A long read & worth it. There is so much nuance in the details here — a history of certain photo agencies, pool photography, rights and archives + an assessment of our historical and contemporary understanding of this particular depiction of D-Day in media and pop culture. This quote stands out to me, amid the push for commodification of archives to train LLMs as well as the consolidation of media ownership: “… secrecy reflects a dangerous trend in mismanaging historical archives. One cannot underestimate the determination of privatizers to enclose the information commons.” Going forward, we have the technology to embed dozens of signals of trust into journalistic images and video. I hope to see it widely adopted, along with assertive sharing of the details. Transparency leads to greater trust, and we all would benefit from more of both.
A fascinating (if somewhat lengthy and dry) read. Robert Dannin asks if Robert Capa’s iconic D-Day photographs are all they seemed, and reviews A.D. Coleman's award-winning investigation of Capa for what it teaches us about contemporary photojournalism and all its accompanying mythology.
