LOS ANGELES – A jury found Friday that celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D did not violate a photographer’s copyright when she used his portrait of Miles Davis as the basis for a tattoo she put on the arm of a friend.

The Los Angeles jury deliberated for just over two hours before deciding that the tattoo by the former star of the reality shows “Miami Ink” and “LA Ink” was not similar enough to photographer Jeffrey Sedlik’s 1989 portrait of the jazz legend that she needed to have paid permission.

“I’m obviously very happy for this to be over,” Von D, who inked her friend’s arm with Davis as a gift about seven years ago, said outside the courtroom. “It’s been two years of a nightmare worrying about this, not just for myself but for my fellow tattoo artists.”

The eight jurors made the same decision about a drawing Von D made from the portrait to base the tattoo on, and to several social media posts she made about the process, which were also part of Sedlik’s lawsuit. And they found that the tattoo, drawing and posts also all fell within the legal doctrine of fair use of a copyrighted work, giving Von D and other tattoo artists who supported her and followed the trial a resounding across-the-board victory.

“We’ve said all along that this case never should have been brought,” Von D’s attorney Allen B. Grodsky said after the verdict. “The jury recognized that this was just ridiculous.”

Sedlik’s attorney Robert Edward Allen said they plan to appeal. He said it the images, which both featured a close-up of Davis gazing toward the viewer and making a “shh” gesture, were so similar he didn’t know how the jury could reach the conclusion they did.

“If those two things are not substantially similar, then no one’s art is safe,” Allen said.

He told jurors during closing arguments earlier Friday that the case has “nothing to do with tattoos.”

“It’s about copying others’ protected works,” Allen said. “It’s not going to hurt the tattoo industry. The tattoo police are not going to come after anyone.”

Allen emphasized the meticulous work Sedlik did to set up the shoot, to create the lighting and mood, and to put Davis in the pose that would make for an iconic photo that was first published on the cover of JAZZIZ magazine in 1989. Sedlik registered the copyright in 1994.

And he said that subsequently, licensing the image to others including tattoo artists was a major part of how he made his living.

Von D said during the three-day trial that she never licenses the images she recreates, and she considers work like the Davis tattoo a form of “fan art.”

“I made zero money off it,” she testified. “I’m not mass-producing anything. I think there is a big difference.”

Her attorney Grodsky emphasized for jurors that that lack of an attempt to cash in on the image was essential to the tattoo being a form of fair use, an exception in copyright law used for works including commentary, criticism and parody.

Allen argued in his closing that the social media posts about the tattoo were a promotion of her and her studio, and thus a form of monetizing the image.

If jurors had sided with Sedlik, they could have awarded him as little as a few hundred dollars or as much as $150,000.

Von D was among the stars of the reality series “Miami Ink” then was the featured artist on its spinoff “LA Ink,” which ran ran on TLC from 2007 to 2011.

The 41-year-old Von D, whose legal name is Katherine von Drachenberg, was already a prominent young tattoo artist when she became a TV personality through her appearances on TLC’s “Miami Ink” starting in 2005 on TLC. She was the central star of its spinoff, “LA Ink,” which ran from 2007 to 2011 and made her possibly the most famous tattoo artist in the country.

Von D said that despite the victory, she’s not enthused about getting back to work.

“I think I don’t want to ever tattoo again, my heart has been crushed through this in different ways,” she said. “We’ll see with time.”

The HOVERAir X1 Self-Flying Camera is a compact photography drone engineered to provide users with the easiest way to capture a range of shots in a handsfree manner. The drone weighs in at just 125-grams and is compact enough to be carried anywhere, while the preprogrammed flight modes work with self-stabilization technology to keep it hovering at just the right level. The unit is equipped with a premium lens rated to record videos at up to 2.7K at 30fps, 1080p at 60fps and 1080p HDR, while single images can also be snapped at leisure.

The HOVERAir X1 Self-Flying Camera comes in black and white color options, and works in Follow, Hover, Orbit, Zoom Out and Bird’s Eye modes to support any user needs.

With so many different products on the market, it’s easy to get lost in trying to pick the perfect one for you. So many brands, so many modifiers, and so much to learn. What if there was an almost perfect kit for beginners? Well, this might just be it.

It’s no secret that for as long as I have been shooting images, I have been using off-camera light in one form or another. Be it a torch for long-exposure photography or tens of thousands of dollars in flash equipment, I’ve experienced it all. This experience has always left me wondering, what would be the perfect kit for beginners to use? It shouldn’t be too expensive, but it also should be reliable and easy to use. While it would be great to give every flash photographer a Pro-11 pack and a bunch of kit to play with, realistically, it is impossible.

I am aware of a lot of the flash kit on the market, from the lower end to the top of the top. There are few lighting products I miss. This is both due to my obsession with lighting as well as a constant search for a better light, a more reliable light, and so on. That’s not to say that what I have now and recommend using is unreliable, but it can always be better, right? The kit I recommend is the kit I would personally go out and spend my own money on today if I were starting out in flash photography. In fact, this is almost the kit that I bought back when I was starting out.

Light

Profoto B2 250 AirTTL

More or less, this is the first big boy light that I bought. While you may be slightly surprised to see Profoto in a beginner-friendly kit, don’t let the name fool you. Profoto is far more beginner-friendly than any other brand. Why? It is just so darn simple to use. There are a few switches and buttons that control the main functions of the flash. It is easy to the point of my 11-year-old sister knowing how to control it.

On a serious note, buying this kit can be around $600. It will ship with two heads, two batteries, and probably an extension cord. As this is a battery-powered light, you will be able to take it with you wherever you go.

There are more powerful and cheaper battery-powered lights. However, the reason I advise many beginners to get into Profoto is that it is very much a buy-once product. Besides great build quality and reliability, you also get great performance. With 250W spread over two heads, you essentially get two lights for the price of basically one. Given that the light has both HSS and TTL, you can use it in auto mode without having to worry about power settings. Just make sure you have either an Air Remote or a Connect Pro. The first one can be found used for not more than $150, which is a fairly good price to pay for a remote that is the most reliable and easiest to use on the market. A more in-depth review of the Profoto B2 is in the works for anyone who is interested.

Modifiers

Profoto Umbrella Shallow M + Diffuser

Many photographers might say that the umbrella is something amateur and something to avoid. Indeed, it does not have the same oomph as a softbox does. But I assure you, not only will you get softer light with an umbrella, but you will also be able to travel with it much easier than with a softbox. A used umbrella will run you about $50 and will last you a good five years at least.

The reason I advise you to get a diffuser for it is to produce more even light. This is useful when lighting portraits and trying to create an even light spread on the subject. The diffuser is arguably more useful when using the silver umbrella, as it turns the specular light into diffused light, but even with a white umbrella, it makes a noticeable difference.

A used shallow umbrella will be about $50.

Profoto OCF Beauty Dish White

This modifier is also a highly recommended beginner classic, in my opinion. The OCF beauty dish is unlike many other beauty dishes as it can be used not only as a dish but also as a makeshift octabank. As the inner deflector plate is removable, this modifier is highly versatile. If you use it without the deflector and diffusers, you will get a light similar to sunlight; if you use it with the deflector, you will get classic beauty light. Use it with the plate and the diffuser, and you have a super soft light. In short, there are about ten more ways to use this modifier, making it a truly versatile tool that beginners can experiment with.

A used OCF beauty dish will run about $150 with the speedring.

The Reason To Go To Profoto

Perhaps one of the most common criticisms that I get from my readers is that I promote Profoto far too much in my work. This is fair enough, as there are plenty of other brands that make great lighting kits that deserve attention. However, Profoto is a brand that I personally believe in, same as Capture One and any other company that I personally use. I have not received heaps of gear from them to make me use them; I saved and bought their gear with my own cash.

Profoto provides some of the best and newest features on the market, as well as allowing you to constantly up your game in terms of performance. I am talking not only about their more pro-line lights such as the Pro-11, but also the forgotten Pro-7a or the D4. If you get to a point where you are shooting a lot in the studio, this might be an excellent purchase. The range of modifiers Profoto offers is also second to none, and their rental availability means that you are always able to get something you need in whatever city you are in. Broncolor would be in the same position in terms of availability, however, their features are not up to speed with whatever Profoto is up to.

Closing Thoughts 

Here we have it. This is the kit you should use as a beginner photographer. While it appears to be pricey, it really isn’t much more when you buy it used. The catch is that these are buy-once products that will last you well into your professional days. If it doesn’t work out, this kit holds value incredibly well.

Shortly before trial, Prince agreed to compensate two photographers whose images he had used in an installation.

GRAND ARMY PLAZA — Brooklyn Public Library currently presents “It Happened in New York”, an exhibition of photographs by Sylvia Plachy. Between 1974 and 2004, Plachy was a staff photographer for the Village Voice. The exhibition is an ode to New York and Plachy’s immense power of observation.

Plachy, who was also a contributing photographer at the New Yorker and a columnist for Metropolis magazine, captures New York’s writers, musicians, artists, and public icons alongside the sidewalk characters who personify the city. Plachy is also the mother of noted actor Adrien Brody.

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The exhibition is comprised of nearly 40 photographs along with clippings from the Village Voice and Metropolis as well as the artist’s books. We meet the bold countenance of a woman named Monet, commanding a pack of Great Danes in front of a Lower East Side building covered in graffiti. In another, Tom Waits poses as a toreador. Margaret Atwood poses in a cape evoking “The Handmaiden’s Tale,” three years before it was written. Break dancers torque their bodies on the boardwalk.

Plachy will walk through the exhibition and talk about her photographs on Thursday, Feb. 1, at 6 p.m. starting in the grand lobby of Central Library. The program is free, but reservations are recommended.

Sylvia Plachy, born in Budapest, lives in New York. She has had one-person shows at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris in New York, the Queens Museum, The Radvila Palace Museum of Art in Vilnius, Photo España, Madrid, Museo di Roma in Trastevere, and in galleries in Homer, Budapest, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, New York, Manchester, Arles, Perpingnon and Pingyau.

For thirty years (1974-2004) she was a photographer at The Village Voice, where she had a weekly column, “Unguided Tour,” and where she became staff photographer, reporting nationally and internationally.  She also had a column for several years in Metropolis magazine (“Signs and Relics”) and was a contributing photographer at the New Yorker. Her photographs have appeared in the New York Times, Fortune, ArtForum, Granta, Grand Street, New York Magazine and in many other magazines. She is a Guggenheim fellow and the recipient of Lucie Award. Her photographs are held in collections including the MoMA, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the San Francisco Museum, and the High Museum.

Ms. Plachy has had six books published: “Signs And Relics,” 2000; “Red Light,” 1996; “Unguided Tour,” 1990, winner of the Infinity Award for best publication; “Self Portrait With Cows Going Home,” 2004, winner of the Golden Light Award for best book; “De Reojo/Out Of The Corner Of My Eye,” 2007; and “Goings On About Town,” 2007, a collection from photographs in the New Yorker column.

Ms. Plachy was a legacy photographer at the Look3 Festival in the summer of 2009 in Charlottesville. On Feb. 6, 2010, Sylvia Plachy was given the Dr. Erich Salomon award by the German Society for Photography (DGPh). This prestigious prize is given for “lifetime achievement” in photojournalism.

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About Brooklyn Public Library

Brooklyn Public Library is one of the nation’s largest library systems and among New York City’s most democratic institutions. As a leader in developing modern 21st-century libraries, we provide resources to support personal advancement, foster civic literacy, and strengthen the fabric of community among the more than 2.7 million individuals who call Brooklyn home. We provide nearly 65,000 free programs a year with writers, thinkers, artists, and educators — from around the corner and around the world. And we give patrons millions of opportunities to enjoy one of life’s greatest satisfactions: the joy of a good book.