[Leica] Korda's Che Photo

[chucko@siteconnect.com (Chuck Albertson)]

(Sigh...) At the risk of starting the Korda thread again, I grabbed this off
the wire this evening.

Chuck Albertson
Seattle, Wash.

LONDON (Reuters) - The photograph can be seen on T-shirts, banners, and
plastered on the walls of student rooms and bars all over the world.

But only now, 40 years on, is the man who took the famous shot of Cuban
revolutionary Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara planning to reclaim his copyright over
the image.

Britain's Guardian newspaper said on Monday that photographer Alberto Diaz
Gutierrez, known as Alberto Korda, is angry that his work is being used for
an advertising campaign for Smirnoff vodka, owned by British food and
beverage firm Diageo Group Plc.

Korda, who is now 71 and still lives in Cuba, is suing Lowe Lintas, the
advertising agency that developed the campaign, and Rex Features, the
company that supplied the photograph, the newspaper said.

``I was offended by the use of the image,'' Korda told the newspaper.

``To use the image of Che Guevara to sell vodka is a slur on his name and
memory. He never drank himself, he was not a drunk and drink should not be
associated with his immortal memory.''

In his legal claim, Korda accuses the advertising firm of trivializing the
historical significance of the famous photograph by printing a hammer and
sickle motif over it in which the sickle is depicted as a chilli pepper.

The campaign is a promotion for ``spicy'' vodka.

Korda, who worked for a Cuban newspaper, took the photograph of the
revolutionary on March 5, 1960, at a memorial service in Havana.

``I saw him step forward with this absolute look of steely defiance as Fidel
(Castro) spoke,'' he told the Guardian. ``It was only a brief moment that I
had. I managed to shoot two frames and then he was gone.''

Guevara played a central role in Cuba's 1959 revolution alongside Castro,
who has ruled the country's since then. Guevara was killed by the Bolivian
army in October 1967 after being wounded and captured.

The Guardian said that if no settlement was reached in the legal action, the
case would come to London's High Court next month. The paper said Korda may
travel to Britain to give evidence.