Perhaps it would’ve been better to write you this letter in private. But your recent public statements regarding iN-PUBLiC and myself —in particular your interview with Blackkamera— have brought this dispute into the open, into the public streets, as it were. So I thought it would be best to respond in an open letter.
Confusion over France’s strict privacy laws has made it harder for street photographers to work in the tradition of legends like Henri Cartier-Bresson.
In his 20-year career, Mr. Turpin has learned how to be inconspicuous, relying on a small Leica and a quick smile — especially when he’s shooting in France, whose privacy laws are among the world’s strictest. “Everyone has the right to respect for his private life,” states Article 9 of France’s civil code. Yet, as many street photographers have discovered, the law is open to judges’ interpretation because legislators have refused to define the concept of privacy in clear terms
I have made mistakes a long the way of course, my biggest lesson was when I started to get Advertising work in New York and allowed myself to be bullied into working in a different way to my usual approach, the pictures where not good so the next time I shot for a big US Agency I behaved like a Prima Dona, ignored the client, demanded to use my usual little cameras with no tripod making spontaneous observations like I do on the street…..it was the best commercial Ad campaign I’ve ever shot.
“Street photography is the hardest thing I’ve done,” says Nick Turpin, a street photographer and founder of In-Public, at the Format International Photography Festival
Nick Turpin started the In-Public website in 2000 to foster a community of practicing street photographers. The recently published 10: 10 Years of In-Public features the work of the 20 photographers who now make up In-Public. In-Public is very much a 21st century endeavour, a virtual convergence of street photographers on four continents with a shared interest who have influenced one another’s individual practices. As Turpin writes in the introduction, “We grew with the internet and benefited enormously from the way it circumvented the gatekeepers of the art and publishing worlds that had traditionally decided who would or would not reach an audience”.
