snapped shot - Historic Photojournalism

Holocaust Hero Dies At 98

nospam@example.com (DMartyr) — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:07:26 -0500

Irena Sendler, who saved thousand of children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, dies at age 98.

Irena Sendler, aged 98, the saviour of some 2500 Jewish children during the WWII, died in a Warsaw hospital on Monday morning. She was awarded numerous honors in recognition of her activities and was one of the nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

R.I.P.

A Farewell to a True Friend

nospam@example.com (Brian C. Ledbetter) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:23:44 -0600

I don't know much behind this, but a photograph of World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle immediately following his death in Okinawa has been released over the past weekend. BLACKFIVE has the detailed background, in the event that you're interested in learning more about this fascinating and truly patriotic man.

May God bless you, Mr. Pyle.

What's In a Portrait?

nospam@example.com (Brian C. Ledbetter) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:06:30 -0600

Mocking Mao—Michelle asks, Snapped Shot gladly answers. And so should you!

You know all of those inspirational portraits of Chairman Mao Zedong (the ~~brutal dictator~~ loving patron of China) that everyone knows him for? You know, the one you see all over the communist world, Berkeley, and your local outpost of academia? (Though I do repeat myself.)

Yeah, who would've guessed that a murderous, totalitarian thug such as Chairman Mao would've had all of those glowing portraits faked:

Genuine as a $3 Bill. Or better yet, a 10 yuan Mao!
The man responsible for our image of Mao Zedong never actually took a photo of the founder of the People's Republic of China. He worked in the dark room, where he retouched the State leader's photos to create the iconic images we are familiar with today.

Chen Shilin is not as famous as those photographers who took the shots, but his influence remains, from the portrait of Mao hanging in Tian'anmen Square, to his image on 100-yuan bills.

"I can tell you one thing I never told anyone else before," the 78-year-old Chen says in his three-room apartment in Beijing. "You know the poster of Chairman Mao in a white shirt standing in a field of wheat, with a straw hat? There was someone else in the original photo.

"It was Liu Shaoqi (then vice-president of China). I removed Liu's image and drew some wheat plants in his place so the picture could be made into millions of posters. Before this, the photo had been dumped among the discarded files."

The photo was taken in 1957 and was heavily used for propaganda purposes during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

What is it about megalomaniacal dictators that is so endearing to the Left, anyway? From where I'm sitting, it seems that every tinpot dictator that has an extra $50 to spend on a good airbrushing job is worshipped as deity in the pantheon of global Socialism—and while the men behind the regimes are always quite detrimental to the wellbeing of just about everyone around them, there is still no degree of acknowledgement from the vast plebocracy (if I may invent a term to suit my needs) of the Left as to how ruthless these dictators were.

Then again, when your entire idea of the world is that "Something" needs to be "changed" (generally defined as taking something away from "the rich," and giving it to "the deserving"—who then blow what was given to them on $50 strip shows, thus proving once again their complete inability to accumulate "wealth," that being the accepted definition of being "rich," after all), I guess it is easy enough to believe any stupid old thing.

Now if only I could place exactly where I've seen stuff like this before...

(Almost forgot: h/t Jack Russell, who likes to cram his name all together for some reason.)

Update: How could I have forgotten my own friend Ian's contribution to this topic?

One would call this quite prescient, if it weren't for the fact that Queen Hillary was self-destructing right now.

A Chilling Photograph

nospam@example.com (Brian C. Ledbetter) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 11:47:57 -0500

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article today (h/t Digg) about a Pulitzer-winning photograph from the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Taken seven months after Islamic radicals overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah, the photo remains one of the most famous images of Iran. It is an icon of government terror, invoked in critiques of the regime from the 1979 poem "Screaming," to the 1986 music video "Speak To Me From My Land, Iran" to the 1997 book "Kurdistan." Davood and Davar Ghassemlouie, brothers who operate a photo shop in Los Angeles, say they have made tens of thousands of reprints for demonstrators, including 200 in late September when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the U.S.

Be sure to read the whole story—it's quite fascinating!

Nice Signage

nospam@example.com (Brian C. Ledbetter) — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 23:59:21 -0600

I used to say that I love Libya for one reason aloneâ"Big Mo" Khadafi. Err, make that al-Gathafi. Now, I have another reason to love itâpoorly proofed protest signs custom-made for Western photographers. Case in point:

Words of the ages, indeed:
"Injecting Our Children By Aids Virus
Is A Major Mass Murder And Human."

(AP Photo/File/Yousef Al-Ageli, 27 May 2005)

Of course, it's not a new photo, but I'm betting that you haven't seen it before, either!