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Article below courtesy of BrushBuzz Daily Newsletter...

4/23/2015

It could have been me...

I loved reading the article below as it could have been me (only I wish I could be half as talented)... I love the concept, the photographs and the story behind it all...

I spend a lot of my time behind the camera taking photos with a view for a painting. I like being on the 'right' side of the camera - and I hate having my photo taken... I take photos at exhibition openings, at the airport (one of my faves), in urban scenes and even at the gym (I did stalk a swimmer and got some beautiful shots - earlier blog post). I have even visited a friend in hospital and took a photo of a lady in a nearby bed - she was asleep (or in a coma?) - and painted it - and exhibited it locally (all the while hoping no one was going to recognise her).

I have photos of my children with hangovers - also painted (and sold). And images of them hugging the toilet bowl after a few too many drinks (also in my "to paint" file).

The article below does pose an ethical slant to the whole thing - but, hey, he won the court case so I will continue to lurk, stalk and take photo's...

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News Artist Who Furtively Photographed His Neighbors Wins in Court, Again by Laura C. Mallonee on April 21, 2015 19

4/23/2015

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Arne Svenson, “Neighbors #15″ (image courtesy Julie Saul Gallery NYC)

Arne Svenson, “Neighbors #11″ (2012) (image courtesy Julie Saul Gallery NYC)

Artist Who Furtively Photographed His Neighbors Wins in Court, Again

by Laura C. Mallonee on April 21, 2015
Courtesy of BuzzBrush.

Last week, a New York State appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that exonerated photographer Arne Svenson against claims of privacy invasion, Photo District News reported.

Svenson was sued by his Tribeca neighbors in 2013 after they discovered he’d photographed them inside their New York apartments with a telephoto lens — a tool more frequently used by paparazzi than by fine art professionals.

The images were part of a controversial series called The Neighbors that the photographer began shooting in 2012. It featured people — and sometimes pets — lounging and moving about in their homes. Svenson told Hyperallergic that his aim was to capture “vignettes of quietude” — not to record his neighbors’ actions.

“I was stringent about not revealing the identities of the subjects because I was not photographing these people as specific, identifiable personages, but more as representations of human kind, of us,” he said. “I only reveal the turn of the head, the back against a window, the legs under a table. These tiny scenarios and actions reveal a humanness that is unconsciously truthful and tender.”

The resulting images do reflect Svenson’s conceptual aims. They’re silent, poetic, and filled with a strange sense of yearning. They seem to have far more in common with the paintings of Edward Hopper than they do with celebrity tabloids.

But whatever their artistic merit, the plaintiffs were understandably rattled by the knowledge that someone had been secretly photographing them inside their apartments.(Svenson himself acknowledged that, save for the occasional dog, no one ever noticed him in his apartment clicking away.) They claimed he had invaded their privacy under New York’s right-of-privacy statue, which makes it illegal to use a person’s likeness for advertising or trade purposes without permission. Since the work was sold in galleries, they argued the law should apply. They also said Svenson should not be protected by the First Amendment, since creating the images involved “extreme and outrageous conduct” and caused his subjects emotional distress. Finally, they asked for monetary damages and that the court stop Svenson from showing the images in the future.

New York State court judge Judge Eileen A. Rakower dismissed the claim in 2013, ruling that the photographs did not break New York State civil rights laws and were protected under the First Amendment. “An artist may create and sell a work of art that resembles an individual without his or her written consent,” she wrote. The plaintiffs appealed, only to have Judge Rakower’s ruling unanimously upheld and reiterated by the appeals court this month.

Despite the outcome, Judge Dianne T. Renwick called Svenson’s actions “disturbing” and “intrusive.” She wrote: “Needless to say, as illustrated by the troubling facts here, in these times of heightened threats to privacy posed by new and ever more invasive technologies, we call upon the Legislature to revisit this important issue.”

For his part, Svenson told Hyperallergic that he doesn’t think privacy laws should be amended. “I am an artist and stand firmly for creative expression and the First Amendment. I would not have spent the last two years in court if I believed otherwise,” he said, adding that “social media, banks, internet companies, etc., know far more about the occupants of the building than I ever would learn through the process of taking photographs of their hands, backs, and legs.”

He also said he’d have no problem with it if he found out a neighbor had been taking similar photos of him in the name of art. That statement illustrates what the ruling affirms: in the end, it’s all left to an artist’s personal convictions, which change from person to person depending on values and motivations, and which his subjects or audience may not share.

Svenson’s own loyalties lie with purity of narrative. Asked whether he ever considered staging his images, as Gail Albert Halaban did in her series Paris Views, he said that while it’s a “viable process,” it wasn’t for him. “I think narrative nuance and truth can be diluted when action is being directed,” he explained. “I prefer to wait until a scene has fallen into place organically and then let serendipity takes its course.”

And yet, regardless of Svenson’s intentions and what is deemed legal, was it ethical for him to photograph his neighbors without their consent for his own artistic benefit? Is continuing to show the images a form of bullying, wherein art takes precedence over people’s distress? Or, on the other hand, could anyone really be so bothered by his images? The people in them seem anonymous enough.

Whatever the answers, the case is closed for Svenson. A show featuring his latest series has just opened at the Julie Saul Gallery, where The Neighbors debuted. Titled The Workers, it features construction workers similarly caught, entirely unaware, behind glass, face masks, and plastic tarps.

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Quick studies...

4/15/2015

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Whilst in Mocambique I saw some children playing on the beach. I approached the parents (so I didn't look like a dodgy pedophile) and asked if I could take photo's of their kids...

One of the paintings and the reference photo...

So the beige cap had to go... Completely dull and drab...

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Updated...

4/7/2015

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So how often should one update one's website?

I drag my heels, whinge and whine, cry and weep and huff and puff... I hate moving things around... I'm a creature of habit. I don't like change.

But I did it...

I've updated the "New Work" File and updated some other stuff and moved things around...

If you want to move at a faster pace - to know what/who's art I love, what moves and interests me and what I'm about, Facebook is the place to connect with me.

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MOCAMBIQUE (in colour)

4/7/2015

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Sunrise... Sunset....

Beautiful beach days....

And they took me for a l-o-n-g walk... Just to the end they said - whilst taking large strides - and my feets worked as fast as they could to keep up...
When they asked me again - I said "Fuck No"...

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Mocambique in Monochrome...

4/7/2015

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There's something quite "arty" about black and white photo's :)

These are a few from my recent trip to Mocambique with my brother, his wife, family and friends...