AboutSteve Meltzer Expertise I am a professional photographer and I've been shooting for newspapers, magazines, commercial clients and artists for over 30 years.
I have shot stock photography for dozens of years and in 1977 created West Stock (Seattle, WA) which was one of the first to produce stock photo CDs and later one of the first to establish an online stock photo slaes site.
I have a new book on digital photography "PHOTOGRAPHING ARTS, CRAFTS AND COLLECTIBLES (Lark Books, 2007)which is available at Amazon.com, eBay.com and in bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders. I have another book, CAPTURE THE LIGHT which will be puiblished in November, 2008.
I write 20-30 feature articles and columns for regional and national publications a year.
My education includes studying with photographers like Cornell Capa, Duane Michels and Oliver Gagliani (from the Ansel Adams Center.)
Expert: Steve Meltzer Date: 6/14/2008 Subject: public
Question Hi, I have googled my brains out trying to find out if taking photos of someone on a public street with intentions of selling them needs a signed consent. For instance, If I took a shot of a motorcycle on a public street and their face was identifiable, or, what if I took a shot of a person on a motorcycle with a full face tinted helmet and you couldn't see their face at all? Could the person say, "well that's me because my bike is a blue honda with a special decal that I put on it myself." With the paparazzi taking pictures of people's faces in plain view all the time and reselling them, I don't understand why I would need consent to sell the shot of this bike or car.
Thank you so much for your time.
Answer Jackson
Here's the deal. You can do anything you want with a photo of anyone.
But it is like playing Russian Roulette. You don't know when time the bullet will be in the chamber when you pull the trigger.
It is all about lawyers.
For example. Nearly thirty years ago I shot a photo of six kids (in Salem, Oregon) in a circle looking up at the camera. I got releases for each kid and the photo has sold dozens of times around the world in those 30 years
And every time it appears my photo agency gets letters from lawyers for a parent in Berlin or Athens or New York or LA who is gonig to sue me for using a picture of THEIR kid without permission.
WHA???? You can see the kid's faces clearly and yet people who are the same age as those kids in the picture are today swear its their kid in the picture and they are going to sue.
So as Clint Eastwood said in Dirty Harry, "Do you feel lucky?"
If you do then don't worry about a model release. Figure the motorcyclist will never see the picture, never know the image was used.
But 200 other cyclists will have their lawyers on your case and if you don't have a signed model release to prove that the picture isn't of one of them you can kiss everything you have good-bye.
