Sunday, November 11, 2012

Favorite street photographer

My favorite street photographer that I've come across is Philip-Lorca diCorcia.  He has a fantastic series called Heads.  His street photography isn't the typical straight photos that we've seen a lot of.  He fixed a set of flash lights to construction scaffolding above people's heads on a busy street in New York City.  When someone entered his target area, he activated the flash and took their photo with a long-lens camera.  His target had little idea that their picture had been taken.





That his subjects don't know they're being photographed is made evident in a case of one of his random subjects - an Orthodox Jew - finding his own picture in one of diCorcia's published books and suing him on grounds of invasion of privacy and and violation of religious rights.   The judge dismissed the case, however, stating that the photograph taken on the street is art, rather than commerce, and is protected under the First Amendment. 

1 comment:

  1. Great post, Katie! He really takes the notion of "candid" to a whole other level.

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