Re: Model Releases

["Harold Gess" <gess@icon.co.za>]

Hi Luggers

Ah, Carl, and you think you've got it bad! Try this one for size. 

I live and work in Africa. Now picture this. 

Intrepid Harold the photographer, jaded by one corporate shoot too many,
decides to go on a journey to remind himself why he got into photography in
the first place...to see interesting things, observe and meet interesting
people, etc .. and of course to photograph them. So, he gets an airticket
and arranges to fly to Namibia. From the capital, Windhoek, he charters a
plane and flies north to Owamboland where the people still live a
semi-nomadic cattle-herding life.  There he hires a 4x4 and sets off for
the great beyond where he takes numerous photos of the good rural people
going about their daily business. He also flies back south and goes to find
some of the San people (previously known as Bushmen) going about their
stone-age hunter-gatherer life.

Now, upon return from this trip, Intrepid Harold goes to his esteemed stock
agency who look at the pics and say ooh and aah, these are very very
nice...now where are the model release forms!!!

Despondent Harold now attempts very politely to point out that the subjects
cannot read, cannot write, cannot speak any western language, do not have a
signature, and have never seen a legal document in their lives (nor for
some of them a camera or a photo). The agency quietly shake their heads and
send Harold on his way.

So, you see model releases are sometimes a complete pain in the proverbial
arse.

Best wishes

Harold


- ----------
> From: Carl Socolow <csocolow@microserve.net>
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: Model Releases

> My question concerns my personal work with my Leicas where I'm wandering
> doing street photography. This evening I was doing candids at a local
> Independence Day street fair and the other evening at a local fireman's
> carnival. In both cases people were not aware they were being
> photographed. Especially the large woman with the crosses tatooed on her
> forearms smoking a cigarette. I would like to eventually post them to a
> web page of personal work and possibly publish them in a book. My
> personal work is well-received by friends and acquaitances who encourage
> me to have a show, sell them, publish them, etc. Can I do this without
> releases?