This historical photo was taken from the Beijing Hotel, with a 400 mm lens about a half mile away.
No one knows the brave man's name or what happened to him.
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| copyright Jeff Widener |
It is a moving and graphic record of China at that time. The Chinese government was trying to stop information such as emails and photos getting out of the country during this incident, however they learned quickly that their control of the world wide web flow was thoroughly lacking and we had a message about the turmoil within China and the people's desire for freedom.
So now we have 'photographer' Pavel Maria Smejkal, digitally erasing the intense subject of the photograph and supposedly calling it art? This is a misplaced idea of depicting images into oblivion. Smejkal has done this with many historical photographs, and creating a manipulation of these kinds of photographs is merely trying to ride on the coat-tails of real photographers who were IN the action and risked much to get a glimpse of history unfolding.
"I remove the central motifs from historical documentary photographs." Smejkal explained in an interview with The New York Times. “I use images that have become our cultural heritage, that constitute memory of nations, serve as symbols or tools of propaganda and exemplify a specific approach to photography.”
Making important pictures into shots of dirt is an affront to the original creator. Pavel is not an artist or a photographer. It's no better than adding smiley faces.
So what is the point?
I would think Pavel has an assured job at NSA in the history changing division or the propaganda ministry. Or Shoes R Us.
Images from Wikipedia must not be used in a manner that is likely to replace the original market role of the original copyrighted media. Use of historic images from press agencies must only be used in a transformative nature, when the image itself is the subject of commentary rather than the event it depicts.
Note that someone has tried to have the original photograph removed from Wikipedia which only points out how important it really is. We have enough interference with the truth, people like Pavel should just go away.
