Apple Uses Unlicensed Photo by Richard Misrach for iPad Wallpaper. Download it here

An impressive landscape photograph called "Pyramid Lake (at Night)" was featured at Apple’s January 27 event in San Francisco, when the Mac maker unveiled the highly anticipated iPad to the world. Apple hadn’t gotten around to licensing the image when the people attending Steve Jobs’ keynote gazed at it behind the 9.7-inch glass panel, yet its author is extremely pleased with the move. He is certain he and Apple will reach a fruitful agreement.

Generally, artists go ballistic when someone uses their works of art and don’t credit them properly, and for good reason too. Not Richard Misrach. He admits Apple had contacted him ahead of the January 27 event to license the photo, but the two parties never got around to signing the papers, for one reason or another.

Artinfo reveals that Misrach was first contacted by Apple a while ago in regards to ten images from his different series. Misrach rejected them. Then, two weeks ago (days before the iPad announcement), Misrach was contacted again from Cupertino, this time for a licensing of Pyramid Lake (at Night), a photo he had taken at a Native American reservation in Nevada, back in 2004. According to Artinfo, the two parties talked about a five-year, exclusive deal, with Apple saying it would use the image for screen-savers and stuff like that.

"I was in bed watching Inglorious Bastards when I got a call from Jeffrey FraenkeL, my dealer in San Francisco, and he said, 'Do you know what's going on live here?'" Misrach told Artinfo. "I was totally shocked. Naturally my other galleries started calling and my family was all atwitter, because it's a whole different world."

However, no papers have yet been signed.

"The funny thing is that I don't even have a contract with them yet, so they must have decided on it at the eleventh hour," Misrach revealed. "I'm sure they'll send me one quickly now. But I'm very happy, I'm sure it's fine, and the terms are good."

Misrach also explained that, "[Pyramid Lake (at Night) is] a long night exposure where the moon is lighting up the mountains in the distance. I shot it on an 8x10 camera, so the quality is really beautiful and you can see star trails going through the sky."

That's a Richard Misrach Photo on the iPad

Have you seen all the photos of the new Apple iPad? That landscape photo shown on the screen is an image fine-art photographer Richard Misrach licensed to Apple in a five-year exclusive deal.  Misrach told ArtInfo.comthat it's the first time he's ever licensed an image for commercial use. 

Misrach, who is represented byPace/MacGill in New York, Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco and other galleries, says Apple had reviewed several of his photos. Then two weeks before the launch of the much-hyped new tablet, Apple specified they wanted to use "Pyramid Lake (at Night)."   Apple said only that it wanted to use the 2004 image"Pyramid Lake (at Night),"  as a screen saver and for other features -- no mention of the iPad, which was still under wraps. 

'What's funny is that for years I actually used the photo as my own screensaver," Misrach says. "So I guess they know what they're doing."

(Note: Richard Misrach's "On the Beach" was chosen one of the last decade's most influential photo books of the decade. Check out yesterday's PDN Photo of the Day. )

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