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Again you resort to spurious arguments. I never said I would censor intelligent, on-point discussion. However, you have not been on-point. You have already insulted me once (using respect in quotes when saying “with all due respect” to me is an insult) and as I pointed out before, your analogy to medicine is not valid. We all know what we mean when we speak of art–medicine os completely out of this context.

It was a warning.

Btw, why not come out and post under your real name? Why are you hiding? It is pretty hypocritical of you to call for professionalism (even on your own terms) when you aren’t behaving as a professional yourself (posting anonymously is not being a professional in my book).
-L

The original photos Ms. Greenberg later ‘manipulated’ to suit her own anti-client uses were indeed created under the auspices of the Atlantic Magazine photo shoot, an access granted her only by her acceptance of their assignment.

In terms of liability, I said “if” McCain sues her. He is surely allowed to pursue that option whether or not she is eventually found liable. As someone currently engaged in the study of law, you best would understand that a jury would make the final ‘liability’ decision if indeed he did so.

And if you do not believe that other talented and highly educated professionals who have advanced their skill sets far beyond ‘book learning’ also consider their finest work as their ‘art’… well, speak with any top surgeon some time.

On a personal note Leslie, I am a photographer and studio owner who has been working successfully in the advertising market for these past 25 years. I heard you speak at an Atlanta seminar many years ago and was impressed with your understanding of our business and the art of promotion. This is why your original ‘take’ on this issue caught me so off-guard, as it did many other professionals including the one whose own blog initially linked me to yours on this issue. He too is incredulous.

I would be extremely disappointed to now think that you are unwilling to allow reasoned, on-point discussion on your blog just because you disagree with points made in opposition to your thinking. It is to your credit that you are allowing this exchange of ideas and reasoned discussion to take place before our entire (viewing) photo community..

To do otherwise would truly be the ‘censorship’ you decry, which sparked in you the impetus for this entire discussion thread.

Many of your facts are wrong (she did not make ANY of the questionable images for the magazine–NONE…not a one) as are your suppositions about liability (McCain has NO libel/slander case–see Falwell v Hustler and others).

Also, you are making an incredibly wild and inapplicable analogy between art and medicine.

Further posts like this will get deleted as they are not contributing to the discussion.
-Leslie

But civilization can only exist if its society (or a trade group in this instance) sanctions a set of moral principles that are generally beneficial to that society in guiding each individual away from acts that are destructive to the group at large. Calling oneself an ‘ARTIST’ does not absolve one from the bounds of civilized behavior.

If the very talented SURGEON (labeling her/himself an ‘artist’) who is called in to remove your appendix decides to also transplant the heart of a giant squid into your chest cavity to make an even greater name for her/himself, because ‘they’re a GREAT ARTIST’, you’re under the anesthesia anyway, and … they just can… Then you wake up three days later doing fine so far, but now every day will become a challenge… Not to mention the fact that now whenever you’re attracted to someone of the opposite sex, you suddenly excrete a huge cloud of black ink and must immediately run away to change your pants…

Did the surgeon have that right, just because she/he was redefining their ‘ART’? Or did those money managers and CEOs who measure their ‘Artistry’ in terms of generating more and more of their own wealth without regard for the rest of us and have now thrown our industry and the entire the planet into a financial tailspin… did they also have that right to pursue their ‘ART’ at everyone else’s expense?

In Angelo’s world, they did. There is no right nor wrong…if it benefits me to believe so. Oh, maybe there will be some penalty imposed upon me down the road by those I’ve hurt, but that should never stop me from being ‘AN ARTIST’!!!

‘Pushing boundaries seeking truth’ is admirable, Angelo. But posting someone’s smiling photo inscribed with the headline “I called my wife a cunt in front of reporters” (among the several other repulsive uses of the photographs supposedly created for ‘Atlantic Magazine’) may yet be found illegal, or at the least, civilly liable.

If McCain decides to sue Jill Greenberg for $20M after the election is over, a jury of our peers will make that determination. And if he has lost the election, he will have an even stronger case.

Either way, our profession will suffer due to the extreme vigilance and even tighter contract restrictions that will become the norm going forward for this type of assignment, due to the ‘ART’ of one unscrupulous individual.

eth·ics…
1. the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation
Q: Whose morals…yours or the artist’s?

2. a: a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values
Q: Whose set of principals…whose theory of values? Yours or the artist’s?

b: the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group
Q: Whose principals of conduct? Maybe the artist doesn’t want to comform to your set of principles…maybe the artist has their own idea of right and wrong.

c: a guiding philosophy
Q: Does every artist have the same guiding philosophy? I would hope not.

d: a consciousness of moral importance
Maybe the artist’s conscience told her this was a morally important issue to speak out against. Maybe it was morally important to HER to voice her political opinion in an extreme way. Ethics is not valid in this case. It comes down to each person’s own idea of right and wrong. We must question everything before pointing the finger at anyone. If you just conform to “a set of moral principles” then are you really worthy of calling yourself an artist? Artists have the legal right to exercise freedom of expression. Remember, an artist pushes boundaries seeking truth, a thief breaks the law. Both face consequences to their actions. The difference is the thief goes to jail.

However, we are not free to do so on someone else’s dime (our client) if we break their trust and abdicate our professional ethics and moral responsibilities in doing so.

‘Ethics and professionalism’ can never be so flexible as to allow lying, deceiving, and cheating those who sustain us with their trust and that of their clients.

Express your art all you want, but when you do so by accepting money from and then stabbing in the back those who entrust and support you (your clients), you are no better than a thief.

To those who still do not ‘get’ this, read on:

eth·ics
Pronunciation: \ˈe-thiks\ Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English ethik, from Middle French ethique, from Latin ethice, from Greek ēthikē, from ēthikos Date: 14th century

1. plural but sing or plural in constr : the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and
with moral duty and obligation
2. a: a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values
b: plural but sing or plural in constres : the principles of conduct governing an
individual or a group
c: a guiding philosophy d: a consciousness of moral importance

In the long run no one will care about Greenburgs photos, we’ll all be wondering where our freedoms went.