Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Hi,

http://www.polville.com/index.php?body= ... 20091001_1

1. How would you frame this photo and why?

2. Would one need permission of the Subject to publish this photo based on Ontario law? Care to explain your stance.
- I don't think tatoos are cool but I think this one is an artistic expression.
- Subject's face is not visible but the tatoo can be used to identify the Subject as well as the face.
- Photo is taken on the grounds of the Toronto Zoo.

I would go with the first one with close up. The background (images of lesser crop) seems distracting



No need legally even if the face is shown as it was taken in a public area. As a matter of courtesy, I would withdraw if it is objected by the subject . Forget the legality.

Daniel

Second one is better as it's more about the person. The first one has higher contrast so the tattoo shows up better, why not increase the contrast of the tattoo in the second one?

No need of approval if it was taken in a public place.

+1 for withdrawing the image if requested.

exactly what Ryan said

Thanks for the pointers. I had three seconds to power up my camera and take this shot, so the subject is in the center. Now, I'm just trying to frame it in different ways but I realize don't have an eye for that...

No question about the request to withdraw. I'd certainly respect something like that. But here, we're not dealing with that particular person. The question is fairly general. Would you be allowed to publish a photo like this? Say you create a poster or you put it on a cover of a book... This seems to be a fairly complicated issue. I see many conflicting opinions on it. Some argue that a person in public still expect to be in a fairly 'private' situation... But www is full of wrong opinions and laws do differ from province to province. I remember reading about a photo of a girl sitting in front of a public building that was put on a book cover. The publisher didn't have the girl's permission to publish and lost the case. I don't remember where this would've happened and I have not checked other sources to verify if story is true but I take it as real. On top of this, there is the question of shooting and publishing a photo of an artwork. And last but not least, this was taken on the Toronto Zoo property. Would they have a claim if this photo was worth real money?

Anyone else care to provide input on this? Please note, this photo is only attached as an example of what's being discussed. The questions are about photographer's limits in general.

What is she doing that could be deemed to be private?

I don't know... But what was private about a girl sitting on the stairs of a public building..? Apparently, the publisher needed her consent to publish his photo. People own their faces. Maybe they own tattoos, as well... I was hoping to learn something here...

Where do you get that idea from? Because you're in a public place that means you can TAKE pretty much any picture you want to but it really has almost nothing to do with whether you can PUBLISH the image, what is much more important is the way you use the published image, there are completely different rules for photojournalism and commercial advertising, unfortunately in Ontario there are no cut and dried rules for fine art.

Someone going out in public does not in doing so waive their moral rights to their "image" and by image I don't mean only a face on identifiable picture of the person, if you can uniquely identify a person in any way including by their tattoos that's enough. There was a case a number of years ago in Ontario where someone sued because a picture of their silhouette was used in an ad, the person argued, and the courts agreed that there were aspects of his "unique style" discernible in the silhouette (if memory serves he was playing basketball and the ad was for a sports camp) and he won compensation based on the appropriation of his image for public purposes.

Here's the reality, you can take any picture you want, you can stick it on a gallery wall with very low risk of problems but actually publishing it formally I doubt you'll find a publisher or stock agency who isn't going to require a release.

Bytepusher the OP rephrased the question between when I answered and when you answered. If I publish a photo of a person's tattoo on flickr I would like to see them successfully sue me. If I sell that photo at a art show I would like to see them sue me and get any money out of the suit., thats still publishing it. Now a tattoo could be considered a copyrighted image so of course if I use it in a commercial venture they could possibly successfully sue me on that basis but the case law for your example of silhouette is far off a tattoo and the OP original question about personally publishing it. In the case of the silhoutte I would guess they didn't sue the original photographer but the company that used the photograph for commercial purposes.

There are cut & dried rules for Fine Art. It's only with Commercial Use where you have to worry about releases and such, Fine Art falls under editorial use (Except in Quebec, which operates under Civil Law which gives far more control over an individual's image to said individual). The example you cite is clear commercial use, the only ambivalence there was on exactly what constitutes 'identifiable'.

Any Stock Agency will require a release, that's blatant Commercial Use. Publisher's won't for an art book or magazine (Aside from advertising in the magazine), will for pretty much anything else.