STREET PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE RIGHT TO ONE’S OWN IMAGE

Coinciding with the exhibition of Juan Manuel Díaz Burgos Desire and Seduction recently opened in Madrid, Francisco Puñal, a blog reader, asked me my opinion:
Hello Paco:
I don’t know if you have read in the El País about this exhibition in Madrid by Juan Manuel Diaz Burgos.He already had made, some years ago, an essay on the Malecon in La Havana, that he exhibited in several places.
Now this one is about desire and seduction (and he justifies “stealing” pictures, Cartier-Bresson style).To what extent is his attitude of taken advantage "stealing" images of people who can not claim their rights?
I ask your professional opinion, not with the desire to make a controversy; not at all...

Leer el resto / Read the full entry...

I think street photography is the basis of documental photography. Thanks to it we know how the world has been until today. People are portrayed in the street, in public places. All they do is out in front of all the bystanders, and the law generally does not prevent a photographer taking pictures of people on the street. Without this opportunity to take street photos it wouldn’t not exist nor The Family of Men, Cartier-Bresson, William Klein, Robert Frank, Ed Van der Elsken or Xavier Miserachs ... What a horror!

And to me, the distance at which Diaz Burgos photographs means that he is having complicity with people, i.e.: gives explanations after taking the photo. It is inevitable: he is too close. The two girls being kissed are looking at him. This relationship with the people can be seen in the interior of the bar. Diaz Burgos is just besides them.

Una anécdota

An anecdote: Josep Cruanyes, one of the most knowledgeable photography and image rights Spain’s lawyers, explains that he won a case defending a photographer who published a photo of a couple kissing in the middle of Barcelona’s Ramblas. The couple sued the photographer claiming that both had relationships with other people and that the publication of the photograph had harmed them a lot. The judge acquitted the photographer arguing that their kissing in the street could have also been seen by any relative and that if they wanted to keep their relationship secret they shouldn’t kiss in the middle of a crowded street. It makes sense, doesn’t it?

And to finish, I think people are not really concerned about his image rights and that somebody can picture them in their every day’s life, but rather about their rights about work, housing, education, health, peace...