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The Obama HOPE Photo Mystery Continues!
Reuters
After months of searching, I believe I've identified the photographer behind the picture that became the campaign’s most enduring image. Even he didn’t know he had taken it.
Update: After my scoop "identifying" the source photograph and photographer of Shepard Fairey's iconic HOPE poster, Purchase College digital photography teacher Nathan Lunstrum came up with a different image that appears to be a better and less convoluted match. If this new photo is indeed the real photo, it seems to have been taken by Manny Garcia, a Washington-based freelance photo journalist. See my blog post about it here.
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.
He’d seen the HOPE poster countless times and never made the connection to his own photograph.
After several months of digging, I wrote an inquiry on my blog on January 14 asking if anyone knew the answer to the mystery. That day, a computer programmer named Mike Cramer sent me a link to his Flickr page. Cramer had traced the picture back to a 2007 story on Time.com that credited the photo to one Jonathan Daniel of Getty Images. Cramer also showed how the picture was flipped, making the source almost unrecognizable. “I stretched the original a bit (really, a tiny amount) and flipped it horizontally, but didn't need to rotate it at all,” he wrote on Flickr.
Agency photographers are not easy to get a hold of, but I managed to contact Jonathan Daniel via email. To my surprise, he responded that he was positive he was not the photographer who took the picture. The plot thickened.
Jewel Samad, AFP / Getty Images
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." His transformation of the image—flipping and re-orienting it, adding jacket, tie and the "O" Obama logo, and converting it to his block print style—make it consistent with all legal precedents for public use. (Fairey is the artist behind the now-famous Andre the Giant prints that are probably wheat-pasted all over your city.)
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
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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.
mamiejane
As a copyright lawyer, I am not so convinced that the use qualifies as "fair use." I would hope the photographer in case wouldn't raise a fight but I think it might be interesting if you actually got some lawyers who know about fair use to debate the point. Having a journalist (even one who's a lawyer) assert that it's fair use doesn't make it so and suggests that the author doesn't get how the fair use test works.
Bulldoglover100
I also agree that this may not fall under the fair use clause.
I also find it odd that Mr. Fairey appeared to run from any mention of the photographer.
It is good that this has been solved as the photographer deserves credit for his very important part of history.
What distresses is that apparently Mr. Fairey did not feel the same but perhaps he has put the money factor ahead of what is only right.
tomland
Oh come on now, haven't you lawyers had enough of a hand in ruining what is good about this country. As a photographer and also an artist, I would like to say that you should really all just get a life and leave the creative process to the talented. Appropriation of imagery has been an accepted form of art inspiration for decades now, think back to Andy and Campbells.
Please, why don't you all just take up suing yourselves, and leave the rest of us alone.
jainthorne
I recently saw Mr. Fairey on The Colbert Report. He has stated that he takes no money for use of the image and in fact, has gone after people who are trying to use it to make money. He has basically given free use of the image to the Obama organization.
Since none of the parties concerned now seem upset perhaps the lawyers can just leave this alone and let people enjoy it.
chgotchr
Question: did Fairey do it for the money? Do you know, or are you making an assumption?
jtelford
Yep, I'm in agreement that this is not fair use. As a graphic artist/illustrator for the last 17 years, this would be a big no-no in my opinion.
Admittedly I'm not an attorney, but this seems against all I've understood about fair use.
Spasticula
As a copyright lawyer mamiejane, you should do some research, cause you sound kind of young and dumb. Be sure to include the term "Robert Rauschenberg" in efforts.
jtelford
Being only vaguely familiar with Shepard Fairey and just for fun I did a little digging on Google.
http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm
Interesting reading for sure, and while one could argue the writer(s) may have an axe to grind, the evidence they present is interesting to say the least.
tizzdogg
Shepard Fairey has a long history of profiting from plagarism and pushing the boundaries of acceptable fair use. For a good overview read:
http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm
Fairey's work is art at its most dishonest and commercial. He may have created a great image for Obama but that does not mean he shouldn't at least give credit to the original photographer.
lauberns
Relax people. You are missing the point. The man is a grafiti artist. I am sure he cares little for this academic debate you are having. And please tell me who was harmed, really harmed. Only John McCain,
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
nicfulton
It's a photo. Reuters photographers take thousands, if not millions of photos per year. Why is everyone going bonkers about copyright? He was in a public place. Any photographer could have taken it - including Joe Public. Then a photo editor thought it looked good. And it went out on the wire. But then it's part of the public record. Using it for a piece of art is, well, totally fair-use. Why fuss. Reuters and the Young are probably just chuffed that someone bothered to check. They'll be producing millions more iconic photos this year without a blink to what online artists are doing. I hope that Mr Young gets some publicity out of this, and Reuters just, well, keeps taking pictures.
FreeRange
I'm not a lawyer, but I stayed in a Holiday Inn. To those lawyers that posted here, please, get a life and put a sock in it. This is absolutely fair use! So please change my sheets and leave me clean towels. Thank you!
AltonDarwin
Fairey made many more changes than Andy Warhol did with his pop art "portraits" of Monroe, et al. The original photograph doesn't strike me as anymore intriguing than the innumerable other snaps of Obama (not to mention the akward crop).
Fairey softened certain facial elements, extended the body to create a more natural framing and introduced dramatic shading effects that are not apprarent in the source image. Fairey added quite a bit to the visual impact of the original photograph (which fact accounts for its enduring appeal).
It may be debatable as to whether the digital illustration and manipulation of a photograph of a widely pictured public official is "fair use," however, since the photog doesn't seem to have a problem, can't we just enjoy the inauguration?
wickedlittledoll
Fairey..fair use. Am I the only one who finds the humor? Seriously though, it's all part of a beautiful, bigger concept known as the free flow of ideas and sharing of intellectual property. Sometimes genius is born.
Thank you.
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