[Leica] Photojournalists and permission

[feli2 at earthlink.net (Feli)]

On Apr 19, 2005, at 4:30 PM, Karen Nakamura wrote:

> Steve -
>
> So your wonderful OR photos or Tinas photos are all what?
>
>  Eugene Smith?  James Nachtewey? They all work with the consent of the 
> photographed.


I'm pretty sure that Nachtwey doesn't ask combatants to stop shooting 
at him, so
he can first ask them for permission to take their picture. If he does, 
he must be quite
a multilingual talent and bullet proof to boot.

For obvious reasons Smith had an agreement with the man in the "Country 
Doctor" essay for LIFE magazine. He literally lived with the fellow for 
a week or so and probably even tried to follow him in to his bathroom. 
Obviously you are not going to get that kind of access without 
permission. Same for the Albert Schweitzer story, although I would be 
willing to bet my M4 that the only person whom he had an agreement with 
was Schweitzer himself and none of the other individuals pictured. Have 
you ever seen  "Drama Beneath a Window"? Smith shot it from his loft 
window with tele-photo lenses. (talk about 'sneaky'!) I highly doubt 
that he stormed downstairs and chased each person down the street, so 
he could introduce himself and ask them if they minded that he taken 
their picture.

When people used to confront Winogrand shooting on the streets of New 
York he would boom "YOUR picture!? It's MYYYYYY picture!!!"


>  You can do documentary photography with the consent and permission of 
> the photographed without only having to do posed portraiture. Is that 
> such a hard concept to comprehend?

I'm sorry, but you are really on the wrong track with this. You don't 
always need permission. Following your rules, I don't see how you can 
make shots that are true to life and I think you are setting yourself 
up for trouble. Sooner or later you are going to
ask some hypersensitive, paranoid nut job for permission and that may 
end up being a real Pandora's box.


>
> Karen Nakamura
________________________________________________________
feli2@earthlink.net                     2 + 2 = 4                      
www.elanphotos.com