[Leica] How would you respond?

[kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner)]

Now that?s a damn good question. I can?t wait to see the responses from the 
professionals or ex-professionals among you.

Cheers,

Herb

Herbert Kanner
kanner at acm.org
650-326-8204

Question authority and the authorities will question you.




> On Jun 20, 2015, at 4:47 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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