NYC Gallery Says it Has ‘Every Right’ to Create AI Version of Iconic Ansel Adams Photo

Matt Growcoot· May 26, 2026 · 9:31 AM UTC ·3 min read · 0 reactions · 0 comments · 54 views

TL;DR · WeSearch summary

James Danziger of the Danziger Gallery has defended his creation of an AI-generated color version of Ansel Adams' iconic photo, Moonrise. He claims the image is in the public domain, allowing him to produce and sell a transformative work. The Ansel Adams Publishing Right Trust has criticized this action, emphasizing the importance of artists' rights and consent.

Key facts

▪James Danziger asserts he has the right to create a new version of Ansel Adams' Moonrise since the original photo is in the public domain.
▪The Ansel Adams Trust has publicly stated that they did not authorize the AI-generated version and are concerned about artists' rights.
▪Danziger claims his work involved extensive human editing and refinement beyond the initial AI generation.

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PetaPixel files mainly under photography. We currently carry 91 of its stories.

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Record

Original publisher	PetaPixel
Canonical URL	https://petapixel.com/2026/05/26/nyc-gallery-says-it-has-every-right-to-create-ai-version-of-iconic-ansel-adams-photo/
Publication time	Tue, 26 May 2026 09:31:58 +0000
Retrieval time	2026-05-26T09:37:47.770Z
Last seen	2026-05-26T09:37:47.770Z
Headline source	Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite)
Excerpt source	publisher body
Excerpt method	First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited.
Summary	WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer)
Summary source text	contentText
Citation coverage	Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL.
Cluster	Vh1jmI1SkAQo
Cluster logic	Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison.
Ranking reason	Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking.
Publisher visit	Yes — open original
Substitutes article?	No — link-out required for full text

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Unknown

Retrieval and training permissions are not asserted unless the publisher confirms them.

WeSearch handling by dimension

Indexing	May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)?	Allowed
Snippet	May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown?	Allowed
AI summary	May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article?	Limited
Retrieval / RAG	May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation?	Not asserted
Model training	May the content be used to train AI models?	Not asserted
Commercial reuse	May the content be reused commercially?	Not permitted

Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.

Open original publisher → Source rights JSON → Machine-readable provenance → Rights framework → WESEARCH-STORY-PROVENANCE-V1

Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand

NYC Gallery Says it Has ‘Every Right’ to Create AI Version of Iconic Ansel Adams Photo May 26, 2026 Matt Growcoot James Danziger of the Danziger Gallery says he spent months creating this colorized version of Ansel Adams’ Moonrise photo and claims he has a right to do it. The owner of the Danziger Gallery has released a statement defending his actions after putting an AI-generated version of Ansel Adams’ Moonrise on sale at The Photography Show in New York. freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: "PetaPixel_728x90_ATF_Desktop", slotId: "PetaPixel_728x90_ATF_Desktop" }); freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: "PetaPixel_300x600_300x250_320x50_Mobile", slotId: "PetaPixel_300x600_300x250_320x50_Mobile" }); PetaPixel reported yesterday that the Ansel Adams Publishing…

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