Photo Exhibits
Q:"Does an art exhibition, or photo exhibition, fall into the editorial category? I am creating a photo essay of dancers.
This is definitely a gray area, depending on usage of photos. For editorial usage, this concerns your First Amendment Rights, which allow you to publish or exhibit photos you take in places open to the public, and at public events.
There are further details about model releases in the Kracker Barrel Archives. All of it, like all legal matters, is open to interpretation. My comments on the subject of model releases are always directed to the use of your photos in editorial situations, i.e. to inform, educate, or entertain (not to endorse or advertise or be associated with a commercial product or event).
A community art show or photo exhibit is not unlike your local newspaper publishing a feature photo in its Home Life section, or on its website, and falls into the editorial category.
The real test of this question about whether you should be trying to get a release for such photos of children at dance class is whether a book, newspaper, or magazine (the basic customers of editorial photographers) who would publish the photos would be the target of a legal case brought by a parent. Over my forty years of observing editorial stock photography-- it rarely happens that a parent objects at their child's picture being published or exhibited - unless the picture is very unflattering or puts the child in a sensitive light. No attorney on a contingency basis would ever accept a case unless real invasion of privacy is the concern.
Our USA First Amendment covers this issue.
Frivolous lawsuits of this nature used to happen, it seems, more often in earlier years, the 70's and 80's. You'd think it would happen more now-- what with all the sensitivity and fear that's prevalent in our society these days. It may be that stock photographers have become gun-shy. They believe that they will get "grief" if they photograph people engaged in public activity and then exhibit the photos at a show but fail to get a model release.
What's the result if you, as a stock photographer, photographing in the area of child development, domestic violence, social issues, child abuse, child safety, child welfare, etc. - if you don't capture poignant scenes of what's happening in your community? The other side wins. The pictures are not published and corporate or governmental interests who would wish you didn't expose their blemishes would be happy.
Eugene Smith, Henri-Cartier Bresson, Margaret Bourke-White, never walked around with a model release pad in their pocket.
It's the publisher who gets in trouble when an irresponsible art director uses a picture in an insensitive way in the magazine's layout, that perhaps distorts the true situation. In other words, your neighbor's child's picture is used in a story about teenage gambling. Then a parent could rightfully take that publisher to court, and win - if the implication is not true.
Regards a neighborhood art show or photography exhibit, when in doubt, apply the Golden Rule. Ask yourself, "does this picture embarrass a friend or neighbor?" If it does, you might choose not to exhibit it.
True, there are always extenuating circumstances, and different interpretations of the law in different parts of the country. You can run up against a burly security guard demanding that you not take pictures in his shopping mall. Well, it so happens that's where you're going to find excellent subject matter on the subject of community life. If a security guard at a public place attempts to take your film or camera or even hassle you unnecessarily, a call to the police on your cell phone would not be out of order, even perhaps to arrest the guard for attempted theft of your camera.
By the way, be sure to carry around a "Bust Card" in your camera bag. It's available in PDF form at http://archive.aclu.org/library/bustcard.html. It outlines your rights as a citizen, and is a reminder you can show to a security guard or policeman.
To be hesitant about photographing a child in public because you've heard stories that "you could get in trouble," is to deprive the viewing public of information and insight and of your talents and the way you see the world. You have to ask yourself the question, "Is this picture worth it? There's a 1% chance that it'll result in great hassle for me, and a 99% chance that it'll belong in a retrospect of my work."
If you have heard (usually from uninformed or misinformed photography instructors and photo columnists) that you need a model release for a picture of a child or adult taken in public, here's a challenge for you:
If you can document a case in the United States where a photographer was taken to court for publishing a
Take note that I've said, "documented." Photographers, Internet gossips, and my fellow photo columnists continually perpetuate the myth about model releases and all the trouble you can get into when taking such a picture in public. But when asked for follow-up documentation, so far (for thirty years) it has never been forthcoming. This challenge always quiets the naysayers.
So there. Photograph in public freely. Exhibit your work, and sell your child dance photos for editorial usage, in the spirit of "informing, educating or entertaining the public." No judge in a court of law is going to fault you for that if you are sincerely engaged in editorial photography. It's your right. Even more so, it's your duty to protect that right, by challenging those who would suggest it is not.
Rohn Engh, veteran stock photographer and publisher of "PhotoRESEARCHER Newsletter," has provided on-line targeted information for photobuyers, photo researchers and editors for two decades. No other newsletter brings photobuyers such up-to-the minute, practical intimately familiar with both sides of the stock photo desk. For more info: http://www.photosource.com/photobuyer/.
 Tommy Thompson |
 Kerry Kolb |
 Jon Saban |
 Jake Nelson |