Taken “The Day Before…”
Feb. 13
6:05 am
Jeff Revell over at PhotoWalkPro had a post last week that left me speechless. It was a series of ads for the Cape Times newspaper (in Cape Town, South Africa) that showed photos taken the day before tragic losses of human life. The one above, from that series, has the caption, September 10, 2001 (I’m showing it here in US date format). The series had a number of different images, and it’s worth taking a moment to see these powerful images and what they represent. Kudos to Jeff for uncovering this (here’s the direct link).
Let’s not get carried away on this. It is very clever advertising but manipulative photography. Several people have commented on the original site to point out that the Kennedy photograph was taken in October and it is highly unlikely that the others were taken ‘the day before’. I agree that it is a very clever concept but it is misleading photography. Some might even say this is making commercial opportunity out of tragedy. When the next tragedy occurs how many people are going to dig out their old photos and change the EXIF date for a little fame?
I agree, another commenter on the OP mentioned that there is not actually a softball field near the Twin Towers as shown in this photo. Being from the south I honest don’t know if there is or not. It would be nice to hear from someone in NY as to wether that photo has been doctored.
Hi Scott,
I was just ready the comments and true or not it makes you realize to enjoy every day to it’s fullest, tell the people you love how much you love them.
Have a wonderful day and Scott thanks for your blog it makes my day every day.
Marie-Soleil
I find the photos very powerful, and could care less if they were actually taken the day before or not. They still show how precious each day is, and that no-one can predict what will happen the next day. The photos certainly make you think and reflect, don’t they? The power of photography.
Thanks for sharing Scott and Jeff….
Cheers,
Scotty
Agreed, there may be some stretching on the dates of these images, but still….it should make every one of us stop before we capture our images and think “wow, this might not be here tomorrow!”. I don’t believe any other media captures time like photography….we should all be thankful we’re part of it FOREVER!
Thanks for sharing the post Scott….it gave me “chicken skin!”
Hi Scott,
Yep, We should really stop and smell the roses and count our blessings each and every day. I know I do.
Thanks for everything Scott and NAPP
Mike
Interesting discussions coming out of this one. Here’s where we see the “news as entertainment ” phenomenon so clearly. The disputed images aren’t journalistic in purpose, they’re advertisements and as such subject to the suspension of disbelief, but they’re also ads for a newspaper. So where’s the line between them? I think we’re going to see that line blur more and more.
I find it interesting that the ads are generating some profound emotional responses but not one I’ve read goes anywhere near the response of “hey, ya know what, I wanna be sure not to miss my daily edition of in-depth news.” Or was the purpose of the ad entirely to stir up this very discussion we’re having? Either way I feel manipulated…
The ball field is there… use Mapquest w/ aerial view. It’s about 2 blocks northwest of the WTC site. The direction of view is SE, with the sun setting to the right. I don’t think that the ‘real’ date has any need to be accurate.
“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.” Joni Mitchell
The photos lose their impact when you realize the aren’t true. But it raises a new project for some energetic someone. Get REAL photos from the days before those tragedies. Maybe there are some powerful truthful ones. Sounds like a new book project but a grueling research project.
For three of those photos we have no context whatsoever. There’s no way of knowing when they were taken. For two we don’t even know WHERE they’re taken. For all we know the agency just grabbed them from Getty. For the fourth – the Kennedys – we KNOW that the date is a lie.
All that misleading imagery, all the manipulation of emotions…. for nothing more than a marketing push to get people to buy newspapers.
That’s not inspiring. That’s sickening.
As far as the NYC picture, it looks like the people are wearing coats and I believe the temperature on September 10 was too warm for that.
Perhaps it would have been a more accurate statement to just date the photos as “before” rather than “the day before”. It would still have indicated that life was different before these big events and has changed because of them.
Interesting pictures and discussion, nonetheless.
Hi everyone, this was a response I posted on my blog yesterday that covers some of the sentiments being given here:
“Just a quick comment for those that are busy researching the validaty of the images in the article. I can’t say whether or not there is any proof that the images are what they are purported to be. That really wasn’t my point. What I was trying to emphasize is that as photographers, we have the ability to capture a moment in time that can forever portray a slice of history. What we photograph can be changed by unknown events the moment after we press that shutter release and in some small way, we are acting as world historians, preserving portions of an ever changing World. How’s that for deep.”
As a follow-up, when I first saw the images from the marketing campaign, my thoughts were not of whether or not the images were truly what they were purported to be, rather how very powerful an image can be and that the impact of a photograph can be far greater than we think at the time that we actaully took it. Is the Kennedy image any less emotional because it was take a month before he was assasinated? Not in my opinion. Did the Cape Times use poor judgement in saying it was from the day before? Probably so. I’m not looking to change anyone’s opinion on this and it obviously has stirred some deep emotion responses. This was just my take on how I perceive the powerful a photograph can be given the right circumstance.
Jeff – PhotoWalkPro.com
Well said, Jeff.
By the way, I really enjoy your blog. Keep up the great work. Scott’s and yours are regular stops for me daily.
Cheers,
scotty
Thanks for sharing Scott. I’ve created a blogpost on this and I “borrowed” your title. I hope this is ok with you.
Like I said in the post: There are some people commenting on other pages on the fact that this is a clever advertisement and some of the pictures (like JFK) were actually taken earlier. Not withstanding this it sends out the perfect message: “There one day, gone the other“.
It is a very stunning photograph however the date is WRONG. I live in Bayonne, NJ which is about 15 minutes away from NYC and I specifically remember September 10, 2001 because I had to do confimation practice for church and I almost couldn’t go because of the terrible thunderstorms we were having that day. The sun never was out that day, which is ironic because it was almost a precursor of what was coming the next day. I would just like to say again that I love this picture, except for the date which is false…