Bernaisesource

The image is iconic.  Five Marines and a Navy corpsman hoisting an American flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima.

This photograph was taken by Joe Rosenthal who died this past week at 94. 

Much has been written about this most enduring of American war photographs.  Postage stamps have been issued, movies have been made and statues erected to honor this seemingly small event in the course of the Second World War.  

More than a document of a moment in time, the photograph is transcendent, capturing the aspirations of a nation at war.

Despite its power and beauty, suspicions have persisted over the years that Rosenthal’s photograph was staged, undermining its journalistic integrity and its rightful place as a work of art.  Motion picture film shot at the event tends to support Rosenthal’s claim that the image was genuine.  And as Rosenthal pointed out, if he had really wanted to stage the event, he would have revealed the faces of the US military men.

Rosenthal’s picture was questioned because it was so perfectly composed.  Contrast that to Adnan Hajj, the Reuters freelance photographer, who was recently fired for doctoring a digital photograph of an Israeli attack in Lebanon.  

The story made front page news around the world. 

His actions were deplorable, and Reuters was justified in how it handled the situation.  Fortunately, Adnan Hajj’s poor Photoshop skills exposed what he had done.

We consumers of media have an odd relationship to the photograph. Everyday we are bombarded with images -- manipulated, cropped and air brushed.  We celebrate the artifice and buy the lie.  But when it comes to journalism, we demand a higher standard.  The image must be genuine.  Otherwise we feel robbed, cheated or lied to.

As a photographer myself, I believe that at a certain level all photographs are lies. What I shoot, how I shoot it, and how I print it are subjective decisions that distort objective reality.  Cropping the image, darkening some portions of the frame and lightening others are considered acceptable practices for any photographer, but they don’t give you a full picture of what actually occurred.  

In a digital world where millions of photographs are taken and distributed over the Internet on a constant, daily basis, it is a testament to the power of photography that a single image can still stir such passion and generate such controversy.

Let me get back to you.

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