# How long can a photo remain relevant???



## dennybeall (May 20, 2015)

Here's an article about a photo that was taken in 1957 and it's still around. Don't we all wish we could catch that one shot???

A Message from Chief Mew Faith and Confidence


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## weepete (May 21, 2015)

As long as the subject remains relevent the photo will be.


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## Derrel (May 21, 2015)

That **is** a good photo...the article says that it won a Pulitzer prize!


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## dennybeall (May 21, 2015)

Yes, Pulitzer for Spot News, a full page in LIFE Magazine, a bunch of other awards and became the LOGO of Father Flanagan's Boy's Town for a time. There is also a Bronze copy outside a courthouse in Georgia commemorating policemen. The police officer also went on to be the Chief of Police in Washington DC.
And still, after all these years,  comes up in the press.


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## Gary A. (May 21, 2015)

A classic and timeless image which touches all of us.

There was a communications/newspaper study which determined that people remember photographs long after they've forgotten the written word. Do any of us old timers remember any headlines from Vietnam. But most of us vividly remember the Nick Ut image of the screaming, naked little girl running down the dirt lane towards the camera. Can anyone remember a quote from the Iraqi invasion ... but we remember the video of pulling down the huge stature of Hussein.

The photo also displays that a timeless photo can happen anywhere, at any place, at any time. We photographers need to see and capture those moments.


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## webestang64 (May 23, 2015)

Gary A. said:


> The photo also displays that a timeless photo can happen anywhere, at any place, at any time. We photographers need to see and capture those moments.



This is why I have a camera loaded with film and take it with me no matter where I am at or where I go................!


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## Derrel (May 23, 2015)

dennybeall said:
			
		

> Yes, Pulitzer for Spot News, a full page in LIFE Magazine, a bunch of other awards and became the LOGO of Father Flanagan's Boy's Town for a time. There is also a Bronze copy outside a courthouse in Georgia commemorating policemen. The police officer also went on to be the Chief of Police in Washington DC.
> And still, after all these years,  comes up in the press.



Yes, that was a famous photo, and it had quite a good run for a while. But there is new thinking being written on this very issue, the issue of how long a single photo remains relevant in TODAY'S world, in the various societies of TODAY...and my feeling is that the power of any one, single, individual, still image has been diminished by several orders of magnitude since the closing of the film age.

There have been some profound changes in how photography is done (digital instead of on film); video is now cheap and everywhere; images can be transmitted within seconds, or at most, a few minutes of having been taken; and the replacement of very few, large media outlets with hundreds upon hundreds of smaller outlets. Whereas in the late 1950's that photo might have appeared in almost every daily newspaper in the USA, and an average person would see 150 images in one day, today the image would be lost amid the 2,000 images I will see today, coming from smaller, independent media outlets, not affiliated with a wire service.

Thinking back, the truly iconic images...the flag raising over Iwo Jima; the general executing the suspected Viet Cong spy with the revolver shot to the temple; the Nick Ut napalm aftermath shot; the Eisenstaedt navy seaman kissing nurse in NYC....those images, separated by about 22 years total, were still in the "old era" of daily newspapers and weekly news magazines that had widespread power, widespread penetration. People are not consuming images that way any more....large metro dailies have seen their circulations plummet...here in Portland, _The Oregonian_, the oldest daily paper west of the Mississippi, has recently shrunk down to tabloid size, and cannot even afford home delivery every day of the week, and the thing has become literally, a topic of jokes and derision around the entire metro area...

A case in point about how fast even a hugely hyped image fades in this era, about one full decade into the Internet era: Kim Kardashian's "butt shot with champagne glass" image was supposed to, as it was promoted, "*Break the Internet*." They had high hopes that that photo, and its short series of accompanying outtakes, would "Break the Internet". Instead...that shot was relevant for about three days...and now...down the digital rathole...it garnered no lasting relevance.

Ever since cable television, and then cable news, went to the "24 hour news cycle", iconic images have shifted away from still images...a photo now has a hell of a time even establishing relevance, let alone maintaining it. Think about it: almost all of the truly iconic still images are pre-1984. I can recall dozens of iconic OLD, B&W images....but newer, single ones? Very,very few in number, and as we move into the 2000's decade, almost none can I recollect.


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## sashbar (May 23, 2015)

A modern image can become iconic only if it is related to a big event and becomes a sort of a symbol  of this event.
Having said that, can we remember one truly iconic 9/11 image? If not then what can we expect?


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## Derrel (May 23, 2015)

The last truly iconic image, meaning one I can still "see" in my mind's eye, is O.J. Simpson trying on the infamous glove during his televised trial back in 1994. That trial was on TV when the NBC TV show Friends premiered. Friends ran until 2004. The Tanya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan, Michael Jackson child molestation charges era, and the OJ Simpson trial marked the beginning of huge 24/7 news coverage of every single issue in current news. The first Gulf War had huge CNN coverage, but the 1994 era marked the start of the era we are in currently, where huge numbers of remote news trucks will flock to whatever the top story is, as even secondary and tertiary market TV stations wish to have 'local' talent report on top news stories.

Interestingly, the last iconic image I can see in my mind was almost certainly pulled from video footage...


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