"In 1999 Philip-Lorca diCorcia set up his camera on a tripod in Times Square, attached strobe lights to scaffolding across the street and, in the time-honored tradition of street photography, took a random series of pictures of strangers passing under his lights." - New York Times
My 83 year old dad cut the article out from the Times and sent it to me with a note, "thought you would find this interesting." At least ten people e-mailed me links to the article.
The gist of the article is that Philip-Lorca took a series of long-lens shots of people walking under his strobe lights and then had a show of the "heads."
An orthodox Jew saw his head shot in the show's catalog and sued the photographer on the grounds of invasion of privacy - and the fact that his religion forbad the worshop of graven images - or something like that.
The case went through the usual channels and wound up at - state supreme court - where it was thrown out.
That, anyway - is my understanding of the case.
The article in the Times (and maybe it has appeared in other venues) included a reproduction of the complainent - Erno Nussenzweig's head.
"Neale Albert, the lawyer who represented Pace/ MacGill, said the case surprised him: 'I have always believed that the so-called street photographers do not need releases for art purposes. In over 30 years of representing photographers, this is the first time a person has raised a complaint against one of my clients by reason of such a photograph.'"
The decision confirmed that street photography - being an art form - was protected by the constitution.
Link to article.
Several thoughts ran through my mind:
1) The reach of the New York Times is astounding.
2) Erno Nussenzweig complained that his religious rights had been violated in that his religion forbad the use of graven images.
- Does Mr. Nussenzweig have a driver's license with his photo on it? And if so - isn't this also a violation of his religion?
- I thought (silly me) that the worshop of graven images was forbidden, not the taking of photographs.
- Could the New York Times be sued for reproducing Mr. Nussenzweig's head shot?
3) So many people have written to me over the years asking whether I got model releases from strangers photographed on the street. This would be a good case to cite.
4) What would happen if a less-financially solvent photographer (myself as an example) were sued. Instant poverty?
5) Since "big brother" security cameras are now all over the place - citizens are being photographed all the time. Since these photographs are not for artistic reasons - wouldn't that make a better case?
6) There is no "time-honored tradition" of photographing strangers with a long lens and strobe lights. Where is the intimacy? Where is the time-honored tradition of fragments that coalesce at just the right moment?
7) How exactly did Erno Nussenzweig discover this shot of himself in a photographic catalog? I find it hard to believe that he's on the subscription list for the Pace gallery?
8) Mr Nussenzweig has substantially increased the price for Mr. diCorcia's work. I wish someone would sue me - but only if it got the same sort of publicity. Perhaps I should set up a long lens rig outside Mr. Nusenzweig's house.
At any rate - the idea that using a long lens and strobe lights to do street photography is a "time-honored tradition" is nonsense.
This photographic technique has more in common with the big-brother security cameras that are now omnipresent than with traditional street photography. And street photography is not time-honored. Walker Evans put off showing his series of subway close-ups for many years because he was afraid of being sued.
I noticed that Mr. Nussenzweig's image was not shown in the online New York Times version - but was in the print edition. I wonder how many New York Times lawyers it took to make that decision.
I think that when I have the time, I'll scan Mr. Nussenzweig's photograph from the print version and photoshop it into my picture with the monkey on the train. That would take this case to a whole nother level. Let me check first with my own battery of lawyers.
3 comments:
Yeah, I saw this (probably in the NYT online edition) a month or so ago.
Nussenzweig is way off base talking about graven images. I have seen hundreds of photos taken at gatherings of torah scholars - for example, I'm on the mailing list of the famous Ner Tamid Yeshiva in Baltimore - their newsletter *always* has photos of recent events, full of photos of rabbis that anyone would agree are paradigms of Torah observance. And... after all, how many "official" photos have we seen of the Lubavicher Rebbe over the years.
And of course, you can't "invade someone's privacy" when he's walking aobut in the public domain.
On the other hand, I don't see how this has anything to do with the "reach of the NYT." It's a local story that would be covered by the Jimmy Olsen-type cub reporter of a newspaper in any large city.
To me, what is astounding about the NYT is how far it has fallen in terms of journalistic standards since the Old Days when my greatest pleasure was to buy the Sunday Times, take it to Bagel Nosh on 1st Ave, and spend hours with it, coffee, & bagels.
Two page-one stories that had to be retracted in one month (the "Time Abu Geraib Cover Photo guy" and the "Katrina Victim woman" stories) is not the NYT I remember. I still read the Times almost every day, but with a very big grain of salt.
with regard to 4) and jeffk's remark (I think jeffk is absolutely right) - this is what I totally don't get about our legal system.
Why didn't the judge in the court of original jurisdiction throw this case out at the preliminary hearing stage. It seems as if there is nothing to debate.
In this case, I can't see any valid issue of privacy or any way the plaintiff could say the photo held him up to public ridicule, etc.
I often find myself thinking this same thing when I hear about certain cases in the news - "why wasn't this thrown out of court on day 1??"
Why should someone like our Dave, or anyone else doing street photography, even have to *worry* about something like this??
I'm just a simple computer weenie/former engineer. What am I missing? Can someone with some knowledge of the law enlighten me??
The main reason the suit occured is that Dicorcia was able to sell out a small edition of prints featuring this man at $20,000 a pop! Several hunderd thousand dollars were realized by this awesome picture. This image is obviously one of the greatest photographs ever taken and should be hung next to Paul Strand's 1916 masterpiece "Blind Woman"
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