[Leica] How would you respond?

[Nathan Wajsman]

But isn’t libel only libel if the allegations are untrue?

Cheers,
Nathan

Nathan Wajsman
Alicante, Spain
http://www.frozenlight.eu <http://www.frozenlight.eu/>
http:// <http://www.greatpix.eu/>www.greatpix.eu
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws <http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws>Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/ <http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/>
Cycling: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator <http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator>
YNWA













> On 21 Jun 2015, at 02:05, Robert Baron <robertbaron1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> "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."
> 
> On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 6:47 PM, Kyle Cassidy On The LUG <
> leicaslacker at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> 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.
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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> 
> _______________________________________________
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