In many magazine and newspaper articles like this one about the dangers of obesity there’s often a “person in the crowd” shot of some very obese person. Invariably, it’s a below the neck shot.
Assuming it’s a publicly taken, candid picture what control would the person portrayed have over it? Is the below the neck aspect due simply to common courtesy, or would there be legal implications if they showed the person’s face and potentially subjected them to ridicule as “the fat person waddling down the street”, or the “fat person eating an ice cream cone” ?
Why: They are concerned about getting calls from people’s lawyers.
Just the nuisance of dealing with lawyers and lawsuits costs money, so whatever media outlet is doing the facial blurring has determined that they’d rather play it safe.
Even when you have done no wrong (just showing faces), it can get expensive to fend off people who feel you’ve somehow slandered them (when, in fact, you probably didn’t).
"Even if people are photographed in public, beware of the context in which the picture is placed (such as an innocuous photo of recognizable teen-agers in a story about the rise of teen violence). Use caution when utilizing file footage or photographs to illustrate negative stories. Special effects can be used to render the subjects unidentifiable. "
Since most people would not give permission to use their picture in a story like this, it seems like it’s just safer for the photographer to use a picture that is not pointing to a specific, recognizable person.
The same thing happens in a lot of fashion magazines that have fashion “do and don’t” pages. The Do’s are usually full shots, including heads. The don’ts are usually shot from the neck down.
There’s also the issue of Misappropriation. If you take my picture, and then use it in a commercial without obtaining my permission, you have misappropriated my image. It doesn’t matter if the photo was taken in public; you do not get to make money off my picture without my consent. If the photos of fat people are used in anything that might be considered a commercial application (such as on the cover of Newsweek, for example), then they’d want to make sure that either they have consent from the subject, or you can’t tell who the subject is.
The general advice to photographers is that if a person is recognizable then you should get a signed release from the person to publish the photo. It doesn’t matter whether the person is portrayed in a negative or positive way, you gotta have permission. I believe that the exception to this is photographing a bona fide news event, which probably includes celebrities. For example, I doubt that photojournalists get releases from defendants being led away from a courthouse, etc. But otherwise, without a release you have essentially used that person as a model without their permission.
In my wife’s Glamour magazine, the “don’ts” are either from the back or with black bars over the eyes. But if you look at the way some of these women look, I would say that they would be recognized by anyone who knows them. I don’t know if they pay them to get a model release or not.
The legal issue notwithstanding, I think that the idea behind many of the articles accompanying these photos is, “This could be you!” Obscuring or omitting the face of the subject in the photo reinforces that idea.
The general rule is editorial no release, anything else must be released. The cover of Newsweek would be considered editorial, as far as I’ve ever known. Newspapers, magazines, etc., can use images for editorial purposes without a release as long as the article is considered “newsworthy.”
This thread amuses me because, unlike CalMeacham, I knew exactly what it was going to be about from the title.
My wife and I noticed this early on. Whenever there is a news story about obesity, or the dangers of obesity, or obesity in our schools, or Pete Tranter’s sister’s obesity, the news station always has plenty of stock footage of fat people walking, standing, or what-have-you - but always from the back or from the neck down!
This lead my wife to postulate that the stations must have instructed their camera crews to - when nothing else is doing and they’re already on the scene - just film any fat people they see (from behind or from the neck down, of course), just so they can put that in the can and serve it up next time they have an obesity-related story to cover.
In general, with few exceptions, I am allowed to videotape anything for any reason without obtaining permission. My restrictions are usually dependant upon where I am located, public vrs private property. Use issues come into play when people are photographing for commercial purposes.
With regards to cutting off fat people’s heads, videotaping school kids out of focus and all the other odd conventions you see in the media, this has more to do with management not feeling like fielding irate phone calls than any grander purpose. IMHO…
As much of a joke between my wife and I as her suggestion (see my post above)is, what are your standing orders? Knowing how crazy it is just to keep videos and photographs of my own two children organized - let alone all the footage of a typical TV news station - wouldn’t it be easy just to take “fat people footage” or “schoolchildren at play” footage when it is convenient and store that away in the vault rather than trying to wade through a bunch of footage you taped for something else in the hopes that there is some waddling or childplay involved?
Basically, what I’m asking is: where does the footage come from?
The more complete your answer, the more ignorance we will have fought, and the happier we will all be.