This is not anything close to what the framers had in mind when they wrote that right, and Mr. Judge His Honor knows that, but he's the boss of this thing for now.
Arne is a 60 year old man, not that it should matter, but it does, living in a glass walled apartment in Tribeca and he took photos of people living in glass walled apartments opposite his own without permission and then exhibited them in a nearby gallery. Two neighbors sued having noticed their children. They lost.
Looks a bit expressionistic with the rain streaks. They're all parts of people. Legs, feet, people sleeping, a man's back pressed against the glass. All insets of much larger pictures left out of the frame. The impulse of amateur photographers is fit as much into the frame as possible to load the frame with interest. Maybe find this window among a bunch of windows. The impulse of the artistic photographer is eliminate as much as possible, to narrow and focus the content of the frame down to the least. This is why Arne's Peeping Tom photos are art.
If people are concerned about privacy, for goodness sake, not New York, not glass walled apartment, and pull the curtains or shades.
There are no nudes. Just pieces of people.
Conclusion: not concerned about privacy.
That doesn't stop the controversy. The show is in Denver now at the Museum of Contemporary Art. A new museum.
Comments at the Guardian pretty much cover the range of comments everywhere. The Denver Post has a brief write up.
All of the articles show only one or two pictures. Here is Google Images [arne svenson, neighbors] I think you'll like them.
I just wrote a friend who is actively traveling the world (before he dies). His photos are mundane. I'm trying to get him to use his phone camera this way. The artist is using a 500mm lens so this exact thing is not so possible, but this sort of thing. I'm trying to get him to see as an artist and I do believe it is working. His photographs are noticeably improved. I told him, try to get us to smell the place.
16 comments:
Without a common, shared sense of boundaries that benefits us all, there can be no common, shared sense of decency that benefits us all. Without a common, shared sense of decency that benefits us all, there can be no common, shared sense of boundaries that benefits us all.
Without ^^^ there is no such thing as privacy, not really, not even in theory, and certainly not in reality. Why bother to discuss such such a non-existent thing, anyway.
This is really appalling. The idea that you don't have a right to privacy INSIDE your home unless you draw the curtains and turn your house into a darkened tomb. No sunshine. No fresh air. No view. Stay away from the windows!!!!! Just huddle in the dark house illuminated by artificial lights.
It is one thing to expect that you have no privacy rights when you are out in public. People can take your photo. But in your house? and then to have the Peeping Tom that took photos of you to publicize your private moments and make money from his peeping......creepy.
This is why I love living where I do and will never, voluntarily, live in a city or urban area again. No one can look into our windows or view us on our property, unless they have some really powerful kick ass telescopes. Actually who would want to anyway? We open the blinds in the morning and let the sun stream in to warm the house, watch the birds, the deer, view the river. Some of our windows don't have blinds or curtains. Our deck overlooking the river is private and we can sunbath as nature intended if we feel like it.
Cities suck and this decision by the judge really sucks.
Frankly, these photos are no more than exercises in voyeurism. I suppose they're titillating to those who share the photographer's voyeuristic impulse but beyond that?...
A genuine artist, Edward Hopper, painted several views into urban apartments that are somehow much more than merely the peeping of a voyeur. But those views, through his genius, somehow convey the commonality of our pathetic plight. In other words they are sympathetic, not something out of the silence of the lambs.
Why bother coming to a blog where people talk and give their strongly held opinions in clear and understandable language and tell them not to converse?
That defeats the very purpose of a blog that wants to attract thoughts and opinions and conversation.
I'll take up for the judge on this. He applied the law as written or actually "not" written. Bottom line:
"New York, unlike other States, does not have a general invasion of privacy statute, only a right to publicity statute. While the Appellate Division reluctantly affirmed that there was no cause of action for violation of the New York statute, it added that “in these times of heighted threats to privacy posed by new and ever more invasive technologies, we call upon the Legislature to revisit this important issue, as we are constrained to apply the law as it exists.” It remains to be seen if the New York Assembly will hear this plea."
Here
When I was a kid and walking with my grandma if she saw a window without Venetian blinds she would turn to me and say; "You see those people...They are beatnicks. Stay away from them."
If you stand in front of a window without blinds you deserve what you get.
Remember the story a year or so ago about the guy who was nude in his own kitchen and some gal came along (trespassing on his property?) and saw *the horror* a penis and sued him/complained to the police about indecent exposure? That lady was full of shit (and vapors), right? You peep into someone else's home at your own risk; the homeowner is master of his or her own domain. To the extent there's "privacy," the inside of peoples' homes are private. Does the fact that you can see in there and take artistic photos using a telephoto lens obliterate that notion of privacy? Not if you think that just walking by and looking in the window does not obliterate the notion of privacy. What if the "artistic" photos are of privates in a private area? And someone sells them? Consider the fact that technology has advanced to where someone can park on the street and "see" where everyone is in the house, what they are doing, and (I believe I read this somewhere), exactly what they look like while they are doing it. To say nothing of peeping on your electronic activities with impunity. Is there privacy anymore? Thorwald from Rear Window will be over to discuss it with you shortly.
By looking at google images I saw some of the originals are the entire window and sort of boring ordinary pictures, but cropped to a partial window and tight on the partial subject somehow makes them a lot more interesting. And seeing those hung in a gallery with people standing in front of them fascinated with the same focused attention.
I think we can use this for our own photography. We can learn from what this person is doing --how to pull interest from portions of scenes of ordinary life. I can see people wanting to own these photos to decorate their own homes. There's nothing ironic about this although it seems so, the city IS the city dweller's background, their outdoors, their nature, their trees and forests are other buildings and people.
I stayed at an apartment for a week at Kip's Bay that is two such towers with basically glass sides. Binoculars right there at the window. People watching must be a thing. It must. Two glass towers facing each other. GAWL. It's made for this sort of thing. That's what I was visualizing the whole time. His situation not quite like that but similar.
We can get candid shots all over the place. When you are traveling things catch your eye. It can be anything. The curve of a calf, a shoe, anything. And your camera is right there with you.
The thing is, though, the lenses on the phone cameras are like the maddest wide angle. Perspective swings bizarrely with the slightest shift. They're very tricky to frame up. Good practice. Because the whole framing is equally what is eliminated as what is put in it. The whole eliminating thing makes you study the corners. Especially with the wide angle. I am surprised how tricky the phone camera are. No wonder people stand there moving the thing around for ten minutes before taking their shot.
I like them because they show how to look at your environment.
In the city, people with open windows don't mind. The shot with the guy's back pressing on the glass is fantastic. I wish to see things like that and be ready. It's wonderful because it's kind of weird.
The artist is going, "Oh, so now you're keeping your shades shut just because of my art show. (Where you get to see yourself framed as we see you framed in real life") To one or two in particular while everyone else in the tower hasn't changed their shade curtain ways. I always shut my curtains before I go traipsing about in my lime green tutu whilst smoking a giant bong. Best for my neighbors not to see this. They're really tight this way too in the back. I think my tripod out there unsettles them maybe. It's always aimed at the sky not them. But it could. That might worry someone.
"That might worry someone."
Ya think?
I don't know, this guy is taking hundreds of digital photos and cropping the best ones. The ones you google-linked to were pretty average. The one with the little girl in her swimsuit(?) was inappropriate and I would beat the shit out of him if he displayed it. Not really, but his tires would be flat a lot.
I do like the photos. They are art. I just wouldn't want to be in one, and I think it's rather nasty (maybe inadvertently) that he sold them. Obviously, practically speaking, if you leave your shades up in a crowded neighborhood people are likely to look in so don't do that. Leaving the shades up = potentially compromising your privacy. You take that risk. That's just a practical fact like peeping into someone's house = you may see something you wouldn't normally see in public so trigger warning. That's the practical argument. I think that breaks down when you are photographing people in the privacy of their homes and selling the product thereof. It's like: Don't walk down dark alleyways is a practical argument for avoiding becoming a victim of crime but it's not an excuse for the crime.
The privacy right found in the US Constitution was only discerned there to justify national progressive goals. Actual privacy where one would have a reasonable expectation thereof is a talking point that has fallen by the wayside now that the national progressive goals are enshrined in law and the ruling grools have an interest in and the means to keep tabs on everyone.
Great article. I have about eight links open I want to read.
Rabel, thanks for posting that. It's pretty obvious that you shouldn't be allowed to use a 500mm lens to take pics of apartment windows, curtained or not.
I think it would be really great if when he focused his lens on one of the windows there would be a sniper rifle focusing right back at him.
Shoot this picture, asswipe.
:-)
lol DBQ, exactly.
Good grief, Trooper, I'm not telling you or anyone else here not to talk about this. I'm expressing despair over a larger culture so degraded that it's dehumanizing. And sarcasm. I'm referring to the actual subjects (objects?)of the post, that Peeping Tom and that court decision. Sheesh, I agree with the poster (unless I'm misunderstanding what I thought was his disapproval of the peeper and the judge).
It's bad policy to stand in front of unshaded windows when you know there are peepers in the world. It's also bad policy to leave doors unlocked when you know there are thieves in the world. Etc. This does not make better either the peeper or the thief, nor does it offer justification to the those two, nor directly, much less *necessarily*, translate into "deserve what you get." That's just my opinion. Obvioysly everyone else is entitled to theirs.
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