pixnoir : : girlwiz

Philip-Lorca took a random series of photographs of strangers passing in the street in Times Square for a period of two years and culminated in an exhibition of photographs called ''Heads'' at Pace MacGill Gallery. Erno Nussenzweig, an Orthodox Jew saw his picture in the exhibition catalog and sued Mr. diCorcia and Pace for exhibiting and publishing the portrait without permission and profiting from it financially. Mr. Nussenzweig argued that use of the photograph interfered with his constitutional right to practice his religion, which prohibits the use of graven images. The suit sought an injunction to halt sales and publication of the photograph, as well as $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1.5 million in punitive damages.

The suit was dismissed by a New York State Supreme Court judge who said that the photographer's right to artistic expression trumped the subject's privacy rights. New York state right-to-privacy laws prohibit the unauthorized use of a person's likeness for commercial purposes, that is, for advertising or purposes of trade. But they do not apply if the likeness is considered art.

The practice of street photography has a long tradition in the United States, with documentary and artistic strains, in big cities and small towns. Photographers usually must obtain permission to photograph on private property -- including restaurants and hotel lobbies -- but the freedom to photograph in public has long been taken for granted. And it has had a profound impact on the history of the medium. Without it, Lee Friedlander would not have roamed the streets of New York photographing strangers, and Walker Evans would never have produced his series of subway portraits in the 1940's.

From the New York Times Article
ART; The Theater of the Street, The Subject of the Photograph by Philip Gefter, published March 19, 2006

Posted by at 8:18 PM | Permalink

Works of Lucien Clergue will be on display at the Louis Stern Fine Arts Gallery through May 6.

The exhibit covers more than 50 years and demonstrates Clergue's development and use of photography as an iconoclastic endeavor.

Louis Stern Fine Arts Gallery
West Hollywood, CA
310 276 0147

Posted by at 6:02 AM | Permalink

Gordon Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was a groundbreaking African-American photographer, musician, poet, novelist, journalist, activist and film director. He is best remembered for his photo essays for Life magazine and as the director of the 1971 film Shaft.

In 1938, Parks was struck by photographs of migrant workers in a magazine and bought his first camera, a Voightlander Brilliant, for $7.50 at a pawnshop. The photo clerks who developed Parks' first roll of film, applauded his work and prompted him to get a fashion assignment at Frank Murphy’s women’s clothing store in St. Paul. Parks' double exposed every frame except one, but that shot caught the eye of Marva Louis, boxer Joe Louis' elegant wife. She encouraged Parks to move to Chicago, where he begain a portrait business for society women.

Over the next few years, Parks moved from job to job, developing a freelance portrait and fashion photographer sideline. He began to chronicle the city's South Side black ghetto and in 1941 an exhibition of those photographs won Parks a photography fellowship with the Farm Security Administration. Working as a trainee under Roy Stryker, Parks created one of his best known photographs, American Gothic. The photo shows the black woman who worked on the cleaning crew for the FSA building, standing stiffly in front of an American flag, mop in one hand and broom in the other.

After the FSA disbanded, Parks remained in Washington as a correspondent with the Office of War Information, but became disgusted with the prejudice he encountered and resigned in 1944. Moving to Harlem, Parks became a freelance fashion photographer for Vogue. He later followed Stryker to the Standard Oil (New Jersey) Photography Project, which assigned photographers to take pictures of small towns and industrial centers. Parks' most striking of the period included Dinner Time at Mr. Hercules Brown's Home, Somerville, Maine (1944); Grease Plant Worker, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1946); Car Loaded with Furniture on Highway (1945); and Ferry Commuters, Staten Island, N.Y. (1946).

Parks renewed his search for photography jobs in the fashion world. Despite racist attitudes of the day, Vogue editor Alexander Liberman hired him to shoot a collection of evening gowns. Parks photographed fashion for Vogue for the next few years. During this time, he published his first two books, Flash Photography (1947) and Camera Portraits: Techniques and Principles of Documentary Portraiture (1948).

A 1948 photo essay on a young Harlem gang leader won Parks a staff job as a photographer and writer with Life magazine. For 20 years, Parks produced photos on subject including fashion, sports, Broadway, poverty, racial segregation, and portraits of Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Muhammad Ali, and Barbra Streisand. His 1961 photo essay on a poor Brazilian boy named Flavio da Silva, who was dying from bronchial pneumonia and malnutrition, brought donations that saved the boy's life and paid for a new home for his family.

Posted by at 7:38 PM | Permalink