Photo Lab Sets Off FBI Probe : Art: Jock Sturges’ photographs of nude families are at issue. Three San Francisco supervisors support a resolution condemning the Justice Department.

The county Board of Supervisors is scheduled to act on a resolution condemning a federal grand jury investigation of a prominent local photographer caught up in an apparent FBI crackdown on sexually explicit photographs processed by commercial photo laboratories.

At issue is an FBI investigation of photographer Jock Sturges, 43, whose work often depicts nude women and children. Sturges, whose works have been purchased by museums in San Francisco, New York and Paris, said that when an FBI and police anti-pornography team raided his Richmond District home and studio in late April, it was like a bad dream.

Sturges still faces no charges, more than two months after a call from a photo-lab employee prompted the raid. But Sturges’ supporters tout him as the latest victim of what they see as a national wave of hysteria that is eroding freedom of expression by imposing a conservative view of morality. They liken his situation to that of the 2 Live Crew rap singers arrested in Florida, and that of Cincinnati museum director Dennis Barrie, who faces obscenity charges for his role in an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs that included sexually graphic images.

In the most recent development in the case, a Board of Supervisors committee has approved a resolution siding with Sturges and criticizing the Justice Department’s employment of a federal grand jury in the case. “There is a dangerous state of hysteria and repression over freedom of expression of artists in the United States,” concludes the resolution, authored by Supervisor Terrance Hallinan and supported by Supervisors Angela Alioto and Richard Hongisto. “If they are doing this to someone of (Sturges’) stature, imagine what they are doing to the young artist,” Alioto said. “What a chilling effect that would have. If something like this had happened during the Renaissance, the Renaissance wouldn’t have happened.” The board is scheduled to act on the resolution within two weeks.

“I’ve always lived with a little fear that something like this was going to happen,” said Sturges, who has become the reluctant hero of the Bay Area arts community. “The very sad truth is that I photograph innocence, and some people find innocence obscene.”

Colleagues and friends say they understand how Sturges’ work has become so controversial, but maintain that it’s not because there is anything dirty or pornographic in his nude portraits of consenting families, including children, lolling on beaches.

Investigators contend they are simply taking action against possible criminal violations of child-pornography statutes. Police say the investigation could continue for at least another month.

As the Sturges investigation has continued, however, there have been indications that the FBI may be anticipating a broader initiative against photographers whose work involves sexually explicit themes. In a June 12 letter to Sturges’ photo laboratory, Newell Colour, a top San Francisco FBI agent observed, “The FBI simply requests that any processing lab that receives questionable material contact this office or their local law enforcement agency.”

The letter, signed by Susan F. Schnitzer, an FBI supervisory special agent, also urged laboratories reporting possibly suspect work to ensure that photographers who may be targeted are not informed that law enforcement agencies have been called in.

“As in all our investigations, confidentiality is vital for successful prosecutions and the FBI requests labs to refrain from notifying (their) customers once we initiate an investigation,” Schnitzer’s letter told Newell Colour. “We attempt to conduct such investigations discreetly until such time as we develop sufficient probable cause to obtain a search warrant.”

Newell Colour has defended its actions. “We do not presume to judge or label Mr. Sturges’ work,” the company said in a statement issued by general manager Chris Lopin. “There was no judgment. There was no censorship. There was only the responsibility to abide by the law that requests reporting of suspected child abuse.”

The situation has, not surprisingly, roused fears that in a climate in which photographers have been caught up in right-wing criticism that is the vortex of the political crisis facing the National Endowment for the Arts, the FBI policy could have far broader implications.

Jennifer Dowley, director of the Headlands Center for the Arts and the chair of an NEA visual arts review panel, called the FBI letter to Newell Colour and the related statement from the laboratory justifying its cooperation with the FBI “a chilling set of documents.”

Sturges’ work can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It draws near-unanimous approval from museum curators, gallery owners and many people he has photographed. His black-and-white prints, they say, are beautiful.

“I know a lot of the work, and it’s about something that goes on in public places,” said Peter Galassi of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “Sturges is a serious photographer. His work is not pornographic. It’s art.”

He gets very different reviews, however, from federal and local investigators who confiscated his cameras and other equipment, thousands of photographs and negatives, books, personal papers and other belongings. Police already have filed two felony and 10 misdemeanor pornography possession charges against a business associate, Joe Semien, for his role in processing 27 Sturges photographs that included frontal nude shots of a man and his 9-year-old daughter on a beach.

Although investigators say that a grand jury investigation of the Sturges case prohibits them from discussing the case, they add that they never resort to raiding a photo studio unless they believe they’ll find illegal or pornographic material.

“We’re not interested in wasting our time,” said Sgt. Thomas Eisenmann, a police inspector with the San Francisco child-exploitation unit. “You look into these cases as child-abuse cases, and you see if there’s a crime that has been committed.”

The idea that law enforcement officers have the power to raid homes, confiscate equipment and decide that an artist’s work may constitute pornography has outraged artists, politicians and others in the Bay Area. In a city known for its tolerant, free-thinking atmosphere, the reaction to the case has been strong.

Even some people who don’t approve of Sturges’ photographs of nude children, even though they are done with parental consent, think Sturges is being singled out for unfair treatment.

“Some of his images are definitely questionable,” said Ann Simonton, coordinator of a Santa Cruz-based organization, Media Watch, formed to improve women’s image in the media. “But it seems very unfair in the way it is being enforced.”

The nature of Sturges’ work makes him an easy target for people who are offended by nudity, even though he never takes photographs with sexually explicit content, according to several members of the San Francisco arts community. If his work is pornographic, so is every image of a child with no clothes on, one gallery owner said.

But an FBI agent said the investigation involves some work the public has never seen.

“Nudity is not pornography,” FBI spokesman Duke Diedrich said. “The photos we are looking at in this case are not the published photos that have been exhibited by Mr. Sturges.”

The pictures the investigators are asking the most questions about are some of the nude-beach snapshots police obtained from the lab before the April 25 raid on Sturges’ studio and Semien’s apartment, Sturges said. These photos tripped a series of events that unfolded rapidly and without warning, ending in the police investigation.

Sturges contracted with Semien to have a series of photographic prints made from slides he shot of a family on an outing at a nude beach. He wanted a set of color prints as a gift for his subjects. A Newell Colour employee called police, according to a statement issued by the lab. The raids followed.

Since then, Sturges’ life has changed. His friends and associates have been questioned by investigators, and much of the community has rallied to his side. His prints, which Folberg’s gallery used to sell at the rate of a few a month, are being snapped up to the tune of 15 a week. And their price soon will rise from a high of $800 to about $1,200, Folberg said.

A group of supporters plans a concert and photo auction to help Sturges and Semien pay their legal fees. But Sturges, who left Tuesday for a summer lecturing job in France, just wants to get on with his work.

“I hate all this,” Sturges said. “I wish it would go away.”