A female photographer friend of mine sent me a link to a blog by a relatively popular male photographer who I know but have only met once in person. The blog included an image of a volleyball player from the Olympics taken at a very intimate angle with commentary that was vulgar and extremely off-putting.

As the female photographer and I were exchanging messages about how offensive his post was, I figured I had some choices.

1. This other photographer and I could continue getting ourselves worked up over all the reasons why the photographer's image was so upsetting to us.

2. I could take to the internet and call out the photographer for being a pervert, ensure it was seen by his credential sponsor and try to make anyone who might read my post feel a disgust for this photographer.

But hey, what about a third option

3. I know this photographer, he's a father, he seems like a decent man. He likely posted the photo with the crass remark because he thought it was funny, not because he's predator. So I emailed him directly and privately, made my case and expresses myself in a way that didn't attack him and allowed the space for it to be a misstep of poor judgement that can be remedied, no hard feelings.

Even though I used somewhat aggressive language, describing the image as "vulgar" to convey how much I felt the image violated the athlete, threatened  all photographer's credential status and was generally in poor taste, I tried to emphasize that it was not an attack on him personally and just want my feelings to resonate with him.

I felt an obligation to the female community, the photographer community, and humanity to speak up, but not to necessarily speak OUT. In this scenario, I felt I would get more traction by having this private conversation.

In a way, instead of saying in a public room "YooHoo, you're fly is down" it's casually pulling them aside and saying "just wanted to let you know your fly is down".

This implies the photographer would be receptive to my concerns and I'm very pleased that he was. He replied kindly explaining what lead to the misstep in judgement and actually thanking me for bringing it to his attention and that the photo had been removed.

After such a positive experience, I am left with the take away, when someone or something upsets you, it doesn't serve you well to let it fester, it doesn't serve you or them well to put them on blast, and we can make a lot of progress (with rational people) by being clear and direct.

Have you had a similar experience? How did it go over? Any further ideas on how to more respectfully express ourselves?