Rentmeester says he took a picture of Jordan in his Olympic warm-ups in 1984 for an issue of Life Magazine. After it was published, Nike's Peter Moore, who designed the first Air Jordans, paid $150 for temporary use of Rentmeester's slides. Rentmeester says Nike used his photo to recreate the shot with Jordan in Bulls gear with the Chicago skyline in the background, but that it was essentially still his work.
"Mr. Rentmeester created the pose, inspired by a ballet technique known as a 'grand jete,' a long horizontal jump during which a dancer performs splits in mid-air," the lawsuit says. "The pose, while conceived to make it appear that Mr. Jordan was in the process of a dunk, was not reflective of Mr. Jordan's natural jump or dunking style."
The suit claims Rentmeester directed Jordan, who practiced the desired leap, an unnatural move for the star because he typically held the ball with his right hand. Jordan, the suit claims, backed up the idea that it was indeed a ballet move in a 1997 interview with Hoop Magazine.
what????
