Obama Photo Mystery Solved! by James Danziger January 19, 2009
After months of searching, I identified the photographer behind the picture that became the campaign’s most enduring image. Even he didn’t know he had taken it.
I believe that last week I solved the biggest photographic mystery of the 2008 election: I found the photographer who took the photo that was the source for Shepard Fairey’s iconic Obama HOPE prints.
My search began last fall, when I recognized that Fairey’s prints were becoming the definitive visual of the campaign, and I began asking everyone from Amanda Fairey, the artist’s wife, to Holly Hughes, the editor of Photo District News, if they knew who took the original photo. No one could seem to pin it down. Shepard Fairey was on record as saying it came from a Google Image search, but couldn’t (or wouldn’t) track it back to the source.
[…]
I immediately contacted Time.com picture editor Mark Rykoff, who was extremely helpful in trying to find the correct attribution. After investigating, he called me back and told me I was correct—the credit was indeed wrong. He fixed it, and pointed me toward who he now believed was the correct source, a Reuters photographer named Jim Young.
A call to Reuters left their Washington desk reeling, but they put me in touch with their Media Pictures person in New York, a woman named Nancy Glowinski, who was cool, calm and collected. She did some checking, and confirmed that Jim Young had indeed snapped the photo in question.
As soon as Time.com changed the photo credit and word got out, Young’s name swirled through the blogosphere. Tom Gralish, a photographer for the Philadelphia Inquirer who had also spent months trying to track down the photographer behind the HOPE poster, was the first to blog about it. Reuters was initially—and understandably—put out that they hadn’t been credited as the original source of what turned out to be the presidential campaign’s most enduring visual image, but no laws had been broken.
Like it or not, Fairey's use of the picture is well within the parameters of what’s considered "fair use."
[…]
James Danziger was the Director of Photography at the London Sunday Times Magazine, Features Editor of Vanity Fair, and Director of Magnum New York. He runs the gallery Danziger Projects in New York and blogs at The Year in Pictures.
Read the entire article here: URL: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-19/who-took-the-presidential-campaigns-most-famous-photo/p/
It is quite a fascinating saga. And be sure to read the comments. Many of them are relatively intelligent – for a change… At least they were the other day when I first found this article…
20090119 Obama Photo Mystery Solved by James Danziger
After months of searching, I identified the photographer behind the picture that became the campaign’s most enduring image. Even he didn’t know he had taken it.
I believe that last week I solved the biggest photographic mystery of the 2008 election: I found the photographer who took the photo that was the source for Shepard Fairey’s iconic Obama HOPE prints.
My search began last fall, when I recognized that Fairey’s prints were becoming the definitive visual of the campaign, and I began asking everyone from Amanda Fairey, the artist’s wife, to Holly Hughes, the editor of Photo District News, if they knew who took the original photo. No one could seem to pin it down. Shepard Fairey was on record as saying it came from a Google Image search, but couldn’t (or wouldn’t) track it back to the source.
[…]
I immediately contacted Time.com picture editor Mark Rykoff, who was extremely helpful in trying to find the correct attribution. After investigating, he called me back and told me I was correct—the credit was indeed wrong. He fixed it, and pointed me toward who he now believed was the correct source, a Reuters photographer named Jim Young.
A call to Reuters left their Washington desk reeling, but they put me in touch with their Media Pictures person in New York, a woman named Nancy Glowinski, who was cool, calm and collected. She did some checking, and confirmed that Jim Young had indeed snapped the photo in question.
As soon as Time.com changed the photo credit and word got out, Young’s name swirled through the blogosphere. Tom Gralish, a photographer for the Philadelphia Inquirer who had also spent months trying to track down the photographer behind the HOPE poster, was the first to blog about it. Reuters was initially—and understandably—put out that they hadn’t been credited as the original source of what turned out to be the presidential campaign’s most enduring visual image, but no laws had been broken.
Like it or not, Fairey's use of the picture is well within the parameters of what’s considered "fair use."
[…]
James Danziger was the Director of Photography at the London Sunday Times Magazine, Features Editor of Vanity Fair, and Director of Magnum New York. He runs the gallery Danziger Projects in New York and blogs at The Year in Pictures.
Read the entire article here: URL: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-19/who-took-the-presidential-campaigns-most-famous-photo/p/
It is quite a fascinating saga. And be sure to read the comments. Many of them are relatively intelligent – for a change… At least they were the other day when I first found this article…
20090119 Obama Photo Mystery Solved by James Danziger
Kevin Dayhoff www.kevindayhoff.net http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/
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