[Leica] How would you respond?

[Ken Carney]

Ted, as usual, has the correct answer.  Someone (Occam?) said that the 
simplest solution is the best.  Or something like that.

Ken

On 6/20/2015 7:29 PM, Ted Grant wrote:
> Bob Baron's reply:
> Subject: Re: [Leica] How would you respond?
>
>>>>>>>>>> "I thought you would like to know some idiot is sending out libelous and
> slanderous emails over your signature. You'd better alert your lawyer because I've alerted mine." <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
> Hi Bob,
> A perfectly legal response without putting your own foot in "DEEP DO-DOO!"
>
> My own wasn't quite so kindly! As it required the use of a "Very well made baseball bat and knees!"  Quietly in the dark alley behind the museum building!" Oh yeah at midnight!
>
> Dr. ted  :-)
>
> =============================================================
>>  From the "Most outrageous letter to a photographer from a museum ever?"
>> files.
>>
>> Documentary photographer Chris Arnade (
>> http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-arnade-photos-of-bronx-addicts-2013-12)
>> found out today that one of his photographs is being included (without his
>> consent) in the exhibit ““Altered Images: 150 Years of Posed and
>> Manipulated Documentary Photography” at the Bronx Documentary Center. They
>> let him know by sending him this email which I’m pretty sure is quite
>> possibly the most outrageous unsolicited letter ever sent to an artist from
>> a museum (this all Via Chris Arnade’s tumblr, arnade.tumblr.com) -- how
>> would you react?
>>
>>
>>
>> Chris
>>
>> Apologies for the late email, we are putting together a show on short
>> notice and just finalizing the lineup.
>>
>> On Saturday we will open up our Altered Images exhibition, which examines
>> posed, faked or manipulated documentary photography. A number of people had
>> suggested we include your work of substance abusers and sex workers.  We
>> have reviewed your work.  You qualify on a number of levels and will be
>> included.
>>
>> You admit to paying your subjects, which violates one of the most closely
>> held tenets of documentary photography. Paying to photograph any person,
>> particularly one dependent upon drugs, and even driving them to buy drugs,
>> as you say you have done, is a clear breach of ethics and standards.
>>
>> I see that you say claim, in interviews, an exemption from journalistic
>> and documentary standards by saying you are not a journalist.  Yet you
>> publish your photos in the Guardian, one of the world’s most prestigious
>> media outlets.  Ethical guidelines apply.
>>
>> A key guideline of the National Press Photographers Assn reads: “Treat all
>> subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable
>> subjects.”
>>
>> Your photos of sex workers, some addicted to drugs, some with mental
>> health issues and/or severely emotionally abused, exposing their breasts or
>> bent naked over a bed, are a breach of this standard.  The fact that you
>> also publish these photos on Flickr, to be gawked at by thousands, raises
>> further ethical issues too numerous to address here.
>>
>> Briefly, people who are paid by you, under the influence of drugs or
>> mentally impaired (and in many cases have little understanding of The
>> Guardian or Flickr), clearly do not have the ability to give informed
>> consent to their photos being used as you have done.
>>
>> We will include a caption under your photo outlining these ethical
>> breaches.  If you so choose, you can send us up to two paragraphs in
>> response and we will give it equal weight next to our caption.
>>
>> I’m ccing our lawyer, Don Dunn, in case you have any legal issues you
>> choose to raise.
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone plz excuse the typoss keyb0ard is reaLly small.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
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