This “guy talk” all the time around here can make it seem that all you ever talk about is sports, cars, “other women” and tech stuff. I am smarter tech wise than the entire lot of you “guys” put together but I don’t go around talking about it all the time. So, let’s get down to some serious non essential gossip.

As an investigative blogger of all things fashion I came across an article that hit close to home on several levels. On one level I like the band Vampire Weekend and on the second level we work with models all the time and the former model on the cover of their album Contra is suing Vampire Weekend for unauthorized use of her image.

Where’s the rub you are probably asking. Ok! Here it is. Former fashion model Ann Kirsten Kennis was reportedly very surprised to see her doe-in-headlights likeness in a preppy Polo shirt on the Contra cover, when her daughter showed her the disc earlier this year. “Her daughter came home one day and said, “Hi, Mom, see your picture?'” Kennis’s lawyer, Alan Neigher, told Entertainment Weekly. Neigher also told EW that the photo was never intended for professional use. “It was taken by her family. It was a Polaroid, not a modeling picture,” he insisted. There’s another factor to all of this, the photogrpaher, Tod Brody, who sold the picture to the band for a reported $5,000 and then forged Kennis’s signature on the release form. Kennis said that the band was duped into believing he was the person who took the picture.

Brody of course has denied this, telling EW: “Ms. Kennis’s claim that I didn’t take the photo is blatantly false. I took the photo in 1983. The photo was in my possession the entire time, for 26 years, until it was delivered to Vampire Weekend.” (Incidentally, the photograph seems to have been removed from Brody’s website, www.todbrodyphoto.com, although it was once included in the Portraits section under the file name “Kirsten.”)

So there are several questions here. First, who took the photo–Kennis’s mother or the photographer, Tod Brody? And if it was the mom, then did Brody really forge Kennis’s signature and claim he was the real photographer? And if so, how did he think he’d get away with such a scam, since it was inevitable that Kennis would eventually see the cover? (After all, the album did debut at number one on the Billboard album chart in January 2010, so it was hardly obscure.) Conversely, if it was Brody who took the pic, is it possible that Kennis failed to read the fine print and didn’t realize she was signing away rights to the picture 27 years ago?

We deal with models all the time and they sign a release for every picture we take of them, even if the model is a non professional and this is her first shoot. We own the pictures after that but they can use them if they wish for their portfolio.

I am curious to see what happens with Contra and the model and I will follow up as new information surfaces.

Now this is good girl stuff . . . . !

Mandy

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