Iconic Photos

The above famous photoportrait of Abraham Lincoln has his head placed upon the photo of another politician, John C. Calhoun. The trickery is attributed to Thomas Hicks – a portrait painter from that era who had painted Lincoln before — who was thought to have created this composite in the early to mid-1860s. Many historians believed that the photo was created after Lincoln’s assassination because there were hardly any heroic, Presidential looking portraits of Lincoln at that time. Calhoun’s image is a wood cut while the image of Lincoln is detailed, because it was taken from Mathew Brady’s portrait of Abraham Lincoln, the same one later used for $5 bills.

In his haste, Hicks didn’t noticed that when he flipped the Brady photo, the President’s famous mole would appear on the wrong side of his face. It was only years later that Stefan Lorant, the art director for the London Picture Post magazine, noticed that the photo was a fake.

The irony was that John C. Calhoun, a former vice president of the Untied States, was a vocal figure on states rights, and an inspiration for the Southern secessionists, even though he died a decade before the Civil War. Calhoun was an outspoken proponent of slavery and talked about it as a “positive good”.

Queen Liliuokalani was a 19-year-old Boeing 737-297 serving Hilo and Honolulu in Hawaii. On April 28, 1988, some twenty minutes after take off from Hilo, part of its roof ruptured at the altitude of 24,000 feet (7,300 m). The age of the plane, corroded fuselage and stressed rivets led to the entire fuselage being ripped off in what is known as a zipper effect.

At the time of the decompression, the plane’s chief flight attendant was collecting cups from passengers, and she was sucked through a hole in the side of the airplane. Other flight attendants and 65 (out of 90) passengers were injured, but she was the only fatality. The plane performed an emergency landing on Maui.

After the accident, the Congress passed the Aviation Safety Research Act of 1988, which pursued research into probable causes of future airplane disasters. (Their investigation also found that a passenger did notice a crack in the fuselage upon boarding but did not tell anyone.) Two years later, the FAA began the National Aging Aircraft Research Program in 1991, which tightened inspection and maintenance requirements for high-use and high-cycle aircraft. The Discovery Channel called the flight one of the Moments That Changed Flying; indeed, since this accident, there has been only one American fatigue-related jet accident.

Photo by Robert Nichols/Black Star

It was a little over a year ago that I started this blog — so this is an anniversary of sorts. I thought to myself at that time, “Golly, I don’t think I can find more than 30 iconic photos.” That prediction proved to be half-right, half-wrong. The blog had been a great learning opportunity for me (and a great ploy to take many of my dates to photogalleries). Iconicity is in the eye of the beholder, but I am fairly certain that I covered a good cross-section of society and history since photography’s inception. I agree that not all of the above photographs are iconic, but to me they represented and preserved the eras and cultures, some transient, some everlasting.

I leafed through my notebook and to my amazement and consternation, I found I still have like 100 photos I would love to cover. True, some of those are too risque, some not available in electronic form (yes, I am usually too lazy to move 2 feet extra to scan my books), and some not ready accessible even in print form. Some would just bring lawsuits to me. But my goal so far has been to put together a meagre online archive so that a student of historical photography don’t have to scavenge all over the internet for one photo he vaguely recalls from his childhood or something like that, and in that, (I think) I succeeded.

Thanks for all the support. I probably won’t make it to the 1000th post, but it is always worth trying….

(Strictly speaking, this is 602nd post, but since I posted two site announcements before, the dubious honor of the 600th post goes to the photo that would come directly after this one. Any suggestions?)

Yesterday’s announcement of the cancellation of the James Bond franchise by MGM was extremely disheartening for many. MGM now has $3.7 billion in debt, and its lenders are now impatient after years of delays in repayments. They are pushing for a sale or a thorough restructuring. Many websites and newspapers have already started highlighting highs and lows of one of the motion picture industry’s longest-living and most influential studios. I thought I might do it too. Above is the recording of MGM’s lion in 1929. Since its inception as the mascot of the Goldwyn pictures, five lions have graced the beginnings of every MGM movie and the above is the 1929 photo and recording session for its second lion, Jackie.

Neatorama has a nice feature on the movie studios’ logos including MGM’s.

(Clockwise from left to right: Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of European Commission; German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, American President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown).

Minutes before this picture was taken, Obama was meeting with China, India, South Africa and Brazil, when the main elements of his accord were stamped out in a humiliating slap in face for US and Europe. The above meeting during the final hours of the Copenhagen Summit on 18th December 2009 was not behind the closed doors. As the Daily Mail mused, Gordon Brown served the appointed note-taker for the group, scribbling away furiously, seemingly struggling to keep up with Merkel. Nick Clegg pointed out the above photo in this evening’s debate, saying Brown sat on the sidelines at Copenhagen. He is only partly right: Europe and Brown were pushed out to the side by Obama and China. But I thought I might begin with that photo before seguing into a political rant on an issue (I think) I am qualified for:

I agree with Clegg (and to lesser extent Cameron) on renewable portfolio standards. I was privileged to have been part of three commissions that complied the cost-benefits analyses of nuclear and wind power. As Clegg said, nuclear just doesn’t pay off, and government subsidies are just wasteful. Europe is trying to build third generation plus reactors in trial-and-error method, which is even less cost efficient. (In Finland, their reactor’s concrete shell had to be torn down after it didn’t meet standards and the reactors is already 37 months behind schedule 45 months into building).

Don’t let scientists and politicians fool you by saying nuclear costs comparatively the same as wind and solar. It is true ONLY if the construction finishes ontime (the industry has the history of 250% delays and bond defaults), and if all special material costs remain uninflated (which they don’t) throughout the construction. In addition, there is no waste fuel processing facility in planning, and nuclear plants have security precautions that force them to stop operating in hot days (24 C and above). They are harder to get back on the grid once shut down, and need entire restructuring of the electricity grid because their output doesn’t vary (though demand does). The world produces only a third of nuclear scientists needed every year and with big plans in China, the gap will become even greater. Yes, we can overcome all of this but it will make nuclear far more costlier than say a national initiative for carbon use efficiency, which I totally support.

On windpower, onshore windpower is be a political disaster–Natural Parks and marginal constituencies won’t wear it. Noise. Vast expenses of land wasted. Agricultural aircrafts redirected. High transmission costs (from Norther Scotland, where current onshore windplants are). It too need restructuring the grid to account for intermittency of wind. Offshore wind (the proposed London array) near quickly-developing Southeast is looking good, but all three parties have their own reservations and supporters for the project (foreign investments, diversion of resources from marginals in the North) and it is going very slowly if at all.

Please don’t comment on this post with “climate change is a hoax” comments. What I am advocating for is a change towards responsible living (insulation, solar panels on roof, less carbon footprint, cheaper bills, energy diversification, technological investment) which I believe is a good thing to adhere to with or without climate change.

… and I saw this when I was in Copenhagen for the conference and thought it was witty.

On April 12, 1951, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was chatting with two French generals and a handful of press representatives on a hilltop near Coblenz, Germany when a reporter informed him that President Truman had fired General Douglas MacArthur, who was fighting the Korean War in the Far East. Associated Press correspondent Dick O’Malley: “General, have you heard the news about Gen. MacArthur?” . Eisenhower: “No, what happened? M: “He’s been relieved of his Far East command by President Truman and replaced by General Ridgeway.” Eisenhower turned away and said, “I’ll be darned.”

The moment was captured by American military magazine, Star and Stripes’ Francis “Red” Grandy, who was anticipating a similar kind of reaction. Although his editors were worried that the photo might offend the general, it ran on Page 1, two columns wide two days later. The photo was picked up by several major news services and published in newspapers across the U.S. It later won many prizes and reappeared not only in the Encyclopedia Britannica, but also in a volume of the best news pictures of a quarter-century published in Life magazine and on Eisenhower’s own obituary.

In fact, Ike served as MacArthur’s aide for grueling nine years during the 30s in Washington and the Philippines. He disliked MacArthur for his vanity, his theatrics, and for what Eisenhower perceived as “irrational” behavior, which culminated in their falling out over the Bonus Army March. MacArthur, who finished top in his class at West Point looked down at Ike, who finished at the bottom and detested resources being diverted from the Pacific theater to Europe under Ike.

In 1926, a Baltimore judge invoked an ancient punishment rarely enforced to sentence James H. Kingsmore to five lashes with a cat-o’-nine-tails for wife-beating. It was conducted in the main corridor of the City Jail and became both a public spectacle and a media circus. The next day a grisly picture of Kingsmore, tied spread-eageled with the cat-o’-nine-tails lying beside his bare back, appeared in The Baltimore Sun.

The judge was furious. In 1931, the same judge, Eugene O’Dunne, sent another wife-beater Charles Lamley to the whipping post but banned the newspapers to take pictures. But Joseph Costa of the New York Daily News, sneaked a camera into the jail and shocked readers with his above sneaked picture of Lamley being whipped.

Member of the New York Morning World, The Daily News and King Features Syndicate, Costa later become the first president of the National Press Photographers Association and edited its official magazine for 20 years. His career spanned 60 years and he taught photojournalism at universities. The NPPA’s Joseph Costa Award and its Joseph Costa Award for Courtroom Photography are named in his honor.

King George VI died on the night of February 6, 1952. The funeral took place on a dreary winter day — an even grimmer occasion than the average royal funeral. Photographer Ron Case (of Keystone Press Agency), who was with a group of other press photographers outside St George’s Chapel, Windsor, had only RAF aerial reconnaissance camera. With that old wartime equipment he took the photo of Princess Elizabeth (the new Queen); Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) (l. to r.) making their way slowly into the chapel where the king’s body lay in state.

The picture, which came to be known as the ‘Three Queens in mourning’, is a truly haunting image. All three grieving queens, representing three changing generations, were clearly seen through their veils. Although other photos of three queens altogether exist, they were nearly all official portraits, and Case’s informal photo revealed the rarely seen aspect of the modern royalty: trained from birth to repress their emotions, they were still capable of humane emotions. The next day, the photo also made the front pages of every single national paper, and subsequently become one of the most widely distributed British photographs of the 20th century.

Ron Case, however, didn’t make a single pence from his photo–the rights belonged to Ron’s employer, the Pinkerton Press Agency.

Werner Bischof began his career as an abstract still-life photographer, but covered humanitarian photojournalism for the new cultural magazine “Du” in 1942. His photos on the aftermath of the Second World War received international acclaim. In 1947, Du devoted an entire issue to his pictures of European refugees, many of them children. Although he detested “superficiality and sensationalism” in magazine business, he covered many aid and humanitarian relief efforts for them.

In 1951 Bischof travelled to India on the first leg of a tour through Asia and the Far East. There he photographed a young temple dancer for Magnum, and covered on famine in Bihar for Life magazine. Stunned by the bitter poverty of the Indian people, he captured striking images without exploiting or sensationalizing his subjects. He wrote in his diary: “On Monday I start working on the famine story — not an easy task because the government doesn’t like having this documented. In the long run I don’t think anyone can overlook these images of hunger, that people can ignore all my pictures — no, definitely not. And even if only a vague impression remains, in time this will create a basis that will help people distinguish between what is good and what is objectionable.”

The most famous image was a worm’s-eye view photo of a begging mother with a child in her arms, that cast her as a modern day Madonna. The work both prompted a letter of congratulations from Edward Steichen, then curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York,  who assured him that his photos will force the politicians to act. His Bihar work is cited as influencing the Congress’s decision to make a large appropriation of surplus wheat to alleviate the situation. It sent 136 million tons of wheat and a 190 million dollar loan.

Bischof went on to work in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Indochina. Bischof died in a road accident in the Andes on 16 May 1954, only nine days before Magnum founder Robert Capa lost his life in Indochina – a terrible double blow for the agency and for photojournalism. Bischof was 38.

The world’s first combat photographs were taken during the American-Mexican War of 1846-1847 by an anonymous photographer. The world’s first known combat photographer was Romanian Carl Baptiste de Szathmary (1812-1887), who took his camera to the Crimea a year before more famous Roger Fenton arrived two years later. In 1853, he was documenting the conflict between Russia and Turkey over Wallachia and other Rumanian territories which would eventually devolve into the Crimean War.

Although the Turks once assailed his wagon, thinking he was a Russian spy, he managed to photograph various troops, both Turkish and Russian, and their commanding officers. When the Turks occupied Bucharest, he managed to get a photosession with their commander Omar Pasha (although Fenton’s photo of Omar Pasha would later become more famous).

He exhibited these 200+ photos at the Paris Exposition in 1855 and presented them to the royals of Europe. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert met him, saw his photos and later dispatched Roger Fenton to Crimea). No copies of his albums survived, and his work lives on only in a handful of photos scattered here and there. See the list here. Like Fenton’s, his own career as photographer was short. Trained as a painter, he later became the official painter of the Romanian rulers. After 1860, although highly celebrated and decorated by the European courts from Moscow to Württemberg, he produced only chromolithographs. In 1866, he was made the Photographer to the Court of Romania, and as one he quietly passed away, his glory days well past.

Every young girl dreams of marrying a prince and on July 29th 1981, one shy 20-year old from an aristocratic but dysfunctional family was given a chance to prove this dream was unsustainable. When Lady Diana Spencer wed Charles, Prince of Wales in the Westminster Abbey, 100 million people tuned in for the ceremony dubbed by the media as ‘a fairy-tale wedding’.

During the ceremony, Diana fumbled her husband’s name and refused to say the word “obey,” in what was perhaps a harbinger for the ensuring marriage that could only be described as awkward. Charles forgot to kiss Diana after the vows, and when they returned to the Buckingham Palace, the royal couple emerged on the balcony to give the crowds the kiss they had been longing to see (before disappearing for the official wedding photos session by Lord Snowden, royal breakfast and honeymoon). As the Guardian later reflected, “Diana’s strangely awkward wedding kiss, with a seemingly ill-at-ease Charles, turned out to be more telling of their future relationship than the smile and excitement of Diana the blushing bride.” Neither the history’s most impulsive nor its most passionate kiss, the photo was to become the iconic image of the day.

Before he chose Diana, Charles had been rejected by three women (Lady Jane Wellesley, Amanda Knatchbull and Anna Wallace), while he remained devoted to an married woman (Camilla Parker-Bowles). Both Charles and Diana found it hard to abandon their pre-conjugal lifestyles: for Charles, it was adventurous sportsmanship, and for Diana, it was the carefree spirit of her teen years.

The birth of two children didn’t mellow the couple; a series of domestic and international embarrassments (a tell-tale book, “Squidgy”, Taj Mahal incident, the spurned polo kiss) were only to be coupled by their respective adulteries. Finally in 1992 came much-speculated separation. The rest, as they say, was history.

Albert Einstein died 55 years ago today, on April 18, 1955. For all celebrity he received during his life, his funeral and cremation were intensely private affairs, and only one photographer was there: Life magazine’s Ralph Morse. However, Einstein’s family requested that its privacy be respected, Life never published the pictures, aside from the famous photo above of Einstein’s empty office.

Morse remembers: “I grabbed my cameras and drove the ninety miles to Princeton. Einstein died at the Princeton Hospital, so I headed there first. But it was chaos — so many journalists, photographers, onlookers milling around outside what, back then, was a really small hospital. ‘Forget this,’ I said, and headed over to the building where Einstein’s office was. On the way there, I stopped and bought a case of scotch. I knew people might be reluctant to talk to me, and I knew that most people were happy to accept a bottle of scotch instead of money if you offered it in exchange for their help. So, I get to the building and nobody’s there. I find the superintendent, give him a fifth of scotch, and he opens up Einstein’s office so I can take some photos.”

For 55 years Morse’s photographs lay unseen and forgotten until they were published this morning online.