Opinion: Beyoncé vs Photographer(s). Who crossed the line?

As reported earlier last month by The Guardian, Beyoncé “has banned professional photographers from her current world tour.” Instead, publications are able to use photos from the only accredited photographer on the tour, Frank Micelotta. Plenty of tours suffer from similar restrictions on photographers, but the controversy here is that the ban comes in the light of the unflattering photos that were published of the star after her Super Bowl performance earlier this year.

The photos were a wet dream for sites like Buzzfeed, with the photos going viral and resulting in a letter from the artist’s publicist to take the photos down. Of course, by then, any action was too late, and the request only helped spiral the popularity of the media. Just Google “Beyoncé Super Bowl” and you’ve got yourself a plethora of entertaining photos. So who has XTL here? Was it the original photographer(s) for posting the images in the first place, was it the websites who published them, or is it Beyoncé and her management for reacting to it in such a fashion? Or were both parties well within their right? We opened this up to discussion amongst our own photographers, as well as a few of our writers, and here’s what they had to say:

What do you have to say? Head to our Facebook Page and let us know who you think XTL!

Larry Heath

Founding Editor and Publisher of the AU review. Currently based in Toronto, Canada. You can follow him on Twitter @larry_heath or on Instagram @larryheath.