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The Migrant Mother, Benetton Aids Advert, Execution of a Viet Cong Guerrilla 1968


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<p>Hi, I am writing a a dissertation concerning the photographs listed and wanted your opinions on these, the chapters will be<br>

1, Execution of a Viet Cong Guerrilla 1968: Journalistic<br>

2, Benetton Aids Advert: Advertising<br>

2, The Migrant Mother: Social History<br>

Any help would be appreciated, feelings concerning these photographs whether they should have been published and did they help the cause. This forum has been very helpful concerning my dissertation and now that I have become more focused. more help would be appreciated. Thanks</p>

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<p>While I THINK I know which photos you are referring to, can I be certain that you and I are referring to the same images? More importantly, can YOU be certain, that we are talking about the same image? You should have provided links to the specific images that you are referring too.</p>

<p>Not to be 'too' snarky, but the assumption that I can read your mind indicates to me a high possibility of a poorly written dissertation and poor marks.</p>

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<p>The images I am relating to are the iconic images. I want responses to them and if you may refer to another image that may fall into this category please upload it and let me know why you refer to that image that makes you respond to the title. This may make the dissertation more interesting, thank you for your input.</p>
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<p>Susan, please include links to the exact images you mean to avoid any confusion, as it will also help keeping the discussions a bit on track, if we all talk about the same actual photo. I think a discussion on the photos could yield more insights than a series of individual reactions to different photos.<br>

Either way, I don't think anyone here can actually seriously say any of these photos helped "the cause" based on personal perceptions. The population of this forum is too small to derive a seriously meaningful statement. Nor is the average poster here equal to the average public: we are all much more photographically aware and hence react differently to images.<br>

Not trying to discourage you, but you should be realistic about what you are measuring with us here.</p>

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<p>Photos like these are the subject of thousands of term papers and endless online conversations that are all completely Google-able. If you're honestly expecting previously un-heard-of insights from people as you ask them to help you with your homework, you need to ask more insightful <em>questions</em> about the three images you mention and the ways they were made and used. You're asking the same questions that <em>everyone</em> asks about them, and not asking anything fresh. So why look for fresh thoughts?<br /><br />While there are some very informed and insightful people on this forum, you're not showing them anything on <em>your</em> part that would inspire them to do anything beyond recommending that you simply Google the jillions of generic answers that already address your very generic questions. <br /><br />For example: "help the cause." What does that mean? Whose cause? What cause, in your mind, was "The Migrant Mother" specifically trying to help? Your question presumes that the answer to <em>that</em> question is so obvious that everyone reading your post should know it, context and all. I'm no dummy, and I couldn't tell you what <em>specific</em> outcome or action the photographer had in mind when recording her subjects during that period.<br /><br />Did she advocate a particular policy agenda? Was she looking to support certain political actions or priorities in a particular, practical direction? Was she looking at individual plights, or thinking in terms of macro-economics, taxes, charity, or legislative matters? I get no hint from you that you're thinking in those terms, and wonder if you're hoping other people will do that thinking for you as you ask them to address whether or not the photograph "helped the cause." Which is lazy.<br /><br />Yes, I'm scolding you for not taking a few minutes to frame the question more interestingly, and agree with Glen and Wouter that it's bad form not to link to "the iconic images." This is a community. Not everyone who stumbles across this thread will necessarily know each of the images to which you refer, and it's good form to provide links, as part of your contribution to what goes on here.<br /><br />You joined this site in August of this year, and this is only the second time you've posted. The first time you posted, your question also began with, "I am writing a dissertation..." - but otherwise, you're not participating at all. Your first and only other thread ended with fellow PN members asking <em>you</em> some quick and simple follow-up questions, and you never bothered to answer them.</p>
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<p>If you are asking about the Susan Sontag question, I did answer it. I have researched the photographs i wanted to ask the question without directing someone on what their opinions may be. I am sorry I have upset you all but was just asking for some personal insight into these photographs. Some people may know these images others may not, I am sure there are a lot of iconic images I don't know about but I would google the image and would respond, I certainly would not lecture some one on their question. Thank you for your response.</p>
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<p>Susan, I'm referring to the nine comments/question that<em> follow your last comment </em>in <strong><a href="00ZEYn?start=0">this thread</a></strong>. These are contributions from members in the days after you stopped visiting the thread you started. You can click the "notify me of responses" link at the bottom of any thread, if you're worried you'll forget to follow up on converstations you start.<br /><br />You're mistaking "upset" with "trying to make this forum generally, and this thread in particular, more useful to PN's thousands of members and visitors." You seem to see this site and its members as a resource to be used, rather than one to which you would contribute. When asking other people to do things for you, it does seem odd to tell them to go research the material you're asking about, instead of you pasting in some well chosen links.<br /><br />Surely you already have dozens of web pages related to your dissertation already bookmarked and only a mouse-click away? You won't skew people's opinions (do you really want opinions that are so easily changed?) by linking to an image, though you might muddle things considerably by making them Google on terms like "Benetton" and "AIDS" and guess what you're referring to as they spend their time trying to help you with school work. </p>
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<p>Thankyou, It all seemed to get heated,you are right I forgot to go back to the site and I did forget to click "notify me of response". When I did not get emails I assumed that no one else responded. The problem with the internet you cannot see what is going on in someones life. I apologise for not getting back to the forum.<br>

All I wanted was opinions from people concerning these images, Their own personal response.<br>

Thank you for your response and for putting things in to perspective.</p>

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<p>Susan, as a courtsey towards people willing to help you out, please post links to the images. Maybe it's just me, but I want to ensure we're talking the same thing. Matt's point on this being a community is important: you are asking people to help you, so make it as easy as possible on them to do so. We're all here by choice and because we like to - nobody is obliged to help you, so take away barriers when you can.<br>

If anything, I know Matt's responses as being coureous and helpful - and so are these. Don't regard them as heated or angry, but as very well-meant advice on how to get maximum benefit from a forum.<br>

______<br>

My personal response on what any photo can do to help any cause: on their own, nothing.<br>

The images fit in a chain of events, that already was put in motion. They can raise or amplify awareness, and as such cause actions again. None of these images do not exist in a vacuum. And the chain of events does not start with an image - such an image would be far too shocking. A wider audience has to be ready to accept the image and the message it tries to carry out.<br>

So, you may want to narrow down what kind of cause and effect relationships you are really interested in. Else, I think you will just scratch the surface of the events in which these images played their respective roles, and gain little real insights.</p>

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<p>Susan...don't give up so easily. To take things to a more personal level...I really like this site and these forums and I have had to develop a thick skin to take criticism that was more than likely well-deserved. But, by swallowing my pride and listening to what others have to say, I have learned a lot. So, hang in there, maybe rephrase your intial question(s) and be more specific. This site has a whole lot of experience among some truly master photographers and the responses you get to a well thought out query would be interesting. Don't give up! <br>

As to the images, would they be these?<br>

1) Viet Cong guerilla image, link to photographer and image: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen_Ngoc_Loan">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen_Ngoc_Loan</a><br>

2) "Pieta" image, link: <a href="http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2007/benetton-pieta-in-aids-campaign/">http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2007/benetton-pieta-in-aids-campaign/</a><br>

3) Migrant Mother image, link: <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8b29516/">http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8b29516/</a></p>

 

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<p>Hey Susan - you're the same age as me. Still young!</p>

<p>You said you're more focused now, so having absorbed the sound advice offered previously go rethink your dissertation and what it's actually trying to explore/examine/explain, and see if you can be more specific in the questions you want to ask us, and I'll happily reply.</p>

<p>There will be wildly differing responses, thats for certain, and from them you may be able to divine some useful insights.</p>

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<p>Susan, I wish I were that young. In addition to the comments you've received (and from my perspective they were helpful), it would really help potential responders like me if you would spend a bit more time describing your dissertation's central question in greater detail. It always helps to have more background about why the question(s) is being asked, where the dissertation is headed, and what it hopes to accomplish.</p>
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<p>Oh Susan, welcome to PN! I found your last answer so refreshingly honest, it just made me laugh. These old geezers here on PN are really helpful and I can't help but think your skin just grew an extra protective layer... ;) <br>

Herma</p>

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<p>1. Execution of a Viet Cong Guerrilla 1968: Journalistic<br /> 2. Benetton Aids Advert: Advertising<br /> 3. The Migrant Mother: Social History<br /> An interesting question, Susan – glad you persevered in asking it! I see you have assigned these pictures to three separate categories, but I feel they have much in common insofar as they are all photojournalistic-style pictures which were taken for slightly different reasons but which all went on to have lives of their own. <br /> The execution shot was produced by the classic method of Eddie Adams being in the right place at the right time. The general doing the shooting was convinced his victim was a member of a hit squad responsible for killing numerous South Vietnamese police and their families, the balance of evidence suggests that this was the case, but the image went on to be an icon of the anti-war movement and was regarded as an example of extreme brutality, the extra-judicial killing of a civilian without due process of law. Adams is on record as saying he felt the general was misjudged by the public and regretted taking the picture.<br /> The Benetton ad began life as a photojournalistic image – the dying patient was an AIDS activist who readily agreed to be photographed on his deathbed, later his family agreed to the use of the picture as a Benetton ad simply to give the picture wide exposure. My personal initial reaction to this was anger and contempt that a middle-age businessman whose interests began and ended with trying to sell sweaters would attempt to suggest that this activity had some social significance, and that by inference people who bought Benetton sweaters were in some way showing that they were socially aware and caring. There was of course a heavy measure of deliberate provocation in the use of this picture, ultimately Oliviero Toscani, a photographer here acting as art director, was able to deflect criticism by stating correctly that permission to use the picture had been obtained.<br /> The migrant mother was one of a large number of pictures taken in the 1930s by a team of photographers employed by the Farm Security Administration, directed by Roy Stryker. The idea was to document the good work the FSA was doing in supporting destitute farmers and thus plead for more government funding. It is well documented that Dorothea Lange took several shots of the mother and children, striving to make them look as sad and woebegone as possible - the children were not keen to be photographed, the mother no doubt felt she could not say no to a representative of a body that had essentially saved her life.<br /> Quote:<br /> <em>In the late 1970s, Florence Owens Thompson revealed herself to be the woman in the photo after she wrote a letter to her local paper saying that she didn't like the image. In an AP story about the ensuing flap, Thompson stated:</em><br /> <em>“I wish she hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. [Lange] didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did."</em><br /> <em>In addition to not taking her subject's name, Lange got something else wrong. Thompson and her family weren't typical Depression migrants at all; they'd been living in California for almost 10 years. Like all photographs, Migrant Mother is neither truth nor fiction but somewhere in-between.</em><br /> Lange probably did more good than harm by taking the picture, but even so, this picture like the other two is rather different from what it seems at first sight.</p>

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<p>Postscript to above:<br>

In the same month [of 1998] the U.S. stamp was issued, a print of the photograph with Lange's handwritten notes and signature sold in 1998 for $244,500 at <a title="Sotheby's" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotheby%27s">Sotheby's New York</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-13" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Owens_Thompson#cite_note-13"></a></sup> In November 2002 [DL died in 1983], Dorothea Lange's personal print of <em>Migrant Mother</em> sold at <a title="Christie's" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christie%27s">Christie's New York</a> for $141,500. In October 2005, an anonymous buyer paid $296,000 at <a title="Sotheby's" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotheby%27s">Sotheby's New York</a> for the rediscovered 32 vintage, untouched Lange photos—nearly six times the pre-bid estimate.<sup id="cite_ref-dumpster_10-2" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Owens_Thompson#cite_note-dumpster-10"></a></sup></p>

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<p>I wish to say thank you for the responses I have received they have been very helpful, thankyou for the time and trouble you have taken in responding to my question. <br>

I am working on the Vietmanese image. What makes an iconic image, is it that we find that the image reminds us of some kind of art. Is it to do with balance of an image or composition. Eddie Adams tells the photograph was taken at the wrong time of day, he felt the composition was not very good and the image we look at, he took while he closed his eyes. He had asked someone to tell him when it was all over. <br>

Can it be the fact photographs can be taken at the point of death. No other media can do this, film can capture events but it continues to the end. The photograph has captured that moment.</p>

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<p>Hi Susan - glad you're still here!</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Can it be the fact photographs can be taken at the point of death. No other media can do this, film can capture events but it continues to the end. The photograph has captured that moment.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Now you're getting into the meat of it I think. Photographs can indeed capture 'a moment' and that's one of the huge strengths of the medium. Film 'continues', as you note, but a still freezes a moment like a fly in aspic for it to be held up and examined closely.</p>

<p>For one image to succeed so well it must have some of the following: compelling content, drama, composition, a history of events that surround it and to which it clearly relates or provides a comment on, an interaction between subject/subject or subject/content, and a 'clarity' of purpose that enables it to 'assume' at some point the 'iconic' status you mention. By 'clarity' of purpose I mean that eg Adams wanted to show the execution of a VC prisoner and there is little ambiguity in what he subsequently recorded.</p>

<p>It helps that such an image can be contained in a small box on the front of a newspaper in a way that a moving film cannot. (until now with iPad, iPhone etc and other similar devices, but they still do not have the 'simplicity' of a headline news picture)</p>

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<p>Thankyou, My tutor believes sometimes it has stirred something we have seen in the past a memory of a piece of art, or a similar photograph. When I see a photo like this it stirs something in my stomach it makes me wince. I want to know more of the situation. To understand how this situation arose. We look at these photos and we are disgusted by the horror that has been captured but we continue to look at them. Why do we do that?</p>
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