Using Street Art in Street Photography
Who among us does not celebrate when they find an interesting piece of street art that can serve as a background for a street photo? How convenient that Miami has a collection at Wynwood Walls and NYC has a street mural on East Houston that is changed out regularly and Nashville has a guide to its most famous street art. Truth be told, there is street art everywhere, especially when you consider common graffiti qualifies as street art.
A lot of street art is in places that are deemed public. Does that mean it is fair game to be included in street photography? There are some issues to be considered.
Photo by Carlos Antonorsi. Used with permission. You can see Carlos’ Instagram gallery at @c.antonorsi and on his website at www.CarlosAntonorsi.com.
When you include street art in a photo you are using someone else’s art work.
To understand the possible implications to this, let’s reverse the situation. How would you feel if an artist used one of your photographs, without permission, as a basis for a painting? For myself, I can imagine that an exact rendering of my photo would cause me to be reasonably unhappy, in the same way that I would be unhappy if someone claimed that they had taken one of my photographs.
A possible path around this issue of using someone else’s creative work is to make certain that it is not the story in your photograph. It can support your story, but it should not be the story. I have read a recommendation that the street art in a photograph should not comprise more than 50% of your image. That seems to me to be a rather arbitrary standard.
Photo by David Bland. Used with permission. You can see David’s Instagram gallery at @david_bland_photo and his gallery on Facebook.
Because street and graffiti artists retain the copyright, if you sell an image that includes street art, you might be in copyright violation.
The law varies by country. The Doctrine of Fair Use, in the United States, allows the sale of a photograph that includes copyrighted art if it is used for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. Selling for commercial use is explicitly prohibited. The sale of a photograph as a fine art print is sometimes thought of as a “Get out of jail free card.” At least, I thought that kind of sale did not have many conditions to it. It is true that the sale of fine art prints is protected under the Copyright Law if 200 or less prints are made and they are signed and consecutively numbered. However, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that even if these requirements are met, a photographer could be sued for copyright violation. She might then have to prove that she actually was a recognized artist.
Photo by Kostas Galinas. Used with permission.
Some thoughts on photographing street art without people in it.
I have read the observation that photographing street art is beneficial because it gives street artists more exposure. I can imagine this kind of comment is made when the photograph is only about the street art. It is not an incorrect observation, but when people ask photographers to do free work to get exposure that can seem like a self-serving request. Perhaps reproducing street art photographically is not so different.
On the other hand, a piece of street art is not forever. Photographing it can be thought of as conservation of this art form.
A visit to Bodo, Norway is a must for any street art fanatic.
A final thought:
Graffiti, in particular, can be in an unsafe or restricted area. Be knowledgeable about the location of your shoot and stay safe.