Ron Haviv Response

Dear All,

I want to comment on a discussion started by a photography blog in regard to my images that feature on the commercial campaign section of my personal website. VII is not associated in any way with the images in question. I’ve established that all the images on my commercial campaign section mistakenly carried the copyright Ron Haviv-VII as the result of an auto captioning error.

The commercial images in question include three portraits of U.S. servicemen that I shot for the United Services Organization (USO), a private non-profit whose mission is to provide morale and recreational services to members of the U.S. military and their families. The USO campaign was sponsored by BAE. A fourth image is a stock photo of tracks in the desert. My commercial agent sold the landscape image as stock to Lockheed Martin, which exercised its right to add smoke and text.

I draw a strict line between my photojournalism and commercial campaigns and feature examples of both on my website, where they are clearly labeled for what they are. I support humanitarian intervention, detente and defense as I’ve seen what can happen when those things don’t exist. I am comfortable with where I set the boundaries. I also appreciate and respect that there are many different views about where those boundaries lie.

Best regards

Ron