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Posted on 08/28/2005 12:48:46 PM PDT by Coleus
It is, everyone agrees, a beautiful picture.
The subject, Erno Nussenzweig, is an 84-year-old retired diamond merchant who lives on a quiet block in Union City and spends his days reading the Torah.
The photographer, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, has filled some of the world's top galleries with his work and also has published several books.
Four years ago, their worlds unwittingly collided in Times Square, when diCorcia discreetly photographed Nussenzweig, who was wearing a black, wide-brimmed hat and buttoned overcoat. It is a simple but haunting picture.
The photo went into a book that has since sold out, and diCorcia has sold several prints for $20,000 apiece.
Then, Nussenzweig learned about the picture this spring and launched a court battle that poses an intriguing question: Which is more important, art or privacy?
His $1.6 million lawsuit, filed last month in New York, also has created an uproar in the photographic world where the street traditionally is fair game and a subject's permission typically isn't needed.
The players in the case are almost as striking as the photograph itself.
On one side is Nussenzweig, a member of an obscure Hasidic sect, with his lawyer, Jay Goldberg, whose clients have ranged from Donald Trump to P. Diddy.
On the other side are diCorcia and his attorney, Lawrence Barth - the former art director of the New York Times Magazine, now a specialist in art and media cases for the powerful Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson.
"This case is about no less than the right to artistic expression," Barth said, "which is why a lot of people will be watching."
Goldberg, while acknowledging diCorcia is a "renowned artist," says the photographer doesn't have the right to do anything he wants with someone else's image.
"We're not objecting to the picture.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
This should be interesting.
No release...the old guy should have some interest.
Just my take.
Yes, street pictures have always been free game.
What fool would pay $20k for that? I don't see it.
First of all, I am an amatuer freelance photographer.
The photographer should have tried to get a release if he was going to use his image for profit.
He took the man's picture for a reason. If he wants to profit from whatever quality this man provided for him, cut him in.
(I always wanted to say that...)
At best - that's melodrama. Worst - pure exploitation.
The poor guy was minding his own business, and this pretentious turd comes along with a camera thinking "How quait! A Jew!"
Artists' ego. Is there a humble one in the whole profession?
20 grand?? Hell for that kind of money, the old guy would probably come live with ya!
There was a coffee-table picture book published in the 1960's, "Exodus Revisited" which contained some photographs of my relatives (who live in an "ultra-Orthodox" neighborhood in Jerusalem) with very unflattering captions.
How do I get in touch with this lawyer?
For example, consider the following: In the future, it is almost certain that it will be possible to extract visual information from the human brain, and that human brains will be technologically enhanced to both perfect memory and to translate both memory and the sensoria into the digital domain. If the plaintiff wins and the precedent thus created stands, it will eventually mean that we will have to avoid looking at anyone who objects (or doesn't explicitly grant permission,) even in public places.
That guy didn't know his picture was being taken? Just re-enforces more negative steroetypes if ya ask me.(Lawyers, I mean. What were *YOU* thinking???)
This is one of those things where it's impossible to take a side. On one hand, random people are always photographed. And This is how photographers make money, they capture people events and things and sell their pictures. But then again isn't that other person is entitled to his own image. I wouldn't want someone to take a picture of me and plaster it all over the place.
It's hard to argue an expectation of privacy for someone out on the street.
I think the old guy is going to get all the bucks.
The issue isn't privacy ~ it's business ~ the old guy wants a piece of it.
It would be fair to cut the old guy in on the profits but I am concerned about the precedent that might be set by a favorable judgment.
Would it become impossible, for example, to photograph anti-war demonstrators on the street? In general, this is considered a newsworthy event and does not require the subject's permission, but would moonbats then apply such a ruling to limit such photos to what they and the courts would define as "legitimate" media organizations? What about photographing their preparations and other candid moments away from the demos but still on public property? The latter type of image has been very valuable in exposing these people for who they are. Think about it.
I don't think we want any more court-ordered limitations or definitions than we already have. There is no right to privacy on a public street. That is simple. Anything else will lead to court rulings on what is newsworthy and what isn't, and who is a journalist and who isn't. The institutional media and their supporters would dearly love to have such rulings.
It's not 'artistic expression.' It's commerce.
If I photograph a home run shot at Yankee stadium do I have to write 56,000 checks?
Well, well, well....mark down this date. For the first time in FreeRepublic history, you and I agree on something!!!!! :)
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