[Leica] Shakleton Photos Faked

[doubs43 at cox.net (Walker Smith)]

>
>
>Quite the contrary - While the photos by Mathew Brady's associates may
>have adhered to a 'larger truth' about the horror of war in general and
>the Civil War in particular, it is a long established fact that many
>Brady photos were set up. 
>
I think it safe to say that all Brady, et al, pictures with living 
beings in them were posed. The equipment of the day didn't allow for 
movement. However, the locations, soldiers and/or civilians and 
everything about them were genuine and thus truthful. There was no 
intent to deceive or misrepresent what the viewer was seeing. There was 
so much material available to photograph that fakery wasn't necessary or 
possibly even considered. As I recall from my 10 volume set "The 
Photographic History of the Civil War" (original 1911 edition), only one 
picture is thought to have been taken that actually shows evidence of a 
battle in progress. A man with binoculars is sitting on a hillside 
watching the smoke from the guns rise from a distance below. It's 
thought that it was taken at Antietam.

IMO, the most "powerful" photograph of the war was of three Confederate 
prisoners taken at Gettysburg immediately following the battle and 
before they could be transported to POW camps. Thin and lean  with the 
bearing of disciplined soldiers and the unmistakable attitude that 
"Yeah, you won the battle but we ain't licked yet!" Two more terrible 
years of war would prove them to be right. Pictures of the dead at 
Antietam, the Wilderness, Petersburg and other places are powerful too 
but the image of those three defiant men speaks volumes about that war.

While the photographers of the time were as "honest" as possible, not so 
the journalists and artists who drew illustrations for the periodicals. 
They frequently took "artistic license" and it makes contemporary 
accounts reported in newspapers questionable in many cases. Interesting 
times, to be sure.

Walker