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SEPTEMBER/
OCTOBER 2009
$4.99
ON DISPLAY
UNTIL
OCTOBER 19,
2009
SPECIAL
PORTFOLIO

CONTROVERSY
AN EXPLOSIVE
HISTORY OF
SHOCK AND
CENSORSHIP
AND HOW IT
SHAPED
PHOTOGRAPHY

PLUS
THE LEGACY OF
AN ICON NAMED
FARRAH
JOE MCNALLY’S
COOLEST
LIGHTING TRICK

AmericanPhotoMag.com
TM
© Eric Foltz

November 13 – 15, 2009

N othing captures the spirit of the American West like desert sunsets,
geological wonders and Old West gunfights. Saddle up for a memorable
trek through the Sonoran Desert as the Mentor Series discovers the vast beau-
Next we’ll crank the way-back machine and give you a glimpse of the
Old West through the lens of the film industry. At the base of the Tucson
Mountains lies the Old Tucson Studios, where such classics as “Gunfight
ty and intricate curiosities of Tucson, Arizona. From panoramic, sun-drenched at the O.K. Corral,” “3:10 to Yuma,” and “The Lone Ranger and the Lost
horizons to hidden locations the sun has never reached, you’ll discover the City of Gold” were filmed. Now restored, the same sets and streets where
true extremes of light and dark. such legends as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood faced off with bad guys
We’ll head to Gates Pass, revered by professional photographers world- is a piece of living history. A live cast of character, complete with brilliantly
wide. It offers a vantage point unmatched for dazzling images of the setting colored costumes, will recreate stunts and shootouts that will challenge your
sun. If you’ve ever had a “sunset screensaver,” it’s likely that the images fea- shutter speed and your reaction times.
turing dark silhouettes of cacti against a brilliant orange and yellow sky were Afterward, we’ll return to Gates Pass for another opportunity to
taken at Gates Pass. We’ll help you capture amazing shots of the tranquil capture that perfect sunset shot (and perfect replacement photo for your
sunlight reflected off of the desert hills, the constantly shifting clouds on the desktop’s background).
horizon, and the glowing, backlit needles of the saguaro cactus. To conclude our desert journey, we’ll spend our last day at Mission San Xavier
We’ll start the next day at the Sonora Desert Museum. This world- del Bac. Completed in 1797, it is one of the finest examples of mission architec-
renowned zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden will bring ture in the U.S. Set against the warm browns of the distant hills, it stands like a
your lens within inches of more than 1,200 types of plants and more than white beacon against the desert backdrop. Find the perfect angle to capture the
300 desert animals, 20 of which are endangered. You’ll capture desert imposing dome and the lofty towers of this graceful blend of Moorish, Byzantine
life of all shapes, sizes and colors—from the imposing American Black and late-Mexican design as the morning sun graces its pristine facade.
Bear to the delicate leaf-cutter ant, from a hillside of wildflowers to a No matter what path you ride on, Tucson and the Sonoran Desert offer
red rock canyon. In addition, the museum possesses an extensive gem, eye-popping vistas and awesome close-ups. Sign up today and hitch a ride
mineral and fossil collection—and the only significant dinosaur skeleton with the experts who will broaden your range by bringing you face-to-face
ever found in southern Arizona. with a slice of America you won’t soon forget.

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AmericanPhotoMag.com

© BRUCE MCBROOM
contents
Vo l u m e X X N u m b e r 5 September/October 2009
45 14

NEIL ARMSTRONG/COURTESY TASCHEN BOOKS

© ANTOINE VERGLAS
57
MARC GARANGER/COURTESY MUSÉE DE L’EYSÉE

20
portfolio departments
Pictures That Shocked The World 57 Inside American Photo 4 Public Eye 14
How French journalist The icon with extravagant
Photography has been defined by Regis Le Sommier learned hair, by Vicki Goldberg.
about the value of small-town
a number of images that have raised American photojournalism. New Books 20
ethical and legal issues concerning A breathtaking new
Editor’s Note 8 volume combines NASA
fakery, censorship, artistic ownership, What is a high-impact photography with
and exploitation. Here we examine photograph? They all are, Norman Mailer’s account
by definition, and it of the Apollo 11 mission.
16 controversial photos that shaped pays to understand that
kind of power. Art 26
the medium we know today. German photographer
Inside Photography 13 Andreas Gefeller focuses
How Farrah on the floor—the entire
On the cover: changed photography. floor—of a Berlin building.
Images from our portfolio
on the world’s most
controversial photos

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MACIEJ DAKOWICZ

© ANDREAS GEFELLER/COURESY HASTED HUNT GALLERY

© JOE MCNALLY
77

49 82
TYLER HICKS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

28

35
In Print 28 Editor’s Choice 45 The Law 55 Skills 82
Antoine Verglas makes model The world’s most stylish New orphan works legislation Available light isn’t always
Julie Henderson look sexy cameras, and more. isn’t necessarily bad for the right light. Photographer
by making her feel sexy. And photographers, and it might Joe McNally explains
there is his special light, too. Flickr Creative bring some big benefits. how to get rid of it so you
Showcase 49 can make your own.
Witness 35 Our new feature presents big Master Class 77
How three combat photog- talents from the world’s Andreas Gefeller explains how See It Now 93
raphers got their start biggest photo community. In he creates his ultra-detailed New photo exhibitions, from
shooting local news at a this issue: Maciej Dakowicz views of the world at our feet, coast to coast, as well
small newspaper in Ohio. of Cardiff, Wales. and overhead. as our pick for the month.

Subscriptions American Photo (ISSN 1046-8986) POSTMASTER: Send address changes to American Photo, P.O. Box 420235, Publications Mail Agreement
(USPS 526-930) is published bi-monthly (Jan/Feb, Mar/Apr, Palm Coast, FL 32164; (800) 274-4514. If the postal services alert us that Number: 40052054. Canadian Regis-
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Writer
Le Sommier
(left) and
photographer Vice President/Editor in Chief David Schonauer
Hondros Art Director Deborah Mauro
in Iraq in Executive Editor Russell Hart
2006 Associate Editor Lindsay Sakraida
Copy Editor Judy Myers
Assistant Art Director Andy Kropa
Editor at Large Jean-Jacques Naudet

Contributing Editors: Jonathan Barkey, Vicki Goldberg,


Dirck Halstead, Eliane Laffont, Jack Crager

Group Publisher Gregg R. Hano


Associate Publishers Anthony M. Ruotolo,
Wendi S. Berger
Executive Assistant Christopher Graves

Marketing Director Mike Gallic


Financial Director Tara Bisciello
VP Corporate Sales and Marketing Pete Michalsky
Northeast Advertising Office Lauren Brewer, Alex DeSanctis,

COURTESY REGIS LE SOMMIER


Susan Faggella, Taryn Guillermo,
Sara Schiano Flynn, Tara Weedfald
Midwest: Manager John Marquardt 312-252-2838
Los Angeles: Managers Robert Hoeck 310-227-8958,
Bob Meth 310-227-8955
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Southern Advertising Office Jason A. Albaum 404-892-0760
Classified Advertising Sales Chip Parham, Patrick Notaro
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Digital Account Manager Jenny Smith
Digital Sales Development Brian Glaser
Manager

CONTRIBUTORS
Sales Development Managers Alexis Costa, Kerri Levine
Creative Services Director Mike Iadanza
Director of Special Events Michelle Cast
Special Events Coordinator Erica Johnson, Athos Kyriakides

ON THE TRAIL
Marketing Art Directors Shawn Woznicki, Lindsay Krist
Promotions Manager Eshonda Caraway
Ad Coordinator Irene Reyes Coles
Consumer Marketing Director Bob Cohn

OF PHOTOJOURNALISTS Publicity Manager


Human Resources Manager
Production Director
Production Manager
Amanda McNally
Kim Putman
Jeff Cassell
Jennifer Derviss

Mark Jannot, Editorial Director

F rench journalist Regis Le Sommier


has worked side by side with photo-
journalists around the globe. Until late
that Hondros told Regis a remarkable
tale—how he and two other prize-
winning photojournalists, Tyler Hicks and Jonas Bonnier, Chairman;
Terry Snow, Chief Executive Officer;
last year he was the United States bureau Spencer Platt, launched their careers at Dan Altman, Chief Operating Officer;
Randall Koubek, Chief Financial Officer;
chief for Paris Match, a news magazine the same small newspaper in Troy, Ohio. Bruce Miller, Vice President, Consumer Marketing;
that has long championed great photog- As Le Sommier explains on page 35, Lisa Earlywine, Vice President, Production;
Bill Alman, Vice President, E-Media;
raphy. In December, Le Sommier returned the three noted photographers learned John Haskin, Vice President, Digital Sales & Marketing;
to Paris to serve as the deputy managing their most important lessons by covering Shawn Larson, Vice President, Enterprise Systems;
Cathy Hertz, Vice President, Human Resources;
editor for Match, but he recently called fires and car accidents in small-town Dean Turcol, Vice President, Corporate Communications;
John Miller, Brand Director;
us to tell us of a story he thought would America. He wonders whether these Martin S. Walker, Publishing Consultant;
be great for American Photo. Back in lessons will continue to be passed Jeremy Thompson, Corporate Counsel.
COPYRIGHT © 2009, BONNIER CORPORATION AMERICAN PHOTO®
2004, while covering the U.S. presidential along, as newspapers face declining IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF BONNIER CORPORATION.
election campaign in Ohio, he worked readerships and budgets. Nonetheless,
with a young photographer named Chris Le Sommier notes that the idea of a
Hondros, and they later teamed up on talented kid emerging from a small news-
Editorial contributions should be sent to American Photo, 2 Park Avenue,
several other big stories. (In the photo paper and climbing to the top of the pro- 10th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Submissions must be accompanied
here, you see Le Sommier and Hondros fession represents a particular American by return postage and will be handled with reasonable care; however,
publisher assumes no responsibility for the safety of unsolicited original
when they were covering the most notion of destiny. “America is still a place artwork, photographs, slides, or manuscripts. Customer service:
violent days of the Iraq war in the city of where people believe they can do (386) 597-4375; fax (303) 604-7644. Back issues are $8.95 each ($10.95
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Khadamiyah.) It was around that time anything they put their minds to,” he says. order to: American Photo Back Issues, P.O. Box 50191, Boulder, CO
80322-0191; (800) 333-8546. For information on reprints and
eprints contact Brian Kolb at Wright’s Reprints, (877) 652-5295 or
bkolb@wrightsreprints.com. American Photo, September/October 2009,
Vol. XX, No. 5. Entire contents © 2009 Bonnier Corporation.

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®

© Michele Lugaresi © Holger Mette

LONG ISLAND, NY s3EPTn  EGYPT s3EPTn/CT 


Pack up your camera gear for a weekend on the eastern shores of Long Get ready for the photographic journey of a lifetime as the Mentor
Island with the Mentor Series! Join Nikon professional photographers Series heads to Egypt, a land of archaeological and cultural
Reed Hoffmann & Rob Van Petten to experience the abundance of photo riches. Shoot alongside Nikon professional photographers Mark
opportunities within the quaint villages of the North Fork and along the Alberhasky and Reed Hoffmann while photographing dynamic
miles of beautiful, pristine beaches on the South Fork. Get ready for a truly landscapes, spectacular pyramids and the glorious Nile river.
authentic view of this age-old vacationing destination while discovering Visit the three Great Pyramids of Giza near Cairo, a glorious
the locations in a new light with world-class instructors by your side. A backdrop to capture camel drivers and their camels. Want to
visit to a private full-service horse farm provides an exclusive tour and the see the symbol that has represented the essence of Egypt for
occasion to photograph the beauty of these gentle animals. Visit charming thousands of years? Nothing can prepare you for seeing the
Sag Harbor, an enchanting town that boasts its strong maritime flavor and Sphinx the first time, in its massive splendor. The photos you
holds tight to its history. Experience the magnificent Peconic Estuary System take here are ones you’ll cherish for many years. From the
by boat, the quiet beauty of a stunning vineyard, and beach activities deserts to the Nile, the pyramids to the temples, Egypt’s eye-
which offer the chance to capture recreation and lifestyle shots as the light catching views will stimulate your senses and provide you with
changes. Get ready to be enchanted by this part of America and wrap up fantastic photos. Sign up today for a memorable trek that will
your summer by joining the Mentor Series when we take to Long Island bring out the adventurer in you.
in September!

REGISTER ONLINE AT WWW.MENTORSERIES.COM


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FOR THE PAST 11 YEARS, the Mentor Series program has taken photo
enthusiasts to destinations across the country and around the world. With top
Nikon professional photographers accompanying participants every day and
teaching them how and what to shoot, there’s nothing like a Mentor Series trek.
You and your photography will never be the same!

© William Britten © Chun Han

SMOKY MTNS. s/CTn  PHILADELPHIA, PA s/CTn.OV 


Grab your camera and join the Mentor Series as we head to the
Great Smoky Mountains, a renowned mountain range rising along
NEW MASTER CLASS: LIGHTING
the Tennessee–North Carolina border. Let our team help you capture Philadelphia will provide the perfect backdrop to learn the rewards of
these stunning shots as you explore this magnificent National Park in using light to create an intentional effect in your photos, as well as
autumn. At 6,643 feet, Clingmans Dome is the highest point in the explore the history and culture this city has to offer. This trek includes
Great Smoky Mountains national park. The observation tower on the a Master Class on Lighting, providing an exclusive opportunity to
summit offers a remarkable 360° lookout of the Smokies where, on determine how luminosity can shape the mood and color of the
a clear day, the view expands over 100 miles and into seven states, photographs you create. Visit the stunning Longwood Gardens, one
making for a spectacular, unmatched perspective. In contrast, you’ll of the world’s premier horticultural display gardens. Travel on to the
fill your frame as the sun rises at Cades Cove, a lush valley with infamous Eastern State Penitentiary, and explore what lighting is best
preserved homesteads, scenic mountain vistas and an abundant display suited to subject and scene as we shoot models and further practice
of wildlife. Journey back to the beautiful Clingmans Dome at sunrise learned techniques “on location.” Later, photograph along a tour of
to photograph the dramatic vistas. Everywhere you go in the Great Philadelphia’s remarkable landmarks from the top of our own double-
Smoky Mountains, you’ll find exceptional prospects. Don’t miss this decker bus. Everywhere you go in Philadelphia, you’ll find a piece
opportunity to expand your horizons and your portfolio in the Great of America’s past and continually discover the chance to utilize the
Smoky Mountains with expert photographers by your side. lighting techniques you’ve learned to capture these historic landmarks.

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E D I T O R ’ S N O T E

HIGH IMPACT
WHAT MAKES
A PICTURE
POWERFUL?
W hat is high-impact photography? In
a general sense, most photography
is, by definition. Still images create indeli-
from McBroom, who helped create glamour
photography history that day in L.A.
Our special portfolio comes from an
ble memories in a way that no other exhibition that debuted earlier this year at
medium can. Words enhance pictures and the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzer-
fill in the information that photos cannot land. Titled Controverses, the show (which
supply. Motion photography’s power has also been re-created as a French-
comes from its narrative possibilities. But language book) considers the ethical and
photographs go to the heart of an issue, cap- legal issues raised by a number of images—
ture something essential in a face, surprise issues of fakery, censorship, ownership, and
us with the detail of a scene, and create exploitation. In other words, the very issues
popular icons that can define an age. photographers must come to grips with
In this issue we explore just how still today. Reviewing the exhibition in the New
imagery makes its impact. And we start York Times, critic Michael Kimmelman
with a beautiful blonde in a red one-piece wrote, “By virtue of its economy and prolif-
swimming suit. The blonde, of course, is eration, photography has been one of the
Farrah Fawcett, who changed the cultural most convenient weapons of the powerless
landscape when she posed for photogra- even while it serves the powers that be.” I
pher Bruce McBroom one afternoon in Los think you’ll find our portfolio to be a fasci-
Angeles in 1976. The poster they produced nating look at the power of photography.
has, as of today, sold over 12 million cop- I’m also sure you’ll find the imagery
ies, still a record, though it’s been boot- of Andreas Gefeller (page 26) to be spec-
legged billions of times all over the globe. It tacular, and confusing (in a good way).
has decorated the dorm walls of countless Gefeller uses a digital SLR in a unique
young men and populated the dreams of way to explore what lies below us—floors,
© BRUCE MCBROOM

many more. What accounts for its enduring beaches, park meadows. You’ll see the
appeal? American Photo contributing world in a new way, which is another def-
editor Vicki Goldberg looks for an answer in inition of high-impact photography. By
our special feature on page 14. You’ll also the way, Gefeller leads an American Photo
find outtakes from the shoot and a memoir Master Class on page 77.
Above: Outtakes
from Bruce
McBroom’s 1976
session with
Farrah Fawcett.

David Schonauer, EDITOR IN CHIEF

8 American Photo Mag.com

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INSIDE P H O T O G R A P H Y
The famous
Farrah
poster, shot
by Bruce
McBroom in
1976.
14
PUBLIC
EYE

20
NEW
BOOKS

26
ART

28
IN
PRINT

RECONSIDERING
THE IMPORTANCE OF FARRAH
THE ICON WITH EXTRAVAGANT HAIR
American Photo Mag.com 13

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PUBLIC
EYE graph that would establish Farrah
HOW as the number-one somebody
of the 1970s. Soon afterward, she
FARRAH was cast as one of three detec-
tives, all equipped with martial

SAVED THE arts skills and dynamite bodies,


when Charlie’s Angels pre-

CULTURE. miered on TV. They all had long


hair too, but gentlemen prefer
blondes, and Farrah was golden.
ESSAY BY She once said, “When the
show was number three, I thought
VICKI it was our acting. When we got
to be number one, I decided it

GOLDBERG could only be because none of us


wears a bra.” (She later went on
to be nominated three times for
Emmys.) The poster went off like
a rocket and became the best-
selling pinup of all time, pushing
Marilyn Monroe into second
place. Farrah earned so much
more in poster royalties than she
did from Angels that she walked
out on the show after a year. In
1977 NASA sent that poster into
space in a time capsule on its
Oblio probe, and today it hangs
in the Smithsonian.
Pinups have a long history, but
back in the era when Betty Grable

I n 1976, Farrah Fawcett was


just another nobody trying to
become a somebody. Though she
in a bathing suit was big news,
society mandated a certain pre-
tense to respectability. Andre
had only a few commercials and Bazin, the noted film critic, wrote
some print advertisements on in 1946 that the pinup “is noth-
her resumé, her hair was about to ing more than chewing gum for
become as famous as Samson’s: the imagination. Manufactured
Teenage boys were secretly snap- on the assembly line, standard-
ping up women’s magazines for ized by Vargas, sterilized by cen-
her picture in a shampoo ad. A sorship.” (Vargas was the Esquire
poster producer smelled money magazine illustrator who drew
and commissioned the photo- provocatively posed and anatom-
ically impossible women who
kept covered—sort of—in abbre-
viated outfits that were appar-
ently glued on.) Then, in 1947
PHOTOGRAPHS BY and 1953, the Kinsey Reports

BRUCE MCBROOM
were published; in 1960 the Pill
guaranteed women a new sexual
openness; and in 1963 Betty
Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique

14 I N S I D E P H O T O G R A P H Y
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© BRUCE MCBROOM

One of Bruce
McBroom’s
contact sheets
from the Farrah
poster shoot

American Photo Mag.com 15

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© BRUCE MCBROOM (2)

16 I N S I D E P H O T O G R A P H Y
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FARRAH
REWROTE
THE
IDEAL

sparked the feminist movement.


Actors took off their clothes
on stage and screen, while the
girl next door doffed them
in Playboy. In the early 1970s,
Penthouse and Hustler gave
new scope to the word explicit.

B y that time feminism had


decreed that women could
enjoy both sex and their own
bodies. (See Erica Jong’s Fear of
Flying, 1973.) But Farrah rewrote
that ideal in capital letters. She
remained tantalizing, refusing to
pose nude (until 1995, when she
made an issue of Playboy the
best-selling issue of the decade).
In the 1976 poster, her bathing
suit coolly covers her, but her
erect nipple turns the heat up.
She radiates high-voltage good
health, with a smile so large it
could rival the white keys of a
piano. Her extravagant hair, which
inspired women all over the map
to try (and fail) to match her allure,
broadcasts female sexuality, as
abundant hair always has. And
the Indian blanket behind her, a
seat cover grabbed from his car
by Bruce McBroom, the photog-
rapher, tilts the image toward Opposite
a symbol of the all-American and here:
young woman—a Yankee Venus Two outtakes
from the
transplanted from Olympus to poster shoot
the walls of a dorm near you. N

American Photo Mag.com 17

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M EMOIR
BRUCE
ing from my car. Farrah did her
own hair and supplied the now-
famous “wardrobe.”
tired of looking perfect.” She
walked over and turned on the
hose and drenched herself
T he poster started Farrah’s
career, and when Charlie’s
Angels debuted on TV, the com-
MCBROOM We tried several swimsuits,
and, of course, she looked great
with water. I ran for my camera
and shot a sequence of her
bination of the two made her
famous overnight. The success
RECALLS in all of them. But I felt I didn’t
quite have “The Poster” until
with mascara running and hair
dripping wet—very sexy.
of the poster didn’t really help
my career, though, because the
THE Farrah finally came out of the
house wearing the red suit. I
The final image for the poster
wasn’t my first choice, but
publisher refused to give me a
photo credit. It was only after
FAMOUS looked through the camera and
knew—this was the one!
Farrah personally selected it. I
shot many rolls of film that
the poster became a news story
and cultural phenomenon that
LADY IN RED At the end of that long, hot
day, while I was packing up my
day, and Farrah picked that one;
her instincts about her image
journalists began asking, “Who
shot the poster?”
gear, Farrah said to me, “I’m so were always correct. I have tried over the years to
understand why it has attracted so
much interest from so many peo-
ple. No one had heard of Farrah
Fawcett when Pro Arts asked
McBroom me to photograph her, and at that
preferred the time, the idea of charging money
water shots. for a poster of a relatively anon-
Farrah over-
ruled him. ymous model was unheard of.
Though some rock-and-roll posters
of famous bands were selling,
they were usually given away for
free, as a form of publicity.
I think the image was a lucky

O n a summer day in 1976,


I photographed Farrah
Fawcett for her famous poster,
combination of this whole-
some, beautiful all-American girl
looking directly at you with a
which has since sold more dazzling smile and a red suit that
than 12 million copies. At the covered a lot but revealed a
time, I was freelancing in Los little—just enough.
Angeles by photographing celeb- I have been told that Farrah
rities and rock-and-roll groups and I created an “iconic” image
like The Doors, The Mamas and that day, and I am proud that it
the Papas, Frank Zappa, and stands tall with the classic pinups
The Beatles. I had photographed of Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable,
Farrah before, when she first and Marilyn Monroe. In my
came to Hollywood, and a few long career as a still photogra-
years later, when publisher Pro pher on motion pictures, I have
Arts wanted to make a poster with photographed many posters—
her, she specifically requested featuring Eddie Murphy, Harrison
that I be the photographer. Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
The shoot was very simple— and Clint Eastwood, to name a
just Farrah and I, at the home few—but the poster that every-
she shared with her husband, one remembers me for is Farrah.
Lee Majors. I used a 1973 In the thirty-three years
Nikon F with a 50mm lens and since I took the photo, it has
© BRUCE MCBROOM

Kodachrome 25 film. I had no hung in museums and has


artificial lighting, just the appeared in the background of
California sun and a white bounce scenes from popular movies.
card. I supplied the Indian And people continue to buy it
blanket, an impromptu set dress- on eBay—including me.

18
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20 I N S I D E P H O T O G R A P H Y
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Left: Buzz Aldrin on
the moon, 1969, photo
by Neil Armstrong.
Below: New astronaut
Aldrin (left) in
training in 1964.

W ith the heart of a novel-


ist, Norman Mailer knew
that mankind was transformed
in the instant that the Lunar
Landing Module, nicknamed
Eagle, came to rest in the Sea of
Tranquility, on July 20, 1969. In
his 1970 book Of a Fire on the
Moon, Mailer told the tale of the
Apollo 11 mission, in his own
fashion. He saw the greatness
of the endeavor, but was aston-
ished by the corporate blandness
of NASA. In Neil Armstrong,
Mailer found a character whose
goal was not individual glory,
but a team player whose dry
scientific jargon undercut the
drama of the moment.
Mailer understood that it
would require storytellers, him-
self foremost, to put the grand
adventure of Apollo 11 into a
human context. In one respect,
however, astronauts Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin did capture and
communicate the astounding
nature of their feat: The photo-
graphs they made on the moon
40 years ago remain powerful
statements about human spirit
and vulnerability.
In August, Taschen Books
released a remarkable photo-
graphy book combining
NEW BOOKS
images from NASA’s archive
and other private collections
with the text from Mailer’s
AN ASTONISHING
book. The 350-page Norman
Mailer, MoonFire: The Epic LIMITED-EDITION
Journey of Apollo 11, will
come with a signed, framed,
and numbered image of Buzz
VOLUME TELLS THE EPIC
Aldrin. The price? $1,000,
except for the as-yet unpriced STORY OF THE
JOURNEY OF APOLLO 11
final 12 copies of the 1,969
limited edition, which will con-
tain fragments of actual moon
rocks. On the following pages
we present Mailer’s account of IN PHOTOS AND THE
WORDS OF
the landing. —DAVID SCHONAUER

NORMAN MAILER

American Photo Mag.com 21

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22 I N S I D E P H O T O G R A P H Y
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Left: The Lunar Module
“Eagle” lifts off from the
moon, July 21, 1969. Below:
A historic footprint and
President Kennedy in 1962.

DESTINY
WITH
HISTORY
THE
APOLLO
LANDING
TEXT BY
NORMAN
MAILER

S o one got ready for the


climax of the greatest week
since Christ was born….The LEM
having flown around the moon
and gone behind it again, the
braking burn for the Descent
Orbit Initiation would be begun
in radio silence….
Phrases came through the
general static of the public
address system. “Eagle looking
great, you’re go,” came through,
and statements of altitude.
“You’re go for landing, over!”
“Roger, understand. Go for land-
ing. 3,000 feet.” “We’re go,
hang tight, we’re go. 2,000 feet.”
So the voice came out of the box.
Somewhere a quarter of a
million miles away, ten years of
engineering and training, a thou-
sand processes and a million
parts, a huge swatch out of 25
billion dollars and a hovering of
machinery were preparing to

American Photo Mag.com 23

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24 I N S I D E P H O T O G R A P H Y
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Left: Armstrong
photographs
the Sea of Tran-

IT WAS quility. Below:


An early space
program image.

THE VOICE
OF THE
go through the funnel of a his-
BEST BOY half confused. Had they actu-
torical event whose significance
might yet be next to death itself, IN ally landed?
The Capcom spoke. “We

TOWN
and the reporters who would copy you down, Eagle.” But it
interpret this information for the was a question.
newsprint readers of the world “Houston, Tranquility Base
were now stirring in polite, if here. The Eagle has landed.” It
mounting, absorption with the was Armstrong’s voice, the quiet
calm cryptic technological voice of the best boy in town,
voices which came droning out the one who pulls you drowning
of the box. Was it like that as Okay,” said the voice as even from the sea and walks off
one was waiting to be born? Did as before, “engine stop. ACA before you can offer a reward.
one wait in a modern room with out of détente. Modes control The Eagle has landed.
strangers while numbers were both auto, descent engine
announced—“Soul 77-48-16— command override, off. Engine Excerpt from Norman Mailer,
you are on call. Proceed to Stag- arm, off. 423 is in.” MoonFire: The Epic Journey of
ing Area CX—at 16:04 you will A cry went up, half jubilant, Apollo 11, courtesy Taschen Books.
be conceived.”
So the words came. And the
moon came nearer. “3½ down,
220 feet, 13 forward, 11 for-
ward, coming down nicely, 200
feet, 4½ down, 5½ down, 160,
6½ down, 5½ down, 9 forward,
5 percent. Quantity light. 75
feet. Things looking good. Down
a half. 6 forward.
“Sixty seconds,” said
another voice.
Was that a reference to fuel?
Had that been the Capcom? Or
was it Aldrin or Armstrong? Who
was speaking now? The static
was a presence. The voice was
almost dreamy. Only the thin-
nest reed of excitement quivered
in the voice.
“Lights on. Down 2½. Forward.
Forward. Good. 40 feet down.
Down 2½. Picking up some dust.
30 feet, 2½ down. Faint shadow.
4 forward. Drifting to the right a
little. 6…down a half.”
Another voice said, “Thirty sec-
onds.” Was that thirty seconds of
fuel? A modest stirring of antici-
pation came from the audience.
“Drifting right. Contact light.

American Photo Mag.com 25

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“Untitled
(Panel
Building 1)
Berlin,
2004”
© ANDREAS GEFELLER/COURTESY HASTED HUNT GALLERY

26 I N S I D E P H O T O G R A P H Y
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ART
A VISUAL
PUZZLE
MADE
ONE STEP
AT A TIME

S ometimes photographers are


so busy looking out at the
world that they forget to look up,
or down. Andreas Gefeller is
certainly interested in what is
overhead, but he’s totally tuned
into what’s underfoot.
Here, for example, you see
an image he created in 2004,
showing what appears to be the
floor plan of a building in Ber-
lin, Germany. Gefeller creates
such mind-bending visual puz-
zles as this in a relatively simple,
but painstaking, way. In this
case, he photographed every
square inch of one floor of the
building using a Canon EOS 5D
with a 35mm focal-length lens,
which he supports at a height
of five or six feet with an
unsplayed tripod that serves as a
sort of boom. Then he stitches
all the images together in Photo-
shop. “I like to make people
think about whether the images
are truth or fiction,” he says.
Gefeller’s latest series, called
Supervisions, was on exhibition
at the Hasted Hunt Gallery in
Manhattan earlier this year. For
more, visit andreasgefeller.com,
or see Master Class on page 77.

PHOTOGRAPH BY
ANDREAS GEFELLER

American Photo Mag.com 27

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Antoine Verglas’s
airy photos
of model Julie
Henderson,
for Italian GQ

© ANTOINE VERGLAS (2)

28 I N S I D E P H O T O G R A P H Y
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IN PRI NT
J ULIE
HENDERSON
LOOKS
SEXY AND
FEELS SEXY

A ntoine Verglas’s resume is


enough to make any man
jealous. The New York-based pho-
tographer has been a mainstay
imagemaker in men’s magazines
since their heyday in the late ‘90s,
shooting for Maxim, GQ, FHM,
and the much-anticipated swim-
suit edition of Sports Illustrated.
And from this enviable career
of working intimately with the
world’s most stunning women,
Verglas has discovered the key
to creating alluring photographs
(to which his pictures of model
Julie Henderson, taken for
Italian GQ, can attest). The trick
is to remember that a model
may look sexy, but ultimately she
must feel sexy too.
“If you want a woman to look
relaxed in a picture,” Verglas
muses, “you cannot put her on a
cement floor. Cement will make
her body language look hard.
If you put her on a bed, it’s going
to get softer. And if you put her
on a very luxurious rug, it’ll be
even softer still.” He smiles. “I
have used so many white rugs
over the years because a woman
just feels more sensual with
something thick and fluffy.”
No need to take his word for

PHOTOGRAPHS BY
ANTOINE VERGLAS

American Photo Mag.com 29

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© ANTOINE VERGLAS

30 I N S I D E P H O T O G R A P H Y
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“Julie knows
which poses and
expressions “I’VE USED
MANY
work for her,”
Verglas says.

WHITE
RUGS
OVER THE
YEARS”

it, though; his photos of the cap-


tivating Henderson—occasionally
modeling with that omnipresent
rug—are carefree and undeni-
ably sexy, easily proving his
theory. Verglas is quick to note,
however, that Henderson is no
novice at being in front of the
camera. She has modeled since
the age of 13 and has found
a solid fan base in recent years
with three consecutive Sports
Illustrated swimsuit editions, for
which Verglas first photographed
her. “Julie knows which poses
and expressions work for her,” he
says, “and I was very happy to
work with her again [for GQ].”

A lthough men’s magazines


have taken a blow in recent
years due to the availability of
material on the Internet, Verglas
has no intention of abandoning
his sensual aesthetic. Instead
he’s expanding the scope of his
photography to include fashion
and portraiture, for both celebri-
ties and everyday women.
“I have clients who see my pho-
tos in magazines, and they say,
‘Oh, I would love to have a sexy
portrait session,’ or sometimes a
husband will give a session to
his wife as a gift,” Verglas explains
of this new chapter. “When you
get known for a particular style,
people start seeking you out.
And when you enjoy it like I do,
you do it well.” —LINDSAY SAKRAIDA

American Photo Mag.com 31

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Here: Henderson I N S I D E P H O T O G R A P H Y
glows with Ver-
glas’s signature
lighting. Bottom
right: Verglas’s
sketch of the
photo shoot’s
lighting scheme.

© ANTOINE VERGLAS
VERGLAS sense. “I like soft lighting,” says
the classically minded photogra-
two internal diffusion layers,
also powered by a Grafit A4.
the side. The model’s skin was
well-moisturized so that her

ON
pher. “I think it’s flattering.” The Octabank was positioned “curves,” as Verglas puts it,
The effectiveness of soft light behind and slightly to the right would reflect the strong backlight
depends on “the girl and the of Verglas’s 17-megapixel Canon more brightly. “We just wanted
LIGHT situation,” says Verglas. For his
backlit photographs of model
EOS-1Ds Mark II; standing light-
ing flats off-camera to the left
to make it look like she was in
front of a big window,” says the

KEEP Julie Henderson, soft light was


ideal. In fact he made the back-
bounced additional light in from photographer. —RUSSELL HART

IT SOFT
light doubly soft, placing two
3x4-foot Chimera softboxes
directly behind the model, then
setting up a 12x12-foot “silk”
in front of them. Each softbox
was powered by a 3200 watt-

H ard lighting is au courant,


often sacrificing beauty for
a sense of realism or a more
second Broncolor Grafit A4
pack set to 2500 watt-seconds.
Front lighting was also doubly
graphic image quality. But softened by a 7-foot-diameter
Antoine Verglas is not one for Westcott Octabank, an eight-
fashion—at least not in its trendy sided softbox that incorporates

32 American Photo Mag.com

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TYLER HICKS/NEW YORK TIMES

WHILE
SHOOTING THE
STORIES OF
THEIR LIVES
IN IRAQ AND
AFGHANISTAN,
THREE
PHOTOGRAPHERS
KNOW THEY
CAN DEPEND ON
BAND EACH OTHER
AND THE
OF L ESSONS THEY
LEARNED
BROTHERS LONG AGO
AT A SMALL
TEXT BY NEWSPAPER IN
REGIS LE SOMMIER OHIO.
New York Times photojournalist Tyler Hicks made this image during a firefight in the Korangal Valley of Afghanistan in April.
American Photo Mag.com 35

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Tyler Hicks, left,


in Afghanistan
in 2006

SMALL
NEWSPAPERS
BECAME THE
GENERATORS OF
PHOTOGRAPHIC
TALENT BECAUSE
OF THE VITAL
CONNECTION
THEY HAVE
TRADITIONALLY
MAINTAINED
WITH LOCAL
COMMUNITIES.”

MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES


PHOTOGRAPHS BY
TYLER HICKS,
CHRIS HONDROS,
AND
SPENCER PLATT

Spencer Platt
in Basra,
Iraq, 2003

36 W I T N E S S
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Chris Hondros
in Monrovia,
Liberia, 2003

I met Chris Hondros on a freez-


ing day in February 2004 in
Toledo, Ohio. At the time, I was
people. We completed the story
and sent it off to France, where it
was well received by my editors.
went there to work on a story
about the American military I
asked him to shoot the pictures.
that we got together for lunch in
New York and began reminisc-
ing about our first assignment
the U.S. bureau chief of Paris Later, Chris and I hooked up In 2006 we traveled to New together, back in Ohio. Chris
Match, and I was covering presi- again on a far different story. He Orleans to cover the aftermath of finally explained to me why he
dential candidate John Kerry as was based in Iraq, and when I Hurricane Katrina. Shortly after knew the state so well: He had
he campaigned through this started his photography career at
important swing state. For me, the Ohio’s Troy Daily News, a clas-
trip was an opportunity to learn sic small-town newspaper.
about what middle America was That was back in 1991, when
really like, and I was getting Hondros, then 20 years old, was
quite a view, crisscrossing the about to graduate from North
state from Poland to Cleveland, Carolina State University in
Canton to Columbus, and south Raleigh, up the road from his
to the outskirts of Cincinnati. hometown of Fayetteville. He was
I needed a good photographer looking for an internship and
to help me cover the story, and had applied to almost 30 news-
Hondros, a photojournalist with papers all over the country. “I
Getty Images, had been sent. We didn’t get anything,” he recalled.
immediately got along. He knew “I still have 30 rejection letters
the shots I needed for the story somewhere.” Then he heard from
and seemed to have a real sense Jim Witmer, the photo editor
of the place and a rapport with its of the (continued on page 42)
CHRIS HONDROS

The darkroom
at the Troy
Daily News,
circa 1994

American Photo Mag.com 37

www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com


TYLER HICKS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

38 W I T N E S S
www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
“ THE
PHOTOS
ALMOST
COST
HIM
HIS LIFE

Tyler Hicks has been covering the


war in Afghanistan off and on since
2001. In April, embedded with
a group of American soldiers in the
Korangal Valley, he produced what
may be his most dramatic combat
images, and it almost cost him his life.
The image at left shows Private
First Class Richard Dewater, 21, as
he walked across a plank over a rain-
swollen river. After taking the pic-
ture, Hicks reviewed it on the LCD
screen of his D-SLR and decided the
composition wasn’t correct. He waited
and photographed another soldier
on the plank, then ran to catch
up with Dewater. As Hicks ran toward
the soldier, a bomb exploded under
Dewater, killing him. It was an ambush
by Taliban fighters.
Hicks and another soldier ran
downstream and tried to ford
the river. With his 40 pounds of body
armor and camera gear, Hicks was
submerged and realized his cameras
were out of commission. Times
correspondent C. J. Chivers lent him
a point-and-shoot, and Hicks con-
tinued to cover the firefight. His
pictures were published on April 20.

TYLER HICKS

American Photo Mag.com 39

www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com


CHRIS HONDROS/GETTY IMAGES

40 W I T N E S S
www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
“ BOTH
PARENTS
IN THE
CAR
WERE
KILLED

On January 18, 2005, Hondros


snapped a series of images that
seemed to sum up the troubled
American occupation of Iraq. An Iraqi
family traveling in a car through the
city of Tel Afar failed to stop at a
U.S. military checkpoint. American
soldiers, always aware that such
cars might be filled with explosives,
opened fire on the vehicle. Both
parents in the car were killed, and
one of the family’s five children
was seriously injured. After the car
stopped, a young girl emerged, cov-
ered with her parents’ blood. The
images generated a storm of interest
around the world, and the injured
boy was flown to the United States
for treatment.

CHRIS HONDROS

American Photo Mag.com 41

www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com


SPENCER PLATT
CHRIS HONDROS

Left: Hicks in
Ohio, circa
1994. Below
left: Hondros at
the Troy Daily
News. Center:
Spencer Platt.

light. It was before computers,


so we were printing pictures in
the darkroom. The deadline was
9:00 a.m., and the paper came
out at 2:00 p.m. You would
mostly shoot pictures the day
before and leave them on the
editor’s desk. One day a week
the photographers would have
an entire page for themselves.”

(continued from page 37)


Troy Daily News at the time, who
offered him an internship for the
recalled Hondros. “The picture
had to stand on its own. There
had to be a certain flare to it.
I n 1994, the newspaper’s
photo editor left, and the job
of finding new interns was given
following January. Hondros We were pushing ourselves. to Hondros. One of the portfo-
started with a salary of $200 a That’s where I learned about lios he looked at came from a
week, not enough to get a motel young photographer named
room. Instead, he found a win- Tyler Hicks. “He had one of the
GETTY IMAGES

dowless room above the local best,” says Hondros. “Stuff from
photo store for $45 a week. The Guatemala…crazy stuff.”
job required him to shoot two Shortly after Hicks arrived at
feature pictures every day, one in the newspaper for his internship,
color for the front page, one in Hondros left to continue his
black and white for the inside. studies at Ohio University in
“It could be children playing, Athens, two hours away. Hicks
people working, just anything,” eventually ended up taking over
Hondros’s job, then filled the
intern slot with a friend, Spencer
Platt, whom he’d known from
CHRIS HONDROS

Staples High School in West-


port, Connecticut.
“My introduction to the news-
paper was on a sultry Ohio

“ THE
evening,” recalls Platt. “The
darkroom was a world of chem-
istry, film dryers, blaring radios,

PICTURE and snapshots pinned to a


wall from dozens of photogra-
SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

phers who had made brief stays


HAD in Troy.”
Like Hondros, Hicks and Platt
TO STAND used their brief stays in Troy to
launch their careers. Hicks now

ON ITS works for the New York Times


and has (continued on page 86)

OWN ”

42 American Photo Mag.com

www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com


On August 15, 2006, Platt spent the which captured the surreal nature of
“ HE HAD ONLY
morning walking through a bombed-
out neighborhood in Beirut, photo-
graphing people returning to what
modern lifestyle and ancient antag-
onisms. The remarkable image won
first place in the 2008 World Press
A MOMENT
was left of their homes. Out of the
corner of his eye he saw a red con-
vertible full of attractive young Leb-
Photo of the Year competition. Platt,
who graduated from Clark University
with a degree in English, has during
TO SHOOT

anese dart into the scene. He had his photography career also worked in
only a moment to take this picture, Liberia, Albania, Congo, and Iraq.

W I T N E S S 43

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IkXiYh_X[jej^[
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WdZ:_iYel[hj^[MehbZe\F^eje]hWf^o

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E DITO R’S C HO IC E
S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 9

Olympus E-P1
Form and function are equal part- Right: The Olympus E-P1
ners in this remarkable inter- with the 17mm
changeable-lens camera. Like M.Zuiko Digital and
Olympus D-SLRs, it incorporates a dedicated viewfinder.
full-size Four Thirds–format image Below: Its 14-42mm
sensor; like Panasonic’s Lumix standard zoom.
GH1, it dispenses with a reflex Bottom: The 17mm and
mirror and pentaprism, substitut- finder, FL-14 flash, and
ing an electronic viewfinder for lens adapter.
optical TTL viewing. And the
much smaller dimensions
permitted by the absence
of a mirror box and prism
housing have allowed
Olympus to make this new
12.3-megapixel model a
clear homage to 1963’s
Olympus Pen F—a cele-
brated SLR that stayed
small by shooting half
frames on 35mm film. But
the stainless-steel E-P1,
which also comes in white
with tan trim, is only half the
size equation. The shortened lens-
to-sensor distance and a smaller
FORM FLATTERS
mount diameter allow its Micro
Four Thirds–format lenses to be FUNCTION
much more compact, though with
adapters you can mount existing WINNERS OF OUR NEW
Zuiko Digital optics (for other
E-series models) and OM-series EDITOR’S CHOICE
lenses from Olympus’s 35mm
days. And while the E-P1 may look DESIGN AWARDS
SHOW THAT
old-fashioned, it shoots 720p HD
video. Stay tuned for a full field

BEAUTY CAN MAKE A


test of this surprising, classy cam-
era. About $800 (with 14-42mm).

GOOD THING
WORK BETTER.

Art of the Product “Good design is a Renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human
need, and beauty to produce something the world didn’t know it was missing.”—PAOLA ANTONELLI, DESIGN CURATOR, MOMA

American Photo Mag.com 45

www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com


BlueLounge
CableDrop clips

Wacom Intuos4
Wacom’s next-generation pen tablet
features the greatest pressure-sen-
sitivity range yet—2,048 levels,
detecting the slightest touch of the
pen tip. (The pen itself has a pres-
sure-sensitive eraser and two side
switches for customized com-
mands.) But the Intuos4’s indus-
trial-chic design places all the
Express Keys and new four-way
Wacom Touch Ring to one side of its wide-
Intuos4 format working surface, so that all
pen can be operated with the nonpen
tablet hand. (Left-handers simply rotate
the tablet.) New illuminated dis-
plays on all but the smallest tab-
let—active areas on the four
available sizes range from 3.9x6.2-
to 12x18.2 inches—remind you
what each key and the ring do,
even changing automatically when
you switch applications. About
Sony
$425 (Large/8x12.8 inches).
Cyber-shot
DSC-T900
BlueLounge CableDrop
The size of a big coat button, this
sculpted rubbery clip is entirely
practical. Uncover its adhesive
backing and stick it wherever you
need to keep a computer cable

D ESIGN A WARDS
and plug (USB or otherwise) in
position. Then you simply push the
cable into its slot. The CableDrop
clip is especially handy with
devices you’re always unplugging,
whether a laptop or a card
reader—preventing the plug from
dropping behind your desk. It
comes in either a muted
color scheme (two
each of off-
white, rusty

Microsoft
Arc
Mouse

46
E D I T O R ’ S C H O I C E
www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
red, and warm gray) or a bright picture with a modern, computer-
one (two each of orange, pink, and inspired design that incorporates a
green). About $10 for six. brilliant 480x800-pixel LCD. The
screen tilts and can be quickly
Microsoft Arc Mouse rotated on its smooth-operating
The most elegant computer mouse hinge from “landscape” to “por-
we’ve seen, Microsoft’s wireless Arc trait” orientation, so that verticals
Mouse uses its arched design to fill its full seven-inch, 16:9-format
give you the comfortable grip of a image area. (An automatic sensor
full-sized mouse, but it folds in the orients the pictures properly.) The
middle so it’s the size of a note- Kaleido displays pictures stored on
book mouse for transport. Folding it its 512MB internal memory, a Ipevo Kaleido R7
also turns off power to preserve its small-format memory card, or a
two AAA batteries. The body of its USB flash drive—but the differ-
wireless transceiver, which slips ence is that you can also stream
into a computer’s USB port, isn’t photographs and other content
much bigger than its own plug, and from your computer (local or RSS)
fits snugly inside the folded mouse directly to the frame via your
when not in use. Color choices now home’s wireless network. Separate
range from eggplant purple to green channels for iPhoto albums can
emerald. About $35. even be set up. Imagine cycling
through your entire archive before
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T900 repeating a picture! About $200.
Sony’s sleek 12-megapixel touch-
screen compact is all you could Canon PowerShot D10
want in a pocket camera. Its half- Canon’s first waterproof digital com-
inch-thick stainless-steel body is a pact reminds us of the erstwhile
handsome brushed silver, though futuristic camera designs created
fashion-conscious photographers for the company by Luigi Colani,
may prefer it in red, brown, or stylist of the fabled Canon T90. This
black. And its 3.5-inch, 921,000- 12-megapixel model’s submarine
dot LCD is spectacularly crisp; in shape isn’t just for looks, though:
Canon
addition to providing touch control It’s rated to operate as deep as 33
PowerShot SanDisk card
of camera settings, it allows you feet, lower than its competitors. Its
D10 readers
to choose what part of the subject 2.5-inch LCD and optically stabi-
you want to focus on simply by lized 35-105mm (equivalent) zoom
touching it on the screen. (In are modest for use underwater,
playback, touch any part of the where a bigger screen and shorter
screen to zoom into that area of focal length would be more help.
the image.) Touch-focusing the 4X But the D10 is also freezeproof to
zoom could be the closest you 14 degrees Fahrenheit, and shock-
come to manual control, however, proof for drops of up to four feet.
because the T900 automates About $300.
everything—with scene recogni-
tion, face and smile detection, SanDisk ImageMate Readers
and the ability to identify and save SanDisk’s new memory card read-
the less squinty of two sequential ers are faster at reading and writing,
shots. And, duh, it shoots 720p as you’d expect, but they’re also
HD video. About $325.

Ipevo Kaleido R7
Digital picture frames are now as

D ESIGN A WARDS
affordable as they are tacky—and
often disappointing in their display
quality. The Kaleido changes the

American Photo Mag.com 47

www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com


Pentax
K2000
Limited
Edition
“tropical” cameras of yore. Many
of those models were built as much
for show as for their woods’ resis-
tance to tropical climes, so it’s
fitting that the Hog Ranch (now
being used on the set of TV’s Bones
by photo director Gordon Lonsdale)
has a leopard-skin bellows and tor-
toise-shell accents. Fortunately,
both are faux. About, gulp, $20,000.

Pentax K2000 Limited Edition


Not only is this stylish version of
the compact, lightweight Pentax
K2000 finished in clean white,
but the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 and
50-200mm f/4-5.6 zooms in its
“kit” are a matching white—all the
Sony better to stay cool in hot sun. (The
HVL- camera’s grip and the lenses’
F20 zoom ring and front are a contrast-
ing black.) Don’t let the
10.2-megapixel resolution or 2.7-
inch LCD screen prevent you from
being fashion-forward: That’s plenty
of resolution for most printing pur-
poses, and there’s no LCD live view
anyway. Plus you get automatic
sensor dust removal and sensor-
shifting shake compensation, which
Littman steadies the image with either lens
45 Single —and lots of other Pentax K-mount
Hog optics. About $700 (including the
Ranch
two lenses!).

Sony HVL-F20 flash


A pop of flash can save even the

D ESIGN A WARDS
most well-lighted subject, filling in
shadows or, in a dimmer setting,
mixing with low ambient light for
slow-sync effects. But the built-in
flash on typical D-SLRs can be too
weak for effective fill at all but the
closest distances, and it’s so close
much smaller and have been ele- card. The diminutive Multi-Format large-format functionality. The to the lens that it risks red-eye in
gantly restyled. Featuring a mod- version is designed for smaller custom-designed models in the low light. Sony’s ingenious pocket-
ernist, square-edged design with a card formats, including SD, SDHC, Littman Opus + Arte Collection pick sized flash is a compromise between
glossy black finish, the readers Memory Stick, and xD, and achieves up on the retro-chic style of its built-in units and a full-sized shoe-
attach magnetically to an angled, 30MB/second reading with an retooled Polaroid 110 instant film mount strobe. It’s twice as powerful
three-footed metallic base for SDHC card of equal speed. About cameras. One of our favorites is the as the former, and you can leave it
space-saving upright use, but they $30 and $20. Hog Ranch (shown here), an hom- comfortably mounted in the hot-
can be lifted off for transport or age to photographer Peter Beard’s shoe because a clever hinge allows
flat placement. The All-in-One ver- Littman 45 Single Hog Ranch famous Kenyan compound. Its it to fold flat against the camera’s
sion accepts virtually all card for- The maker of the world’s first and warm color scheme and exotic prism. Lift it into shooting position
mats and tops out at a 34MB/ only single-window, coupled- materials—including Noble African and the tube is displaced enough
second transfer speed with SanDisk’s rangefinder, parallax-free 4x5 has woods such as Ambonya burl and from the lens to greatly reduce red-
Extreme IV (45MB/second) CF brought fashion to its product’s tigered bamboo—recall the wooden eye. About $100. —RUSSELL HART

48 American Photo Mag.com E D I T O R ’ S C H O I C E


www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
F LICKR C REATIVE
SHOWCASE
S P E C I A L G AT E F O L D
MACIEJ DAKOWICZ

P hotography has always been considered a democratic medium of expression. But the Flickr
photo-sharing website has transformed photography into a global community that, perhaps more
than any other phenomenon in history, embodies the idea of art for the masses. And that art can be
surprisingly fine. Here we inaugurate our Flickr Creative Showcase, in which we profile a talented
photographer from the ranks of Flickr’s millions of members. Look for our special gatefold in each issue.

WINNER
SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER 2009

Above: a photo from


MACIE J DAKOWICZ
CARDIFF, WALES
“Cardiff at Night,” American Photo Mag.com 49
by Maciej Dakowicz

www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com


MACIEJ DAKOWICZ (3)

Maciej Dakowicz
Cardiff, Wales
http://www.flickr.com/
photos/maciejdakowicz/

M agazines love to make


lists. The top ten of this or
the five best of that are powerful
ways to engage readers. So when
American Photo featured the work
of 12 “Flickr Superstars” in our
May/June issue, the story created
quite a buzz on the massively
popular photo-sharing website.
Some Flickrites seemed pleased
by our choices, or at least happy
that we’d done a story about Flickr.
Others complained vigorously.
We were happy when member
Kara Baker started a new Flickr
group in response to our story—
a group in which members (now
nearing 1,000) submit their
own 12 Flickr Superstars. (Now
that’s democracy!) “The whole
point of the group is to celebrate
who inspires you, who intrigues
you, and who you’re learning
from,” says the Brooklyn, New
York-based Baker. “I now have a
whole new and brilliant group of
friends, and we go on photo walks
and mini shoots. I’ve learned so
much.” You’ll see that for yourself
if you visit Baker’s excellent photo-
stream at flickr.com; her screen
name is Omeyisland.
The first photographer we fea-
ture in our new Flickr Creative
Showcase is someone whose
name comes up again and again
in the 12 Flickr Superstars group An image
from “Cardiff at
Night” by
Maciej Dakowicz

50 F L I C K R C R E A T I V E S H O W C A S E
www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
“I’m drawn to
complex compositions,”
says Dakowicz of his
Cardiff work, below.
and elsewhere on the site: Cardiff, strongest work in his new home-
Wales-based Maciej Dakowicz. town, brilliantly capturing Cardiff’s
Dakowicz’s huge body of work lively youth culture and raucous
exports a Raghubir Singh–like nightlife, and that’s what we
sensibility to the most far-flung feature here. Check out Dakow-
parts of the globe, which he icz’s Flickr photostream and
often travels to with the help of website (maciejdakowicz.com) to
NGOs. “I’m drawn to complex see more of this fine work.
compositions, photos with sev- And while you’re at it please visit
eral layers in them,” he says. Flickr’s new American Photo
“When I travel, I spend most of group. There you’ll be able to
my time in cities, photographing weigh in on who we feature in
street life.” The 33-year-old the Flickr Creative Showcase and
photographer, who was born in to learn how to get your own
Poland, has created some of his work considered for publication.

F L I C K R C R E A T I V E S H O W C A S E
www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
In this family,
everyone is photogenic.
The Sony® Series DSLR Cameras

© 2009 Sony Electronics Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in part or whole is prohibited without prior written consent
of Sony. Sony, the Sony logo, alpha, and the HDNA logo are trademarks of Sony.

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Photo tips for any camera brand.
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Whether you’re looking to step up to the world of higher-end photography or you’re already a
professional photographer, Sony has the DSLR camera for you. With features like Quick Auto Focus
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www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
D o a Google search for
“orphan works” and you’ll
get nearly half a million hits.
of Media Photographers. “If
there is room for reasonable
compensation once the artist is
Yet most photographers don’t located, we can live with that.”
know the meaning of this If user/infringers have not
strange phrase, nor that it has conducted a diligent search or do
important legal implications. In not negotiate a reasonable fee in
fact, it’s the focus of a raging good faith, they lose the protec-
battle over copyright. tion of the proposed legislation
An orphan work is a docu- and will be liable for statutory or
ment, artwork, photograph, or
other creation that is protected
by copyright law against unau-
THE LAW actual damages. So practically
speaking, those artists who have
not registered their work in a
thorized use but whose owner is timely fashion would be no worse
either unknown or cannot be
found—making it virtually
AN ORPHAN WORKS off, and in some cases they would
be better off, because the user
impossible for someone to get
permission to use the work. As LAW MIGHT NOT has a legal obligation to try to
find them before using the work.
the law currently stands, anyone
who uses a copyrighted work
without the owner’s permission,
BE AS BAD “The idea that you have to look
for someone is a new concept
that will benefit photographers
including an orphan work, can
be held fully liable for infringe-
AS YOU THINK. who haven’t registered their
work,” says Nancy Wolff, noted
ment, even if he or she made
every effort to locate the copy-
right holder. Such statutory dam-
BY MICHELLE BOGRE copyright lawyer and author of
The Professional Photographer’s
Legal Handbook (Allworth Press).
ages can range from $750 to However, the photographer who
$150,000 if the copyrighted has registered an orphan work
work was registered with the in a timely fashion will lose the
U.S. Copyright Office before right to sue for statutory damages.
the infringement or within 30 That could mean a potential loss
days of its creation and/or pub- has to pay the owner only an pay “whatever they consider of revenue.
lication. (If the work wasn’t reg- amount that a “willing buyer and reasonable”; that it allows users This proposed legislation does
istered, the infringer is only willing seller” would have agreed to “escape all legal liability by a good job of balancing the needs
liable for “actual damages,” on before the infringement. claiming they didn’t know who of copyright owners with the
such as the amount the photog- they were stealing from.” very real need to limit liability for
rapher might have realized from
selling his image. Actual dam-
ages are usually far smaller than
M any photographers and
artists are up in arms
about a possible orphan works
The legislation as currently
written isn’t perfect, but it’s not
the disaster that many portray it
some uses of orphan works. Both
House and Senate versions
require that the copyright office
statutory damages.) law. Alarmist headlines and to be. And it is inevitable that an certify two databases that can be
Proposed congressional legis- subject lines litter the Internet, orphan works bill will be passed searchable by image.
lation that will more than likely compelling people to sign peti- by Congress because it addresses When orphan works legislation
become law limits this liability. It tions, forward e-mails, and the pervasive difficulties faced by passes, it will encourage many
says that if someone who wants urge friends and colleagues to publishers, libraries, museums, productive uses that aren’t possi-
to use an orphan work conducts oppose orphan works legisla- universities, and filmmakers who ble now. Maybe the curators at
a “qualifying search”—defined tion. Unfortunately most of want to use an orphan work but the Holocaust Museum finally
as a reasonable and “diligent” these missives contain mislead- can’t or don’t because of the risk will be able to use the millions
search using every available ing, inaccurate, and, in some and liability of statutory damages of pages of archival documents,
source and technology, includ- cases, false information. Among if the copyright owner does photographs, oral histories, and
ing printed material and elec- the misinformation are varia- appear. “We’ve never thought that reels of film that, as they have
tronic databases—that person is tions of a few claims: that an orphan works law would be stated before Congress, now just
protected from statutory dam- orphan works legislation will Armageddon for photographers,” sit in their archives because
ages. If the copyright holder “rob” photographers of copy- says Eugene Mopsik, executive they can’t afford the liability of
eventually appears, the infringer right; that it will allow users to director of the American Society damages under the existing law.

C L O S E U P American Photo Mag.com 55

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PORT FOL IO S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2009

CONTROVERSIES
Photographs have always had the power to cause
trouble. More than books, more than painting, photo-
graphic images create a visceral response in viewers.
Over the years, that has led to censorship by
governments, legal battles in courts, and struggles to

IMAGES THAT
establish codes of proper behavior by imagemakers.
A brilliant exhibition at the Musée de l’Elysée in
Switzerland earlier this year, and a related new book
available only in French, explore the various contro-
versies associated with photographs. On the
following pages, we present a glimpse at the issues
the show raised. They are worth understanding,
HAVE DEFINED THE
because photography remains
a powerful, and
troublesome,
E T H ICS OF
PHOTOGRAPHY
medium.
COURTESY MUSÉE DE L’ELYSÉE

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P O R T F O L I O

SYMBOL OF
DISTRUST
CREATION
AND
If artist Andres Serrano
had painted his infamous
image titled “Piss Christ,”
instead of producing it as a

CONSEQUENCE
photograph, would the work
have become the focus
of so much controversy?
Serrano made the image
in 1987 by photographing
a small plastic crucifix sub-

ESSAY BY
merged in a transparent
container filled with urine—
likely his own—and cow’s
blood. The image, he
DAN I EL said, explored obsessions
about sex and religion. The

GI RARDIN piece was a winner of the


Southeastern Center for
Contemporary Art’s “Awards
in the Visual Arts” competi-
tion, and Serrano was
awarded $15,000. The
competition, as it turned
out, was sponsored in part
by the National Endowment
for the Arts. When “Piss

P
Christ” was exhibited in
laced at the intersection of private and public worlds, a photograph elicits
1989, two United States
an eminently subjective response. Photographs are therefore a source of endless
senators, Alphonse D’Amato
debates and conflicts. Laws, attitudes, and the limits of what is acceptable in
and Jesse Helms, were
terms of representation vary from one country or culture to another. This makes the
outraged. The NEA’s budget
question all the more complex, but it is also what makes it so interesting. The numerous
was slashed and funding
controversies associated with photography throughout its history highlight the diversity
was directed at less contro-
of possible interpretations and the insoluble paradox of freedom and constraint that
versial art. In the years
constitutes photography itself.
since, the image has con-
Photographers, whatever their field of activity, are bound by a series of laws the limits
tinued to be a focal point for
of which are constantly being tested, with jurisprudence usually lagging behind the
issues of censorship
evolution of attitudes and techniques. Certain laws are not enforced since they no longer
and publicly funded art.
correspond to practice at a particular time, whereas others evolve as a result of court
decisions. Photographs that have been published for many years can suddenly be for-
bidden, while others begin to circulate freely after a long period underground. It is all
a question of how the pictures are interpreted, of the meaning that is read into them.
Ever since 1839, when photography is officially considered to have been invented, pho-
tographers have had to fight for their images to be acknowledged (continued on page 88)

58 American Photo Mag.com

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© ANDRES SERRANO

P O R T F O L I O 59

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EXPERTS
COULD NOT THE FAIRIES OF
GUARANTEE COTTINGLEY
FAKERY. ”
Photography’s ability
to capture reality in great
detail has produced a
powerful belief system—
one illustrated by two girls
who used photographs
to convince an entire
country that they had
seen fairies.
In 1917, Frances Grif-
fiths and her cousin Elsie
Wright, age 10 and 16
respectively, spent the
summer in Elsie’s family
home in Cottingley, Great
Britain. They played for
hours in the countryside
COURTESY MUSÉE DE L’ELYSÉE behind the house, return-
ing with tales of fairies
and imps that they encoun-
tered there. Later, Elsie
borrowed her father’s
camera, and the photo-
graphs the girls made
revealed the fairies with
great realism. The story
spread and was eventually
heard by Arthur Conan
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll, Doyle, creator of Sherlock
was a mathematician at Oxford University, a writer Holmes. Doyle had the

LEWIS
of children’s literature, and a passionate photogra- images examined by
pher. He met Alice Liddell, the daughter of an asso- experts at Kodak, who
ciate at Oxford, when she was five years old. She could not guarantee fakery.

CARROLL inspired his tale of Wonderland, published in 1865,


and, along with other young girls, was the subject
He then published them
in Strand magazine, and in

AND
of many of his photos. Largely because of his 1922 he published a book
images, there has long been speculation that Car- on the subject. Through-
roll’s interest in Alice was sexual in nature. The out the decades the two

ALICE
ambiguous nature of photographs often invites such girls held that the images
debate; people have layered onto Carroll’s images were authentic, until
facts about the man himself—he was single and shy 1981, when they admitted
and suffered from epilepsy—to arrive at conclusions fabricating the images by
that have not and ultimately cannot be proven. copying book illustrations.

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COURTESY MUSÉE DE L’ELYSÉE

P O R T F O L I O 61

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

62 P O R T F O L I O
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CHARACTER
Can a persona created for the camera be copyrighted? The issue was not entirely
clear in 1925, when film star Charlie Chaplin sued the company that had released a
film called The Race Track, starring a Mexican actor named Charles Amador, who

AS ICON
had changed his name to “Charlie Aplin” and begun imitating the famous persona of
The Little Tramp created by Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin charged plagiarism, and his
lawyers presented photos of the Tramp character as evidence.The defense claimed
that Chaplin himself had borrowed ideas from other actors, but Chaplin won.

ROY EXPORT SAS


Thanks to a photo of Oscar Wilde
taken by a man named Napoleon
Sarony, photographers today enjoy
legal rights that were once very
much in question.
In the 1860s, the theater become
widely popular in America, giving
birth to a cult of celebrity. Performers
like Lily Langtry and Sarah Bern-
hardt needed photos for promotion,
and they went to Sarony, who opened
a studio on Broadway in New York
City in 1866. He soon realized that
he could make money by selling
his images of celebrities to the public
at large and began paying stars for
the rights to their images. In 1883
Sarony learned that a portrait he
had made of Oscar Wilde had been
copied and sold to the public by the
Burrow-Giles Lithographic Company.
Sarony sued, maintaining that his
direction of the subject, the décor,
and the lighting amounted to intel-
lectual and artistic ownership of
the image. He prevailed and helped
establish the photographer as an
auteur and photography as an art.

CULT OF
CELEBRITY

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On October 26, 1941,
Lithuanian soldiers collab-

AWASH IN EVIL
orating with the German
army executed three
Soviet resistance fighters
in the streets of Minsk.
After the war, the two
hanged men were cele- When the world saw David E. Scherman’s photo of Lee Miller
brated as heroes of the in Adolf Hitler’s Munich bathtub, controversy erupted. Was this
Soviet Union. The young an act of subversive art, or was it a tasteless joke?
girl executed with them Miller was one of the few women journalists accredited to
remained anonymous. cover the war in Europe, and Scherman was a photographer
In 1968, a Russian jour- for Life magazine. Both were present on April 29, 1945, when
nalist identified her as the Dachau concentration camp was liberated. That night, in
Masha Bruskina, just 17 Munich, they discovered an apartment belonging to the führer.
when she was killed. Her The photo they shot the following day was carefully arranged.
identity was not fully The symbolism—Miller is literally washing away Hitler’s evil—is
accepted until 1996, how- clear. She had been inculcated in the ideas of surrealism
ever, probably because she years before, when she was the muse of Man Ray, but many
was a Jew. The cover-up people found this image of her to be offensive. Ultimately, the
resulted from Joseph Stal- picture was, for Miller, a macabre memory: She told friends that,
in’s post-war anti-Semitic in spite of her bath, the odor of Dachau remained on her skin.
campaigns. But the photo
remained as evidence.

THE HEROINE OF MINSK


UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM

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GETTY IMAGES

P O R T F O L I O 65

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66 P O R T F O L I O
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THE KISSING NUN

Fashion photographer A commercial photo-


Oliviero Toscani is probably graph’s success or failure
most famous as the cre- can depend on three
ative genius behind an little words: location, loca-
18-year-long ad campaign tion, location.
that turned Benetton into A case in point was the
one of the most famous print ad campaign for the
brand names in the world. popular Yves Saint Laurent
The campaign was also fragrance named Opium.
controversial, proving once Photographer Steven Mei-
again that creating shock sel’s images appeared in
and sales are not mutually magazines around the
exclusive goals. world without causing a
Toscani’s images illus-
trated the company’s THE commotion. But when his
shot of model Sophie Dahl

SMELL
“United Colors of Benetton” lying on her back wearing
slogan. In one famous jewelery and stilettos
photograph, he showed a was featured on street signs

OF
black woman breastfeed- in Britain, there was an
ing a white baby. But per- outcry. What was accept-
haps his most controversial able in one context seemed

MONEY
picture showed a priest too explicit in another.
and nun kissing. By chal- The British Advertising
lenging the principle of Standards Authority eventu-
religious celibacy, the ally demanded removal
image encourages viewers of the street ad panels.
to think about traditional
constraints. It was also
seen as an attack against
the basic notions of
Roman Catholicism. The
Italian government, facing
pressure from the Vatican,
banned the ad. In France,
the Office for the Sur-
veillance of Advertising
Practices demanded the
withdrawal of posters
featuring the image. So
who was the winner in this
battle of ideas?
COURTESY MUSÉE DE L’ELYSÉE

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68 P O R T F O L I O
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“ IN THE
END, IT
WAS AN
E T HICAL
PUZ ZLE.

LADY DIANA’S
LAST PHOTO
The car crash that took the life of Diana Spencer,
Dodi Al-Fayed, and their chauffeur on the night
of August 31, 1997 unleashed a series of law-
suits and criticism focusing on photographers.
After the accident, it was announced that the
driver of the car, Henri Paul, was drunk when
he struck a pillar of a tunnel in Paris at high speed.
Nonetheless, nine photographers who were
part of the fatal street race were charged with
manslaughter. In 1999 the case was dropped,
but the image of celebrity photographers—espe-
cially aggressive paparazzi—was darkened.
© JACQUES LANGEVIN/COURTESY MUSÉE DE L’ELYSÉE

Respected Sygma photojournalist Jacques


Langevin, who had covered events like the
uprising in Tiananmen Square in 1989, made
this image outside Diana’s hotel as the chase
began. He was later charged with violating “the
private life” of the deceased and was ordered to
pay one euro to Mohammed Al-Fayed, Dodi’s
father. In the end, the role of the photographers
became a complex ethical puzzle, with news-
papers, magazines, and television condemning
the photographers while eagerly publishing
their shots to the delight of an avid audience.

American Photo Mag.com 69

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© FRANK FOURNIER/COURTESY MUSÉE DE L’ELYSÉE
TALE OF OMAYRA “ THREE
TIMES I
Frank Fournier, a photographer with with
the Contact Press Images agency, was in
Colombia on Saturday, November 16,
Fournier won the World Press Photo
award in 1985 for his picture of Omayra,
but he faced lingering moral doubts about
WANTED
1985, covering the eruption of the Nevado
del Ruiz volcano, when he encountered
his role in the drama. Is it enough for
photographers to simply tell the story of
TO
Omayra Sánchez in the town of Armero.
The girl had been trapped by debris from
a massive mudslide. For two days and
people in distress? Was Omayra exploited
as the media moved in to record her final
hours? “Three times, I wanted to stop,”
STOP.

three nights, rescuers tried to release Fournier says. He did not, and the world
her, creating a media side-show in which could not stop looking at his work. Looking
Fournier had a front-row seat. Omayra back, Fournier says photographers must
finally succumbed to a heart attack. simply testify to the dignity of his subjects.

70
P O R T F O L I O
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HE KILLED THE GIRL AND THE VULTURE
HIMSELF
AFTER When he photographed this starving The photo was published in The New

HE WON Sudanese girl in 1993, Kevin Carter faced


a moral question similar to the one that
York Times on March 26 and instantly
became a symbol of human misery. Thou-

THE
Fournier faced in Colombia. A native of sands of readers wrote to ask about the
South Africa, Carter had risen to the top of fate of the girl. In an editorial, the newspa-
his field documenting the battle against per explained that the photographer

PULITZER apartheid. Covering civil war and famine in


Sudan, he found the starving girl near the
didn’t know if she had or had not survived.
Carter, a sensitive man, immediately faced

PRIZE.
village of Ayod, as she was dragging herself withering criticism, though his image
toward an aid station, a vulture behind brought him celebrity. He committed sui-
her, seemingly waiting for her death. Carter cide in 1994, two months after receiving
got the shot, then chased the vulture away. the Pulitzer Prize for his picture.

CORBIS

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© MARC GARANGER/COURTESY MUSÉE DE L’ELYSÉE

72 P O R T F O L I O
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PORTRAIT OF SHIELDS
CHERID VERSUS
BARKAOUN GROSS
Can the act of photography
be barbaric? If so, can the bar-
barism be redeemed by the
sensitivity of the imagemaker?
In 1960, Frenchman Marc
Garanger, then 25, was sent to
the town of Aïn Terzine in
Algeria to carry out his military
service. His job was to take pic-
tures of some 2,000 Algerians
for use on ID cards. For women
like Cherid Barkaoun, the act
of being photographed in pub-
lic, being made to expose their
naked faces, was a personal
violation. The pain and the con- Few images better illustrate the shifting photographic
tempt Barkaoun felt is apparent ideas of taste and exploitation than Garry Gross’s 1975
in her portrait, and it could nude portrait of Brooke Shields, then 10 years old. A New
be found in many of the faces York-based advertising photographer, Gross was regularly
Garanger documented. The employed by Shields’s mother to photograph her daughter,
contempt was returned by the then a model with the Ford agency. He was also working
French military: “Come see, on a personal project called “The Woman in the Child.”
come see how ugly they are! Shields posed both as a normal young girl and in the nude,
Come see these macaques, heavily made up and oiled. Her mother signed a contract
these monkeys!” said Garang- giving Gross full rights to the images, which were first pub-
er’s captain when he viewed lished in a book called Little Women, then in a Playboy
the images. Press publication called Sugar and Spice.
Revolted, Garanger deter- By 1981, Shields tried unsuccessfully to buy back the
mined that his photographs could negatives. She then sued Gross, claiming that her mother
be used to expose the racism of had signed away her rights for onetime publication only.
the French military. In 1961 he The court disagreed. Later, Shields sued again. The court
clandestinely entered Switzer- ruled that “these photographs are not sexually suggestive,
land and offered the photos to provocative, or pornographic.”
the newspaper L’Illustré Suisse. Though Gross won the case, he was financially ruined by
He later had them exhibited the legal battle, and his reputation was tarnished as social
throughout France. In this con- tastes changed and he was seen as an exploiter of chil-
text, images that were meant dren. Later, however, he sold the rights to the pictures to
simply to catalog a people had artist Richard Prince, who rephotographed and recontextu-
the reverse effect of showcasing alized the images. In 1999, his image of Shields, named
their humanity. “Spiritual America,” sold at Christie’s for $151,000.

American Photo Mag.com 73

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Photographers and news editors constantly grapple with notions of The images of Abu Ghraib prison that
decency, and the events of September 11, 2001, presented journalists emerged in 2004 changed the history
with plenty of tough judgment calls. Most media outlets made the of photography, and American attitudes
decision not to show the dead, the major exception being the images of toward the war in Iraq. They also
people falling from the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Those showed, perhaps more than any other
pictures in themselves raised important questions of journalistic ethics. pictures ever taken, the power that
While some viewers were offended, newspapers like The New York photography can wield.
Times explained that it was important to report the reality of the event. It was on April 28, 2004, that CBS
Another newspaper, the New York Daily News, also published this aired six photos of Iraqi prisoners being
image, made by photographer Todd Maisel shortly after the terrorist tortured in Abu Ghraib prison by Amer-
attacks. It was indeed a shocking reminder of the carnage, and for ican soldiers. These explosive images
many—even other journalists—it exceeded the bounds of proper report- were taken not by a professional jour-
ing. The difficulty, of course, is determining where those boundaries lie. nalist seeking a “scoop” but by the
American soldiers themselves, using
cell phone cameras. The New Yorker
magazine then published nine more
Abu Ghraib images accompanying an

THE HIDDEN 9/11


article by Seymour Hersh. In a month,
close to 30 photographs were revealed
to the public—a fraction of the images
collected by the military, many of
which have never been made public.
The impact of the photographs was
enormous. They discredited the Ameri-
can military and undercut the Bush
administration’s assertion of moral author-
ity in Iraq. In Arab countries, anger was
immense. A number of the soldiers
who were pictured torturing prisoners
were eventually tried in military courts,
but their superiors, who condoned the
torture, were left unpunished.
After losing several legal battles, the
U.S. military seemed prepared in recent
months to release more of the photos
made at Abu Ghraib, which had been
collected as part of the investigation of
prisoner abuse. President Obama
blocked the release because, he said,
they might further incite anger among
America’s enemies and endanger Amer-
ican soldiers serving in the Middle East.
© TODD MAISEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

ABU GHRAIB

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P O R T F O L I O 75

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The Smile Train is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit recognized by the IRS, and all donations to The Smile Train are tax-deductible in accordance with IRS regulations. © 2009 The Smile Train.

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MASTER CLASS
© ANDREAS GEFELLER/COURTESY HASTED HUNT GALLERY

T he bird’s-eye view has been


a source of photographic
a maplike simplicity, such views
also reveal previously unseen
fascination ever since Nadar
shot Paris from a hot air balloon
in 1858. To see earth from
relationships and afford infor-
mation not visible from a side-
long perspective.
HIGH EYEPOINT
above, whether in flight or in
photographs, is a transformative
All but the most elevated
aerial images still retain a single
ANDREAS GEFELLER’S
experience. While giving com-
plex ground-level relationships
perspective—the sense of a
viewer’s position in space. Not
DIZZY, DUMBFOUNDING
BIRD’S-EYE VIEWS
“Untitled (Office Floor)
Dusseldorf, 2003” American Photo Mag.com 77

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“Untitled
(Kunstakademie,
room 220)
Dusseldorf,
2009” C LASS N
so with the “Supervisions” series “STITCHINOT E
of German photographer MANUALL G
GIVES YO Y
Andreas Gefeller. He has arrived

MORE CR U
at a remarkable, labor-intensive
methodology that creates stun-
E
ningly detailed images of large,
CONTRO ATIVE
flat surfaces indoors and out, L.”
from parking lots to office ceil-
ings to fields of vegetables.
These images seem to exist in a
wholly abstract realm, with no
apparent point of view, yet
record their contents with a clar-
ity that unaided human vision beach—square by square. He
could never achieve. It is as if mounts his Canon EOS 5D digi-
Gefeller had somehow scanned tal SLR on a tripod that has been
these enormous surfaces at extended but with the legs
ultrahigh resolution. Yet while unsplayed so that he can wedge
© ANDREAS GEFELLER/COURTESY HASTED HUNT GALLERY (3)

the photographer acknowledges its feet into his belt; the tripod
that the details of his images are is aimed up at an angle, with
faithful, he describes the final the head tilted down to keep
result as a “construction.” the camera parallel to the sur-
That construction results from face he’s photographing. After
Gefeller’s methodical process of each cable-released shot, he
shooting his subject—the paint- takes a step (or three, or four)
splattered floor of an art-school before shooting again. “When
studio, the dense pattern of I started this series I actually
shoe imprints on a well-traveled measured the squares, but

LESSON 1 ON PRECISION
“Sometimes I set up a grid to do the shooting, but often I don’t.
The reason for this is interesting: Many of my subjects are urban places,
which means they’re man-made. Humans put everything in strict order
and in rows, which makes the photography process easier. I can use
the grid created by tiles, paving slabs, or other regular patterns to orient
myself, for example. This fact tells a lot about human character—about
man’s will to control nature and his environment.”

78 I N S I D E P H O T O G R A P H Y
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“Untitled
(Kunstakademie,
room 209)
Dusseldorf,
2009”

now it’s just a matter of feel- Though the process of shoot-


ing,” Gefeller explains. “I know ing is arduously systematic, the
the length of my feet and how digital stitching—done without
many steps I have to make.” the help of dedicated stitching
programs—is even more so.

G efeller shoots with a


35mm lens, a moderately-
wide focal length that captures
Sometimes Gefeller creates, or
simply leaves intact, a seamless
transition from frame to frame;
a little over a square yard from other times he leaves unaltered
about eye level. For outdoor a more abrupt transition. “I
subjects he often extends his think this is one of the main
improvised boom so that it’s as creative aspects of the work, to
high as nine or ten feet. It can decide where you leave some
take many hours, if not days, to seams in the picture and where
photograph the whole surface it’s unnecessary,” he says. “Nat-
he has chosen, and Gefeller urally, it’s very easy to remove
may shoot hundreds if not thou- seams in Photoshop. But for
sands of overlapping frames. me, these little ‘mistakes’ are
For his recent image of an entire very important for the viewer
floor of the Art Academy in his so that he can try to understand
native Dusseldorf (below), what he is looking at.”
Gefeller made approximately The result is reminiscent of
10,000 separate exposures. the digital pastiche produced

LESSON 2 ON PRINT SCALE


“There is no one ideal size for the ‘Supervisions’ prints. Some must have
a minimum size or else you wouldn’t even understand what they are
showing. I did an image of a golf driving range, and although this print is
quite large, the golf balls on it are still tiny; if it were any smaller, the
viewer wouldn’t be able to identify the golf balls. Other prints don’t need
to be so large—images of paving slabs, for example. The sections remind
me of pixels, an effect you’d lose if you made the prints really big.
“Sometimes I downsample the individual frames before I put them
“Untitled
together. But in general, I try to leave them at full resolution and down- (Kunstakademie)
sample the whole image to suit the particular print size. That means Dusseldorf,
of course that the files are massive. I could produce the prints in dimen- 2009”
sions that would fill huge temples.”

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Below:
“Untitled (Park)
Dusseldorf,
2007”
C LASS N
“DECIDIN OT E
by robotic space landing crafts ings from below I find myself in wall, a highly abstract represen-
such as the Mars rovers, and a position that isn’t possible— tation. And while abstraction
indeed, Gefeller often photo- G one that seems to be dozens of is usually achieved with a
WH E R E T
O
SEAMS IS KEEP
graphed the night sky with his meters under the earth.” reduction of detail, Gefeller’s
grandfather’s camera when he “Supervisions” work is teeming
OF MY C PART
was a child. And while Gefeller
points out that for him the com- R
PROCESS EATIVE
I t would be easy to place
Gefeller’s work in the mold
with detail. In that respect, and
in its challenge to photogra-
puter is not an instrument of
manipulation, it is on the com-
.” of the Becher-inspired, descrip-
tively neutral genre of current
phy’s one-eyed ethos, his work
is subversive. “The main object
puter that the real artistic trans- German photography. Gefeller of my work is not to manipulate
formation occurs. “The more applies that school’s rigor not to the world,” Gefeller recently
frames I put together, the greater I’m working on images of the a literal record of his subjects explained in a BBC broadcast.
the distance to a surface appears ground, I start flying! In the case but to what ultimately becomes, “It’s to change the way of look-
to be,” says Gefeller. “When of photographs that show ceil- as a very large print on a gallery ing at it.” —RUSSELL HART

© ANDREAS GEFELLER/COURTESY HASTED HUNT GALLERY

80 I N S I D E P H O T O G R A P H Y
www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
© JOE MCNALLY (4)
McNally shot
this cowboy first
by available light
(1, below), then
with flash mixed in
(2), but ended
up stopping
down to cut back
the available light
(3) so that he
could use flash
alone to light his
subject (here).

1 2 3

OUT OF THE DARK W hy would any sane photog-


rapher go from the the safe
haven of existing light—light you

WHY WOULD YOU MAKE can see, touch, and feel—into the
mysterious, uncertain, and possi-

AVAILABLE LIGHT UNAVAILABLE? TO


bly dangerous land of flash? Think
of it this way. That available light,
as it’s commonly known, isn’t just
LIGHT YOUR SUB J ECT J UST THE available to you; it’s available to

WAY YOU WANT. BY JOE MCNALLY


every other photographer. You can
make a picture that will look kind

82 S K I L L S
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HOME THEATER
of the same as the one the guy next to you is
shooting. And if both of you submit your
pictures to the same magazine, or agent, or
stock house, or photo-sharing website, the
reaction will be, “Hey, wait a minute, these
pictures all look...the same.” It’s like Ange-
lina Jolie and Reese Witherspoon showing
up on Oscar night wearing the same dress.
Quelle embarrassment!
In a world of sameness, where there’s a
Starbucks, a Gap, a Barnes & Noble, and a
Pizza Hut on every other block of every
other town you’ve ever been to, there is
vibrance and joy in difference. In an era of
royalty-free, rights-free, by-the-pound pho-
tography, it just might pay to step back and
try to make your pictures the equivalent of a
mom-and-pop shop or the place where the
locals really eat. And one path to making
your work different is to use light in creative
and unexpected ways.
Take this photograph of a well-appointed
cowboy. I was on the road, in the middle of
Noplace, Utah, and the sun had gone down.
There was still plenty of light, but it was
cool, subdued, and expressionless. It was
available but unexciting. I put my actor-
cowboy Chris up against an old barn that
had lots of cool stuff stuck on it, and I made
a picture. A very average picture (1). It was
a record of the scene, not an interpretation,
shot at 1/80 second at f/2.8.

B ut what lingered in my head was the


sun that had set over the distant hills on
camera left. Its light was just getting interest-
ing when it disappeared. (Available light will
do that to you.) So I got out a flash, put a
full-strength CTO warming filter on it, and
placed it on a stand at about the angle
where the sun had been. The filter turned
the clean, neutral white light of the strobe, a
Nikon SB-900 Speedlight, into the color of
sunset. The SB-900 was advantageous here
because of its ability to zoom its beam angle
to match a 200mm focal length. When you
zoom the flash head to 200mm but shoot
with a shorter focal length (here, a 24-70mm
f/2.8 Nikkor zoom set to 24mm), you con-
centrate the light. It gets punchy and direct,
like late-afternoon light.
I triggered the off-camera flash with another
SB-900 that was hotshoed to the camera,
using the same exposure (2). It warmed the
scene just a touch. The camera was doing its
job, mixing the flash and the available light

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 84 American Photo Mag.com

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Joe
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WITNESS BAND OF BROTHERS

in the city of Tal Afar. Gunfire from Ameri- filled with people like Samantha Appleton,
can troops killed the mother and father and one of the founding photographers of the
seriously wounded a son. A young girl Noor agency; Todd Heisler, now a staff
WHILE
SHOOTING THE emerged from the car covered in her parents’ photographer with the New York Times;
STORIES OF
THEIR LIVES blood. Hondros won the 2006 Robert Capa and Scott Strazzante, a photographer with
IN IRAQ AND
AFGHANISTAN,
THREE
Gold Medal Award for the work. the Chicago Tribune, all of whom started
PHOTOGRAPHERS
KNOW THEY their careers at small newspapers in the

R
CAN DEPEND ON
BAND EACH OTHER
AND THE
elatively speaking, the world of photo- Chicago suburbs.
OF L ESSONS THEY
L EARNED
journalism is small, and to some extent Spencer Platt believes that small newspa-
BROTHERS LONG AGO
AT A SMALL
it’s not so very interesting that three of the pers became the generators of photojournal-
TEXT BY
REGIS LE SOMMIER
NEWSPAPER IN
OHIO.
world’s finest photojournalists all emerged istic talent because of the vital and intimate
American Photo Mag.com 35
from the same small newspaper. (The world is connection they have traditionally main-
even smaller than you might think: another tained with local communities. “In the days
prize-winning New York Times photogra- before Google,” he theorizes, “newspapers
pher, Lynsey Addario, also attended Staples were the bond of American communities.
High School with Platt and Hicks.) What is They provided information about high
very interesting, I think, is the particularly school sports, gave the latest news about a
American sense of destiny—or perhaps self- burglary, and provided an overview of world
(continued from page 42) covered the invention is a better term—that underlies the events. Every lunch counter, barbershop,
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on and off story of Hondros, Hicks, and Platt. and auto repair shop had a newspaper wait-
since 2001. Earlier this year he was traveling As a Frenchman in America, I was always ing to be devoured by someone with some
with a company of U.S. soldiers that was fascinated by the fact that a guy from Mis- time to kill. As these papers were usually
ambushed by the Taliban in a remote valley soula, Montana, could become filmmaker thin on stories, photographs often got signifi-
in Afghanistan. One of the soldiers was David Lynch, or that a geek working as a cant exposure. A photo, regardless of how
killed. Hicks’s images captured the desper- clerk at the video store down the street of good, was judged on the space given to it.
ate moments and the vulnerability of the my in-laws in Manhattan Beach, California, At the Troy Daily News, a photographer
baby-faced soldiers—you understand the could become Quentin Tarantino. shared the paper with only two other photo
reality of war in those faces. Next year’s I’ve learned over the years that it’s the staff members. We awoke each morning
Pulitzer Prize committee will surely be look- same with photography. Small-town Amer- excitedly going through the paper to see
ing seriously at the pictures. ica remains the place where great news how big our images appeared. Front page, a
Platt, who now shoots for Getty Images, photographers learn their craft while cover- photo spread, a bad crop, six columns,
covered the chaotic Israel-Lebanon conflict ing the staples of local news—fires, car color, black and white. We were either mor-
of 2006. There he snapped a picture of a accidents, high school sports, city council tified or euphoric.”
sleek convertible filled with pretty, carefree meetings, and Labor Day parades. Hon- Platt’s memories raise some inevitable
Lebanese girls posing, cell phones in hand, dros, Hicks, and Platt all came to Troy questions: Where will future generations of
in front of a devastated Beirut suburb. The because of work opportunity, because photojournalists learn their craft? As he
photo won the World Press Photo of the Year opportunity thrived in those midwestern notes, the American small-town newspaper
award in 2006. He has also worked in Iraq, towns. It’s a phenomenon that happens far business is far different now, in the age of
Liberia, Congo, and Indonesia. less frequently in my native country. There, Google and Facebook, than it was then.
Hondros’s work in Iraq has also been talented journalists or photographers rarely Online communities have replaced real
honored. One of his most famous sets of climb the ladder of success after starting at communities, and the role that newspapers
images, made on January 18, 2005, docu- a local paper. In France, unfortunately, once played—the way they brought every-
mented the shooting of an Iraqi family whose everything starts and ends in Paris. In one in town together on the same page, as it
car failed to stop at an American checkpoint America the ranks of photojournalism are were—is less vital.

W hen I was working with Chris


Hondros in Iraq, the soldiers we
met knew the power of photography. They
asked Chris to take pictures of them in

AFTER ALL THAT TIME, action, and he obliged. At first we were


embedded with Colonel Steve Miska’s unit
in Baghdad during the winter of 2006, dur-

THE PHOTOGRAPHERS FIND ing the height of the civil war. After we left,
Spencer came to cover the unit. Then in
June of 2007, in Baghdad again, we met
THEIR PATHS CROSSING. Captain George Feese and his men from

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LIGHTING
the 82nd Airborne. Spencer was there, too,
following the paratroopers throughout the
summer. His e-mails helped me keep a
sense of what was going on in the troubled
neighborhood of Ghazaliyah after I had
left. Tyler was in Afghanistan, and I met
with him in Perpignan, France, in September
2007 at the Visa pour l’Image photojournal-
ism festival, where he had an exhibition.
That’s where I discovered his impressive set
of combat pictures. Photojournalism is
most certainly a small world: After all that
time, so far from Troy, Ohio, these three
photographers find their paths crossing
again and again, and they have continued
to support each other.
I have yet to visit Troy. I now live in Paris,
and chances are I may never see the town
that launched the careers of Chris, Spencer,
and Tyler. But I know this: It is a place, like
every other place, where life is lived, where
tragedies and triumphs follow one another.
It is the perfect place to learn about the pos-
sibilities of photojournalism.
When I asked Spencer about Troy, he
e-mailed back this description of his life there:
“I had never viewed a dead body before. I
had just started working at the paper, and
the morning ritual consisted of drinking
coffee and listening to the police radio. With
a crackle and a long series of beeps the radio
came alive. A call came in about a car acci-
dent outside of town along some farm roads.
We quickly consulted a map and made a
dash for the car. It was summer, and the heat
was shimmering along the black tarmac of
the endless straight roads. Driving fast, we
came up to a lone fire truck idling along the
side of the road. In the middle of a freshly
cut meadow was an old red American car,
the kind that teenagers buy after years of
mowing lawns. Next to the car was the body
of a young man. No sheet had been placed
on him and no one was attempting to
resuscitate him. A woman arrived who I pre-
sumed to be his mother, and she became
hysterical. We took some pictures and headed
back to the paper in silence. In my years
since leaving the Troy Daily News, I have
worked at a series of newspapers and trav-
eled the world covering wars and disasters. I
have seen people shot and people dying and
people dead. But the one person I will
never forget is that young man spread out in
the field under a beautiful blue sky. It was
my first introduction to the news.” N

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CREATION AND CONSEQUENCE

(continued from page 58) as artistic at a time when photography was still new— From the mid-1850s on, several major
creations justifying protection by copyright. even as it became clear that the medium philosophical and cultural issues focusing on
Recognition of their rights has developed would drastically change artistic traditions and photography were dealt with in courts of law.
gradually in Europe and the United States as a the consumption of imagery. With its unrivaled Judges found it difficult to relate photography
result of jurisprudence established after a ability to reproduce reality and the produc- to a legal framework since two distinct areas
wide-ranging debate on the status of the pho- tion of multiple prints, photography raised a were involved in the process—that of the
tographic image. This process was not easy series of questions that were completely new. law and that of ethics. Considering photog-
raphy from the point of view of the law or of
ethics illustrates its extraordinary ability to
represent reality and to create meaning, or
meanings. A photograph is interpreted accord-
ing to the cultural conventions associated
with its creation or distribution. Reading an
image in this way is something each individual
does in accordance with his personal moral
or philosophical convictions. It is also what
Holds up society as a whole does by referring to the
to a 17” laws and ethics that form the foundations of
screen a particular culture. The conventions of rep-
laptop. resentation change at the same time as the
techniques used for the creation or the distri-
bution of photographs. They also change by
following the evolution of attitudes and ways
Top Compartment for of thought in a particular society.
personal stuff A review of the main cases that have seen
photographers taken to court or that have
led to the censuring of images and their pro-
hibition reveals that the issues involved are
associated with money, politics, morality (both
Adventure 9 lay and religious), sexuality, or the acknowl-
model 5549 edgement of the artistic status of the author.
Photo/Computer
Backpack A t the end of the 1960s, Guy Debord,
the French thinker and founder of the
Marxist Situationist International group,
published The Society of the Spectacle. In
Adventure 9 model 5549
this book, he develops a critical analysis of
Photo/Computer Backpack how social relationships are increasingly
determined by the images that have become
the main means through which individuals
relate to the world. He also denounces the
cult of commerce in consumer society. Bill
They’re the ideal camera Gates, the owner of Corbis, echoed this
bags that don’t look like analysis when he stated, “Whoever controls
camera bags. On top are images, controls minds.” The political power
large compartments for of images influences our understanding of
all of your personal reality, providing a single and often uncriti-
stuff. Hidden below cal point of view on what occurs in the
are fully foam-padded world. This phenomenon, which generates
camera bags with plenty feelings of guilt and repression, contributes
of room for your photo to an acculturation of our perception of real-
gear. They’re the ity. The danger involved is that of visual con-
perfect companions Adventure 7
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P O R T F O L I O
PORT FOL IO S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2009

CONTROVERSIES
Photographs have always had the power to cause
trouble. More than books, more than painting, photo-
graphic images create a visceral response in viewers.
Over the years, that has led to censorship by gov-
ernments, legal battles in courts, and struggles to
establish codes of proper behavior by imagemakers.
A brilliant exhibition at the Musée de l’Elysée in
Switzerland earlier this year, and a related new book
available only in French, explore the various contro-
IMAGES THAT
versies associated with photographs, and, on the
following pages, we present a glimpse at the issues
HAVE DEFINED THE
the show raised. They are worth understanding
because photography remains
a powerful, and
troublesome,
ET HICS OF tions. These collections bring together millions Why are certain images appreciated, or
medium.

PHOTOGRAPHY of images that are controlled through the use even venerated, while others are censored?
of reproduction rights. For several years now, Why are some freely distributed in certain
museums and institutions all over the world circumstances but prohibited in others?
have tended to transform the photographs in The photographs in this portfolio illustrate
their possession into commercial assets, many of the ethical and legal questions
thereby seriously affecting the laws and ethical peculiar to the medium. The exhibition and
principles that govern public policy. Most book they are drawn from are the result of
museums demand payment for access to many years of research, but neither is
images in their collections even when these exclusively concerned with legal or ethical
pictures are not protected by copyright. This issues. Above all, the aim has been to show
American Photo Mag.com 57 practice has become widespread institutional how a given society relates to images of
policy. It is true that museums face heavy itself at a particular historical moment. This
financial burdens for the scanning and storage is an attempt to grasp how these represen-
of their collections and that they suffer from tations have been perceived and the inter-
and 20th-century work have become financial the reduction of support from state and local pretations they have been given. The
and historical treasure troves involving origi- authorities. However, the high prices examples that have been chosen give a clear
nal prints bought by museums and private involved have become an obstacle for scien- understanding of the principles underlying
collectors that are part of a thriving market. tific and cultural publications. They make photographic practice in a wide variety of
Inevitably, accusations of forgery have arisen. research difficult and have a direct influence fields, from the middle of the 19th-century
It also involves archives and documentary on the cost of both books and access to to the present day.
collections that are often in the hands of com- culture. Surprisingly, prices are often higher
panies like Corbis and Getty, or of a variety for a photograph that is not protected Daniel Girardin is a curator at the Musée
of public and private museums and institu- by copyright than for contemporary work. de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Learn photography inside and out.

and
and

Inspired. By Canon.

©2009 Canon U.S.A., Inc. Canon is a registered trademark of Canon Inc. in the United States. IMAGEANYWARE is a trademark of Canon. All rights reserved. ©2009 Damian Donach
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SUNGSOO KOO/COURTESY MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON


IDENTITY, FASHION,
HISTORY, AND
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC
MEDIUM

Fresh Photography Girls Just Wanna Have Fun


Keep abreast of the contemporary From October 10 to January 3,
art photography scene during the Art Institute of Chicago will
the New York Museum of Modern display Playing with Pictures,
Art’s thoughtfully curated New a collection of unusual photo
Photography 2009. From Sep- collages crafted by Victorian

CARTER MULL/COURTESY MUSEUM OF MODERN ART


tember 16 to January 10, the aristocratic women. Combining
exhibit will present recent signifi- watercolor paintings, photo-
cant work from six artists (includ- graphic portraits, and fantastical
ing Leslie Hewitt and Daniel imagery, the collages are an early
Gordon) with distinct aesthetic example of the traditionally
views on the state of photography serious medium being repurposed
and its technologies. for personal whims.

Photography A La Mode National Character


Ending the International Center During Chaotic Harmony: Con-
of Photography’s “Year of temporary Korean Photography,
Fashion” is the exhibition Dress the Museum of Fine Arts Hous-
Codes, a global survey of ton presents photos from 40
photography exploring the con- artists that embody the evolving
ventions of style and personal South Korean identity. The
presentation. From haute photographers (all of whom were
couture to everyday dress, the born after the Korean War) aptly
collection offers a comprehen- depict the complex social and
sive examination of our cultural developments that have
sartorial choices. Beginning occurred in the past 45 years,
September 18 until January 17. while also offering a captivating
look at the country’s future. Begin-
Documenting History ning October 18 to January 3.
The legends of the Wild West
FRANCES ELIZABETH AND VISCOUNTESS JOCELYN

JOHN WOOD/COURTESY NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY


will come alive on September As Time Goes By
25 (until January 24) during the Visitors to the National Gallery
Washington, D.C. National of Art in Washington, D.C. will
Portrait Gallery’s Frontier receive a thorough education on
Encounters. Both photography photo history during In the Dark-
and history buffs should take note, room: Photographic Processes.
as the exhibition will display From October 25 until March 14,
snapshots of the major historical the museum will exhibit an up-
figures (including Annie Oakley, close look at (and explanation of)
Brigham Young, and Geronimo) every major technology in image
that influenced the development making, from photogravures
of the western territories. to the recently extinct Polaroid.

From top: Sungsoo Koo’s “Tour Bus,” at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston;
Carter Mull’s “Eleven,” at the MOMA; a photo collage at the Art Institute of Chi-
cago; and John Wood’s portrait of Annie Oakley, at the National Portrait Gallery.

American Photo Mag.com 93

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Irving Penn’s
“Steel Mill
Firefighter,
New York,”
taken in 1951

SEE IT NOW O n September 9 (until Janu-


ary 10) the Los Angeles
Getty Center will unveil for the
accoutrements was originally part
of an assignment for Vogue in
the 1950s. The Getty’s collection

EXHIBITION first time its collection of more


than 250 prints from Irving Penn’s
series, Small Trades. The set of
of photos (which were hand-
picked by Penn himself) treat
even the most mundane jobs with
OF THE MONTH theatrical portraits of common
tradesmen with their career
honor and reverence. For
more exhibitions, see page 93.

94 American Photo Mag.com

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© Eastman Kodak Company, 2008. Kodak, Kodak Professional and Ektar are trademarks of Eastman Kodak Company. Photography: ©Damaso Reyes 2008.

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