Several photographers noted that subjects’ consent, in this case, was often hard to get as the media were frequently cordoned off behind police lines. Said Carolyn Cole, a New York-based, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for the Los Angeles Times: “When I arrived [at the crime scene], it was evident that everything was in lockdown. I wasn’t going to have to make a decision [about whether to ask first or shoot first]. The decision was made for me before I arrived there because it was all blocked off.” Cole relied heavily on her long lenses.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Ed Hille, too, largely used long lenses last week — both out of necessity and, he said, in an effort to be respectful. In the first hours after the news broke, Hille shot an image of a group of Amish men gathered around a police car. “I shot this picture of these Amish gentlemen with a long lens because I tried to put myself in the subjects’ shoes here. I tried not to be intrusive. I tried to back off and see what I could get.”

All of the photographers we spoke to stressed that the Amish, generally, did not react negatively to their presence or ask them to stop taking pictures. Said the Inquirer’s Hille, “I only heard of one [Amish] person, at least the first couple of days, who said, ‘Don’t take my picture.’” The Times’ Cole described one situation where she photographed an Amish woman on her porch — from afar, with a long lens — and then “approached her and asked her if it was okay if I got her name. She wasn’t interested in giving me her name.” But, Cole said, “I didn’t have anyone sort of turn their back on me or react as if they were uncomfortable or irritated. I didn’t feel a real negative response from the people in that community.” Cole contrasted this experience with the Columbine school shooting, which she also covered. “Columbine could not have been more different. It was just a very, very negative media experience. So much so that the funerals we covered the students themselves would go to every measure to block our view, basically tell us to go away, we were kept at a far distance, same as this … There was a clear response from the community of Columbine that media was not welcome … I didn’t feel that here.”

On this point Jackie Larma, a Philadelphia-based AP photo editor who oversaw the wire service’s photographic coverage of the Nickel Mines shooting, said, “I asked [the photographers], ‘Did anyone object?’ Nobody had. It was probably because they were in shock, but there was no word of ‘Stop shooting me’ or whatever. No objection was verbalized to the photographers. I think it was the circumstances.” But, adds the Inquirer’s Hamrick, because the media were often “held back several hundred yards … there wasn’t necessarily the random contact and interaction with the people that would allow them to express frustration toward us.”

Given the sheer size of the media extravaganza that cropped up in and around Nickel Mines last week — much of it consisting of out-of-state journalists with little to no experience working among the Amish — there was sure to be some bad behavior.

Said the Intelligencer Journal’s Marschka, “The national media are generally ignorant of the [Amish] culture, other than that they dress differently and ride in horses and buggies.” The AP’s Kaster elaborated: “Any person with a beard or a buggy was considered Amish [by the media at large] — ‘Oh my gosh, they have a beard! They must be Amish!’ A Pennsylvania Dutchman who is married has a beard. He might be Mennonite. He might be Amish … I never took for granted that someone was Amish.”

Marschka, who observed “some metros and wire photographers trying to find a way around to the perimeter of the cemetery, to get past the state police,” said, “It does make me flinch that some photographers are insensitive to the point where they’re possibly taking pictures that don’t really matter.” He added, “It’s tough. I’m almost embarrassed sometimes for my profession in a time like this, but it’s also a conflict because I know we have to report what happens, it’s a news event, but a clash of cultures is what it ends up being. We deal with it one day at a time, one photograph at a time.”

Locally based photographers like Marschka and Kaster had, of course, incentives — beyond simple human decency and respect — to tread carefully. “I live there,” Kaster said. “I have to go back there. If I act like a big jerk, they’re going to know my car, and they’re not going to be open to my presence. Because it’s a small world.”

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