https://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-la...os-city-street
After five arrests and a long legal battle, photographer Spencer Tunick finally got what he wanted all along -- the right to photograph a mass of nude bodies evoking a hilly landscape on a New York City street.
The final decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York (2nd Cir.) found that his right to photograph nudes for artistic purposes was protected under the First Amendment and New York law.
Tunick, an artist specializing in "living sculptures" whose work has appeared in numerous galleries and been reviewed in national magazines, has been arrested five times in the past few years for staging photographs of nude bodies on the bridges and streets of Manhattan without a city permit.
Last year, Tunick applied for a permit to hold an early-morning photo shoot in a residential Manhattan neighborhood. The session was to involve predominantly clothed models, but include a five-minute shoot of nude models. He was granted the permit for the clothed models, but denied the permit for the nude shoot. Tunick then sued the city for violating his First Amendment rights.