Wine photographer Gabriel Dvoskin*
The Leveson inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the UK press, currently hearing evidence in London is beginning to raise concerns amongst photographers that all photographers are being likened to paparazzi.
See here a post from Leon Neal, an English photographer now with Agence France Presse. Neal is concerned at the way news photographers are being portrayed before the Leveson inquiry. His post features an open letter written by Christopher Piedger, who works for the Daily Telegraph.
See also from The Guardian: Leveson inquiry – a paparazzo speaks.
* I guess it is likely that any changes proposed by Leveson would be unlikely to impinge unduly on photographers working in wine largely because it is rare for wine photos to be hard-edged or controversial. Although if photographers were obliged to get permission from their subjects before a photo was published this would make press trips to vineyards more complicated with journos required to carry sheaves of permission forms with them.
This said photography is an essential part of a free press – often crystallising a message in a single, memorable shot. Its a freedom that needs to be protected.
2 comments:
Important topic.
I wonder how the UK law would apply to photographs in vineyards (mainly abroad, thus).
Le droit à l'image already exists in most countries, anyway.
But I think it is rarely evoked in the case of people standing in front of the camera so that we can illustrate articles on them.
There might be the off chance of a nasty looking photo being deliberately posted on a blog or published in any other way. But apart from you, Jim, ;-))), distorting my face, who does that?
Bonjour Hervé.
I think the particularly distorted photo of our distinguished self is no longer on the blog, although I suspect that all photos distort a face a little but, of course, a wide angle close to, distorts much more.
I can see that some producers might not want the public to see what their vineyards and grapes actually look like.
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