Leni Wiener

Cindy Bettinger wrote a comment on the blog to ask the following question:

When you take a picture of someone to make into a quilt, do you need permission?

This is a good question and is worth addressing in this blog.

As I understand it, and I am not a copyright attorney, any photo taken of a person out in public can be used for non-commercial purposes.

Primarily because I do not want to invade anyone’s privacy, rather than the legal subtleties, I will make every attempt to change the person’s face enough that they would not be easily recognized, even by the person in the photo.  I do this by simply making the face either a bit thinner or rounder, moving the eyes slightly, or by combining maybe the eyes and hair from one face with the nose and mouth of another (as long as the photos match up well enough).  Changing hair, adding sunglasses, or showing the person from an angle where their face is not clearly seen can alter the image enough.   Also, in using the technique of cutting pieces of fabric, the detail of the faces is often lost, making it hard to exactly identify the person depicted.

This woman in “Patience” looks so different from the original photo that even I am surprised when I look at the photograph (since I now see her as she is depicted in this art quilt).  For the same reason that I changed her face for the art work, I will not show you the original photo here; but although her body language remains the same,  in the original photo the woman is older, her face is thinner, her hair color is different, and she is not wearing sunglasses.  I doubt that she would recognize herself in this piece.

The face of the little boy in this quilt “The Boy in the Banyan Tree” is depicted with so few lines of thread that he becomes a more generalized version of a young boy rather than a portrait of a particular boy.  His grandfather (I assume, or at least I see him as the grandfather) is only seen from the back.

Likewise, in “Sunday Morning, Central Park” the actual face of this woman is depicted with only one piece of fabric, so that any identifying details in her face are lost.  Hense, no invasion of her privacy.

The faces in “Tourist Season” are also made up of so few pieces of fabric that this is not a portrait of anyone, it is simply a generic depiction of a collection of people.

I have never encountered a problem with someone recognising themselves in any of the photos I have taken out and about.  I take great care to alter their faces just enough to make it unclear who they are, and always treat my anoymous subjects with respect.