Photography Court case

Nussenzweig v. DiCorcia (2005) was a Supreme Court case decided by the New York Supreme Court in New York County that holds that a photographer could display, publish, and sell street photography without the consent of the subjects of those photographs.

In 1999 a photographer named Philip-Lorca diCorcia set up his camera and equipment in Times Square, New York, looking for a spot to practice the art of street photography. He set up a couple strobe lights onto some scaffolding and took photos of strangers walking under them. He did this for two years, until he had finished his project called “heads” that he would present at the Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York City from September 6^th, 2001-October 13^th, 2001.

In 2001, Erno Nussenzweig, an Orthodox Jew and retired diamond merchant from Union City, New Jersey, saw his picture at the gallery show named “Heads”. He then called his lawyer Jay Goldberg, and sued DiCorcia and Pace for exhibiting and publishing the portrait without Erno’s permission and profiting from it financially. The lawsuit sought an injunction to halt sales and publication of the photograph. Erno also wanted $500,00 in compensatory damages and $1.5 million in punitive damages.

The lawsuit was dismissed in February of 2006 by a New York State Supreme Court judge who said that the photographer’s right to artistic expression trumped the subject’s privacy rights. Nussenzweig argued that the use of the photograph interfered with his constitutional right to practice his religion, which prohibits the use of graven images.

Somehow, this was the first case to directly challenge the right for photographers to photograph in public as long as it was taken on public property. If it succeeded, many famous images such as the “subway passenger New York City 1941”, might not be able to be published or sold.

I personally agree with how the case was settled. I think that if you are in public, then you should be all right with a photographer taking your picture without your permission.