Getting leery of Web’s ability to leer at vaulter

On my honeymoon a lifetime or two ago, we were in a Taiwan tour bus and snapping pictures of life on the streets of Taipei. Someone on the bus -- maybe the tour guide -- said something that caught me off guard: The locals didn’t like being photographed, believing that a snapshot took something from them they could never get back.

A little part of their soul, as I recall the conversation.

That was 30 years ago, and it seems a bit preposterous in this Internet age to talk about maintaining someone’s privacy, let alone their soul. This is global village time, and from what I hear, it’s supposed to be a good thing.

It wouldn’t occur to me to take video of myself lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, then sending it out to a potential worldwide audience, but that just shows you how un-hip I am. I don’t even have what it takes to do such a thing -- no digital camera, no USB cable, no home computer and no membership on a social networking site.

Talk about your dweebs.

Still, photographing yourself for worldwide viewing is one thing.

Using a photograph of someone else for global transmission, without their knowledge and only because they’re a good-looking 18-year-old woman, is an invasion.

What prompts my soliloquy is our story Saturday about an accomplished pole vaulter at Newport Harbor High School in Newport Beach. Turns out she’s been photographed at track meets by someone who had the tools of the trade: a camera and a website.

At the time the story ran, the YouTube internet site where the photos were displayed had received nearly 200,000 viewings. Blogs around the world had access to her photos.

I realize it seems completely ridiculous not to give you the student’s name, because it’s already been in the paper and she’s been checked out in her track togs from various corners of the globe.

Hey, call me old-fashioned.

You also may accuse me of the rankest hypocrisy, given that I work for a newspaper that photographs people all the time, and I will take on your charge.

We’ve certainly photographed good-looking 18-year-olds before. And if someone is competing at a high school track meet, they are possible subjects for a photographer’s lens.

But that’s news. We don’t photograph someone for jollies.

This young woman’s photographs weren’t disseminated globally as a how-to for pole vaulters.

But even in a small circle of office mates last week, there was disagreement over whether to write about it. A couple of us balked, given her age. But another colleague argued that photos of her already had been viewed at least 200,000 times, so we would be justified in writing about the phenomenon.

And Times reporter Diane Pucin did just that, detailing the athlete’s unwitting venture into worldwide visibility.

Pucin handled it well, without a suggestion of exploitation. In a way, she showed that writing about something in straightforward fashion -- even if distasteful to some readers -- is probably better than pretending something doesn’t exist.

And it was heartening to read that the young woman and her family are wary but not paranoid after the prospect of having her name and photograph making the worldwide rounds.

The woman told Pucin she tries to let the vulgar comments that inevitably find their way into such viewing venues “roll off my shoulders,” but went on to say that being leered at over a computer “is a little creepy and a little scary.”

Not all that long ago, you’d never hear a lament like that from teenagers. Their problems didn’t include being looked at by strangers thousands of miles away.

Yes, creepy is the word. We’re not talking about Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, who make a living out of being photographed and leered at.

We’re talking about a high school student being web-whacked.

Perhaps I protest too much. This is the world we live in. Electronic marvels abound.

No doubt, the young woman is much hipper to this kind of stuff than I am.

And, sad to say, whoever launched her image into cyberspace probably thinks he did a service for humankind. Hey, what’s wrong with circulating a photo of a shapely pole vaulter? He’s probably wondering what all the fuss is about.

He captured a little bit of her soul, and he ain’t giving it back.