Roger,
Not trying to spread gloom & despondency or frighten people. Are you? You're making the the fear with your comments. I find this offensive and, quite frankly, surprised by your comments. Does Shutterbug know your thoughts?
What's the problem, why not carry a few model release forms and get them signed?
Not a big deal to me but maybe it is to you.
I've taken groups of peoples portraits and have had some that won't sign a release and don't want their picture on some web site or anywhere else for that matter.
Shouldn't we respect the people we photograph and find out if they want it published?
The PPA and other professional organizations highly recommend getting model releases.
On TCPPA outings we get model releases when there are people present we photograph.
I've got a pretty good photography business and don't need the problems that could be associated with no model releases.
End of story for me.
Sorry, Bill, but no, I don't think I'm spreading fear, because I'm saying what Chris is: that for editorial and fine art you DON'T need model releases, so the advice to get one
just in case is spreading needless alarm. It is NOT actually a very murky area.
The 'big deal'? First, if I don't need 'em, why bother? Second, why waste shooting time getting model releases (cf Bob's comment)? Third, how many languages am I going to carry them in? English? Spanish? French? Bulgarian? Greek? Hungarian? Czech? Tibetan? Cantonese? Italian? Romanian? Turkish? German? Estonian? Latvian? Slovenian? Slovakian? Hindi? Kanada? Lithuanian? Dutch? I've shot in countries where any of those might have been needed, and more.
Fourth, 'What's the problem, why not carry a few model release forms and get them signed?' Well, there might be 100 recognizable people in twenty or thirty pictures: it would take infinitely longer to get signed releases than to take the pictures. It would be even more fun if there were kids in the shot and I had to talk to their parents or guardians.
Fifth, what incentive has any sane person to sign a model release for a street picture? So that their pic can be used for ANYTHING? Damned if I'd sign. 'Respecting' someone means not using their picture in a derogatory way -- and you can use it pretty much any way you like if you have the right model release. NOT having a model release can actually give the subject MORE protection.
Yes, Shutterbug knows very well how I feel. They also know that I have a law degree. If you find all this offensive, I apologize, but (as you may by now have guessed) this a subject I feel strongly about, the perpetual drip-drip-drip of fear, that terrible things might happen to you. It's about on a par with the way I feel about the majority of terrorist legislation: it's more about keeping people frightened than it is about reducing terrorism.
Running a photo business like yours is
nothing like doing what Chris does, or Bob does, or I do, or indeed, the vast majority of photographers (especially amateurs) do, and the recommendations of the PPA and TCPPA are completely irrelevant to most people. For model shoots or indeed studio shoots generally, yes, I do get model releases. I even had mine printed on auto-carbon, so that the subject and I get identical copies.
But advocating them as a good idea for fine art and editorial photography is likely to have one or more of three effects, none of them good. The first is that photographers will be frightened off taking pictures; the second is that they'll get rotten pictures, because their subjects have adopted wooden poses 'for the camera'; and the third is that they'll waste so much time getting unnecessary model releases that they won't have time to take pictures. Taken together, these three effects would pretty much have prohibited a very large number of the best pictures ever taken. Do you really want the 21st century to have no iconic pictures, just endless (and non-model-released) Facebook shots?
Why am I so heated? Because (as you say) this subject keeps coming up, and people start believing they're going to be sued, when they aren't. If that isn't spreading fear, what is?
Cheers,
R.
