Comments on: The World’s Most Infamous Staged Photos

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 04:26:28 +0000

@Scott - the documentary is probably "Frontline" by Neil Davis. From the footage the execution appeared spontaneous, not planned to be inside then moved outside

By: max

max — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:27:19 +0000

What about Hippolyte Bayard's fake suicide? It was possibly the first "staged" photo.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:30:42 +0000

BBC used to throw coins into bins in Soweto to film kids rummaging in rubbish bins. Reporters then said it they were looking for food. As if anyone starved in apartheid SA!

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:58:55 +0000

General Nguyen Ngoc Loan Executing a Viet Cong Prisoner in Saigon...

I have seen the motion picture film of this incident in the History Channel many years ago in a documentary. Let me tell you, it isn't staged. The photographer snaps the photo at almost the instance the bullet exits the Viet Cong prisoner's scull and his brains are blown out.

I was surprised to have seen the whole dirty mess on t.v. as it was pretty violent.

By: Karl

Karl — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:11:56 +0000

Marls you obviously didn't read the article...the author never accuses Adams of "staging" the photo, just that the execution was moved outside for better lighting.
The guy was a the piece of garbage leader of a VC death squad anyway, with a single shot to the head, he got off easy.

By: Marls

Marls — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:05:56 +0000

It's a horrible thing to accuse Eddie Adams of staging that event. He was a prominent war photographer that went out of his way to get the real story of the war that America was "glamorizing" at the time. His images changed a country. He was there, the event happened and he was prepared to take that shot because he was always ready. A little more research on these types of accusations should be done. I suggest to anyone that is interested to view the new film biography on Eddie Adams. It's amazing.

By: jay

jay — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:12:55 +0000

Staged:

http://thedailybackground.com/media/images/blog//ZZ25564BF1.jpg

By: Mhansen

Mhansen — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:11:17 +0000

The biggest problem with the Adams photo is not whether it was staged or not. It was the fallout after the photo that was published. It was falsely used to show the atrocities of America and S. Vietnam soldiers when in fact the "victim" was a member of a N. Vietnam 'search and destroy' death squad that had just returned from killing children and women in villages that were sympathetic to the non-communist cause. He was caught and executed. The staging was how the press used it.

By: B!

B! — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:31:12 +0000

You didn't list some of the earliest known staged photographs.

When Brady's employees went out to the Civil War battlefields and took their infamous photos, they moved dead bodies around, added rifles, removed shoes or boots, etc.

Brady got the credit for the photographs, but please note he did not go out to take photos very often during the 1860's. By the end of the Civil War, this amazing photographer was nearly blind.

By: Phil Schwartzberg

Phil Schwartzberg — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:02:57 +0000

You forgot Robert Capa's Spanish Civil War sniper picture where on the film there are several shots of the same sniper. Ask his brother. Robert was one of the great journalistic photoghraphers of all time.

By: The-Avenged-One

The-Avenged-One — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:04:34 +0000

The photo of the prisoner being executed is incorrect. The man was not Viet Cong, he was in fact an officer (a Major, actually.) of the North Vietnamese Army. He was captured behind the lines while in civilian clothing, and thus subject to summary execution under the Geneva Convention.

By: vanderleun

vanderleun — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:20:02 +0000

PALMER that's a fake humanitarian hauling a corpse around for political gain.

If you had any decency, you'd know that.

Wake up.

By: TJ Palmer

TJ Palmer — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:45:30 +0000

That is a genuine civil defence volunteer holding a real child who will never get a chance to read this fake, staged article.

If you had any sense of decency then you would delete this item.

By: vanderleun

vanderleun — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 05:20:06 +0000

Marcin Gos says, "It's cropped version, that doesn't show off-duty US soldier running on the right..." Look again Marcin, there's nothing US about that soldier.

By: vanderleun

vanderleun — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 05:16:46 +0000

Mark g. is wrong. The green helmet guy and the toys have been convincingly shown to be staged on pages from both the right and the left.

By: cirby

cirby — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:46:15 +0000

"Overzealous rescue workers do not make a staged photo." But underquestioning reporters and photogs who let the subject decide the content of the photos do. Which has happened MULTIPLE times with "Green Helmet Guy." Let this one go - it's been caught and proven in multiple places, and there's videotape from a German TV program showing him giving directions on how to display a body for photographs.

By: Leatherneck

Leatherneck — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 17:23:25 +0000

Regarding the Iwo Jima photo, here's Rosenthal writing in Collier's magazine in 1955: "I thought of trying to get a shot of the two flags, one coming down and the other going up, but although this turned out to be a picture Bob Campbell got, I couldn't line it up. Then I decided to get just the one flag going up, and I backed off about 35 feet. "Here the ground sloped down toward the center of the volcanic crater, and I found that the ground line was in my way. I put my Speed Graphic down and quickly piled up some stones and a Jap sandbag to raise me about two feet (I am only 5 feet 5 inches tall) and I picked up the camera and climbed up on the pile. I decided on a lens setting between f-8 and f-11, and set the speed at 1-400th of a second. "At this point, 1st Lt. Harold G. Shrier ... stepped between me and the men getting ready to raise the flag. When he moved away, Genaust came across in front of me with his movie camera and then took a position about three feet to my right. 'I'm not in your way, Joe?' he called. "'No,' I shouted, 'and there it goes.' "Out of the corner of my eye, as I had turned toward Genaust, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera, and shot the scene."

By: Carlo Hagemann

Carlo Hagemann — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:27:53 +0000

Staged photos are not confined to 'staged by the photographer'. Since every politician or political actor knows the power of an impressive picture, they "set scenes up" on purpose.

Overzealous rescue workers do not parade a corpse around, unless there are cameras nearby, and they have a clue that parading the corpse will support their (political) goals.

By the way: it is always funny to see discussions on staged, cropped and retouched photographs from photojournalists, whereas stories from writing journalists are by definition cropped and retouched.

By: Mark G

Mark G — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:24:56 +0000

Completely agree with Ken on the Eddie Adams photo. Please change the article so you don't misrepresent a great photographer.

The guy in the green helmet as well as the toys placed in the scene are both hearsay.

Ben Curtis is a highly respected journalist without a bad mark on his record. Any photojournalist will tell you, there's no reason to fake the photo since it's a crappy shot anyways.

Another prize winning PJ present during the green helmet guy told me what happened. He found the babies body, and paraded the corpse around before loading it into the ambulance. Overzealous rescue workers do not make a staged photo.

Staged means the photographer set the scene up.

By: Marcin Gos

Marcin Gos — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:15:14 +0000

And regarding Saigon execution - it's cropped version, that doesn't show off-duty US soldier running on the right...

http://blog.uncovering.org/archives/uploads/2007/071025_blog.uncovering.org_execucao-vietcong.jpg

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:02:58 +0000

With regards to Adam's photos, I think you need to be careful when you say something is staged.

It's one thing if the photographer staged the event, it's another if the entity itself staged it.

Adams did not stage this photo, there is no mention of whether he asked them to take this outside.

The killing did happen, Adams said this himself during a talk he gave at the George Eastman house many years ago.

To say this is a staged photo says that the event did not happen.

This did happen, a man was killed, execution style.