[fr] Une chose qui m'énerve fréquemment, ce sont les médias qui désirent me faire photographier pour illustrer leur article, mais qui ne considèrent pas "normal" que le photographe me donne une copie des photos faites. C'est mon image, merde.
Branching off on the Lane Hartwell–Richter Scales story to react to a paragraph of Lane’s post Please don’t steal my work:
Along with this, everyday I am hit up with requests for me to give people photos I have shot of them. I’ll be shooting an event and people will push their business cards on me and tell me to “email them the shots”. When I politely explain that I won’t be doing that, and why I won’t be doing that, they usually get nasty with me. If I tell them they can purchase a file or print from me, 9 times out of 10 I never hear back from them.
Lane Hartwell, Please don’t steal my work
Just to make things very clear: I’m not taking a stand on the issue at hand here, which I believe is far more complex than “she’s right” or “she’s wrong”. I’m just reacting to one paragraph of her post, because it reminds me of something that pisses me off regularly.
I see no reason whatsoever for which I should not have the right, as the person on the picture, to have a copy of the photograph that was shot of me. This happens to me very regularly when I’m interviewed by the press and they bring along a photographer to shoot a few pics to illustrate the article: I ask the photographer to e-mail me the shots, or at least those which made the cut. So far, three actually did it — and I thank them very much for it. Most of the time, I never hear from them again.
And it pisses me off.
Why should the photographer own a representation of me? I’m not saying I should own it exclusively, either. The photographer has the rights to the image, but I consider I should at least have the use of it for my personal/promotional use.
Same goes for events. If I’m at a conference, or giving a talk, and I let you photograph/film me, consider that I’m CC by-nc-sa. If you take a photograph of me and “all rights reserved” it, that means I am not allowed to use it in my blog, for example — as far as I understand things.
There is something of a joint ownership in a photography. I’m not saying I’ve figured it out. I’m somebody who takes photographs (though I don’t make any money out of them), so I understand the point of view of the person taking photos, but I’m also (frequently) photographed, and I don’t like being dispossessed of my image.
Thoughts and discussion welcome.