About a year and a half ago I was watching The Notorious Bettie Page, a biopic about Bettie Page's start as a fetish model. When I got to the part where Paula Klaw was being forced to destroy her collection--but surreptitiously hiding some of it away--I shook my head thinking "Man, those people had NO idea how valuable those things would be in 50 years" and then I realized something: back then, in a pre-internet, pre-60s society, nobody had a clue that these photos and films were records of the beginning of the modern fetish movement...today, we can avoid that mistake.
I took photos at NEST in 2000 with verbal permission from all parties depicted (a tough sell
before Facebook & MySpace) and only myself, hosts Max Speer & Mr. Hyde got copies of the photos. I can tell you, the pictures aren't going to be worth anything in 50 years. And without a signed contract, I - or my estate - couldn't seriously release them as "historical content" anyway without visits from lawyers of the survivors in the photos. It's a fetish party, not the Hindenberg. The Klaw models signed "in perpetuity" releases.
Also, I paint. Anyone wants to avoid the mistake of not recognizing a brilliant & gifted artist during his lifetime, buy my paintings. Check out my TMF blog photos, then open up that checkbook!
So I was semi-formally elected to be the kind-of-official NEST chronicler...with clearance to take photographs and video that no one else was.
Who grants this clearance? What is the basis of the selection? Guests of NEST have to fill out pretty specific information and hand it in. In return, those who go to NEST might also want to know how and who is making the decisions reguarding their privacy and image rights.
but in MY pictures, people in them didn't always have a say in being in them, so they have to be reviewed and okayed by the people in them in order to be shown.
That sentence just looks so questionable. Again, with the rules in place that I've seen/read, how can that even happen? "People didn't always have a say." ? Doesn't that seem like a grevious breach of security? That's the sentence the prosecuter will hang ya with.
It's not a public street. It's not about getting permission
after the picture was taken - it's being taken it in a private, non-mainstream function without the pre-consent of the participants there. TTD had a behind-the-scenes issue a few years ago at NEST that he dealt with, properly, behind the scenes (although I don't think he's been back since because of the issue) - yet, openly, there's photo snappin' going in a compromising & intimate situation without written or verbal permission of the attendees?
I have an idea, too: Make it easy. No photography at NEST.
Nothing against Amnesiac. He's a reasonable guy. Lot's of fun. Morally responsible - like most of the people who get through the screening to attend NEST. It's the people who allowed cameras in who took a bad risk in allowing it to happen. Here's why -
Whatever happens in the hotel rooms is not specifically connected with NEST (folks just
happen to be having tickle parties in a hotel.... all at the same time.... at the NEST group rate...), so if any photos are taken in the private hotel rooms - and/or these photos get released to the general public - that's how life goes.
It's not connected with NEST, specifically. Thus, privacy issues can be hashed out away from the TMF website and whomever ends up in a VH1 documentary 40 years from now
can take legal action against the photographer and not against the creators of NEST, which would effectively shut the event down. If it's around that far in the future.
Honestly, if NEST is so big that it needs to be documented for history then it's gotten too big. Or it needs to be opened up to mainstream visitors.
