James Bardolph Photoblog

You may or may not have seen the above photo (minus the banana) in the gallery section, named ‘relax’. Since I’m putting her emails on this blog entry I’ve cleverly disguised her face with a giant killer banana so she can retain a degree of anonymity. Anyway, a friend of mine looked at the gallery, recognised her (they work for the same company) and told her she was famous. Not long after that I found this in my inbox:

This message was sent from:
http://www.t52.org/blog/contact/
————————————————————
Name of sender: \’relax\’
Email of sender: █████@█████.com
————————- COMMENTS ————————-

Message: Is it legal for you to do this? I feel violated and used. Please remove my photo at once as I neither gave you permission before you took it nor do I give you permission now to display it. The fact that I was in a public place does not denegrate the fact that this is an invasion of my privacy.

I replied with the following:

Hello,

May I ask why you feel ‘violated’ and why you feel ‘used’?

Yes of course it is legal for me to take a photo of someone and put it on a website. Why would you think it was illegal? What *would* be illegal is if you were a model and I was selling a photo featuring you without a model release form. Here, neither is the case; the photo is street photography. That’s not to say I will not honour your request; however before I do anything about that I’d like your thoughts on a few points.

A definition of street photography: ‘Street photography generally refers to photographs made in public places – not only streets, but parks, beaches, malls, political conventions and myriad other settings – often but not always featuring people going about their everyday lives’.

Please have a read of this document: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_photography

I’ve attached some other shots I’ve made of people on public transport; I’d like to know what you think of them.

It also should be noted that The Independent ran a photography competition in conjunction with Olympus; the results of which were released in today’s edition. Most of the winning photographs were street shots – a shot of a man in a barber shop through the window was just one of them.

What I’m trying to do here is introduce you to street photography. Street photography is about moments, and that makes it impossible to ask permission before taking a snap. If one is aware of the photographer making a picture then one’s behaviour can change, making the photograph not the intended depiction of life but more of a self portrait of the photographer him/herself (because of how the person(s) in the photograph react to the presence of the photographer).

As for you not giving me permission to display it – it’s my photograph. Again, that’s not to say I will not remove it at your asking. Before I act on your request I’d like to hear your thoughts on what I have said here.

Attached photos: this and this.

This is what she replied with the next morning.

First of all, I am a model, on the books of the ‘Ugly’ Agency. Furthermore, I write, and much of what I write is about people and things that I know well. I always change their names and disguise them slightly to protect them and ensure their privacy.

When I am on a bus reading, I do not expect my privacy to be invaded by a sneaky photo. It seems to me that street photography is another word for voyeur, but then I am from a different generation than you and appear to have a different set of morals about what I consider the rights of an individual and what constitutes Art.

 

I hope that, if you do consider yourself a photographer with a future, you will think about selecting subjects that may not have feelings to consider (like your goats) or at least ask their permission before using the photo anywhere.

I replied with:

Hello,

In regards to your model comment – What I was trying to say was that you are not modelling for my photograph. As for disguising people yes, sometimes it is appropriate; examples of times I would compose to conceal the identity would be if I were making photos of dead bodies, victims of genocide/rape and people in other situations where their identity is a sensitive subject.

Street photography is certainly not another term for voyeur! I meant to include some links in my last email to other examples of street photography but forgot.

Elliott Erwitt is one of my favourite photographers. You can see the photos from his book ‘snaps’ here: http://tinyurl.com/ywronf

Here is a flickr pool of street photography, by flickr users from many different walks of life. http://www.flickr.com/groups/streetmasterpieces/pool/

As for us being from different generations – street photography has been around since the early 1900s. I appreciate your thoughts but I think they would be different if you knew more / read up on the subject.

Being a model, I find it curious that you can be so sensitive about a photo of yourself; especially as you are simply reading a book, not doing something embarassing.

In any case I have removed the photograph from my website gallery.

Best wishes

James Bardolph

That was the last email I sent to her. One and a half weeks have passed since then so I assume she is not going to reply. Interesting & amusing conversation I thought.

Let me know if you agree/disagree with what either of us said.