The woman who is suing Vampire Weekend for $2 Million for the supposed unauthorised use of a polaroid photo of her as the cover of their Contra album says she has no idea how they got hold of the image of her. What’s more, Ann Kirstin Kennis says she only realised that the band had used the 1983 image when her daughter bought a copy of the album. Her lawyer has said “It was a Polaroid, not a modelling picture. Her mother was a chronic Polaroid snapshot taker, and used to sell whole archives of photographs to these shops, five bucks a hundred or whatever. Her mother may have given away to a charity bazaar a whole ream of photographs. We just really don’t know… She has no idea how that photograph got into the photographer’s hands.”
Meanwhile, photographer Tod Brody who licensed the image to the band, has hit back with a different version of events. “Ms Kennis’ claim that I didn’t take the photo is blatantly false,” he says. “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.” As for Vampire Weekend themselves, they’ve been gagged due to the legal proceedings and can’t comment. Front man Ezra Koenig told NME “There’s nothing we can say about it,” he said. “We’re not trying to be mysterious. I imagine in the next few months there’ll be plenty to talk about. Given it’s our first time we just want to do it properly.”
