Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/04/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I am disturbed by the readiness to condemn the photographer without taking into account the broader context in which the result of his image manipulation was propagated. I agree with Martin that there is a system problem. Assigning one hundred percent of the blame to the combat photographer and zero to the picture editor back home strikes me as too simplistic. How would we view today Joe Rosenthal's Pulitzer Prize winning, iconic photograph of raising the flag on Mt. Suribachi? It was reenacted (see http://www.iwojima.com/raising/raisingb.htm and other URLs on the same topic). When I went to the Signal Corps Photo School in 1953, Rosenthal's picture was discussed as the rare acceptable exception to the basic rule of "truth in photography". As others have pointed out, things were a lot simpler in "the old days": the still photographer handed in his exposed sheet film or pack with a description of "who, what, where, when" to the darkroom people; I handed in my exposed 50 foot or 1000 foot rolls of 35mm film that included a slate with the same basic information (otherwise it was useless). In either case some editor took over after the film was processed; that was the system, and it certainly did not operate in near real time as today's combination of telecommunication and digital imaging does. How would we design a system to acquire, edit, and publish combat images from a location many time zones away, given limited bandwidth to transmit them, and deadlines to publish? Oliver Bryk - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html