Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/03/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Has anyone on the LUG seen the book called "The Comissar is Missing". It is about the history of photo retouching that went on in Stalinist Soviet Union. One such example starts off with a group portrait of Stalin, surrounded by a group of fellow politburo members. In the series of photos that follow, these extra people disappeared, one by one, until the final photo, where it shows just a portrait of Stalin, all by himself. It would be very funny, except for the knowledge of what happened to the "disappeared". The book is filled with similar examples. Many of the retouching jobs are masterfully done, others as crude as someone's face literally being blacked out of a photo. Dan C. At 02:06 PM 22-03-00 EST, RGKEG@aol.com wrote: >If this is the photo I am thinking of, the Russian government insisted it be >retouched to remove the multiple wristwatches from a soldiers arm. A common >practice at the time was to remove them from the dead. The smoke in the >background was also added. I believe several unretouched prints exist. > >Unfortunately, it wasn't called Zhukovs (Chuikovs) rape of Berlin for nothing. > >A powerful image, nonetheless. > > Ron Kutak > > > >