, but if you didn't, capture the bastard, take him to Beverly Hills' best known plastic surgeon, having him changed into a woman, then drop his ass back into Afghanistan, where the Taliban can beat crap out of him...either that or stick him in the trunk of my BMW and turn up my car stereo with a Beastie Boys CD. Did I forget to mentioned that there are two 15" sub woofers is the trunk? The bass is deafening. If he's still alive after that, which I highly doubted, I'll make him listen to Diana Krall's Spanish version of Basame ;-)
I would throw him a line with a some Spam or if handy maybe a bit of fatty pork tied on the end "Oh Allah, why do you test me so?" Why should it be my moral dilemma? I would make it his. Of course the line would probably slip out of my hands the moment he grabs the line in the event he does. If he doesn't it will then be revealed he is a man of principle. At that point I'm sure I'll be fighting back the tears.

3chihuahuas There has been something going around our office similar to yours but shall we say a bit more extreme. It has something to do with a horny boar, Mr. Bin Laden and a camera. And of course a plane to drop the photos over the Afghanistan country side. Actually you really don't need Bin Laden, just some good editing skills. Could the Afghani's ever see him the same after that?
Now that is what I call a kodak moment. Thanks for the happy image. That makes my day :~)
No moral dilemma,take the shot shove a pork rind up his you know what and call it a day.
Break out your heaviest telephoto, take a couple of quick shots, then throw the lens to Bin. Like 3Chihuahuas, I'd like to see the bastard through the sights of my .45-70. Thanks for the Yuks Albert. Cheers. Craig
Thanks Albert, I NEEDED to finally chuckle over this situation. It's been tough here in NY. Mario