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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jul 13, 2011 6:26:57 GMT -5
I know this topic's been raised before, but I just re-happened upon one of those great 4x5 wartime Kodachromes (it was in a wikipedia entry). that got me searching for a few more... These, for me, are the pinnacle of the photographers' craft. Their fidelity bridges the gap of 70 years as if it were nothing, whereas so many WWII images keep us at distance from the subject - grainy B&W - which somehow makes the experience of war distant and otherworldly. I wish I had the skill and foresight to make such an arresting record. Michael.
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 13, 2011 8:05:59 GMT -5
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jul 13, 2011 14:00:47 GMT -5
They are magnificent photos, but they are essentially studio shots taken by a very competent photographer using good, but probably not easily transportable equipment. For me they have none of the gritty realism of those grainy, often not accurately focussed, black and white 35mm photographs from the likes of Capa. Photographs taken in the most difficult of circumstances, when sticking your head above the parapet could result in having it blown off. Yet sticking their head above the parapet was just what those photographers did time and time again. (Capa, of course, did it once too often.) Then the films had to be developed and printed. That too would have been something of an adventure. The less adventurous stayed at home, took excellent photos then sent the film to Kodak.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2011 18:53:10 GMT -5
I got over my love of grain when DSLRs hit 6 Megapixels.
Back in the day when those shots were made, Kodachrome's speed was so slow you pretty much had to stage photos or only shoot landscapes. The amazing thing about that film is those war images still look just like they did the day they were taken.
As for sticking your head up to shoot a combat photo, the majority of those photos were taken with 4x5 Speed Graphics. There weren't many people shooting 35 mm back then because even the B&W film was slow and grainy. An advantage of a Speed Graphic was it was big enough and heavy enough to stop some shrapnel and bullets!
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jul 13, 2011 19:59:36 GMT -5
The Speed Graphic may have been standard issue for the photographers from the States, but I don't believe many Europeans were using them. Capa was Hungarian and used a Contax for much of his work. The Germans would have used German made cameras - Contax, Rollei, Leica. I think the British photographer George Rodger, who took the pictures of Belsen, used a Leica III for much of his work. I know U-534, the German U-Boat on show in Birkenhead, had a Contax because I have photos of it. I did put them on here a while ago. I've just found the photo:
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jul 14, 2011 1:56:17 GMT -5
Thanks Bob, I was aware of the LoC's wonderful collection on Flickr. As a working historian, I still haven't got over the fact that I can eyeball documents from the comfort of my home thanks to the generosity of such institutions as the LoC. Which raises another point. Thanks to digitization, we all have a chance to see these images almost at their best. Wonderful as National Geo and Life Magazine are/were, their printed colour was never as sparkling as one now experiences with an LCD screen.
Dave, I get your point. McCullin's 'Destruction Game' was one of the first 'grown up books' I purchased. But I still feel an immediacy with these images which surprises me.
What struck me as the real skill in the Kodachrome 4x5s is that despite being orchestrated, the images are remarkably documentary. I've been the victim of the press photographer's 'do something with a screwdriver' when photographed in the workshop, and can spot such tomfoolery a mile off. I'd lay quids on that the girls in the above photos are 'real' workers, hence the naturalness of their poses. Look at the balance of the 'real Rosie', How her index finger (chipped nail polish and all) braces against the aluminium section. Look at the machinist's left hand, casually ready to rotate the spindle as she reads off the dial gauge. The girls new how to do the job, and the photographer had the ability to capture them perfectly. Even in posed photos, the decisive moment is critical, perhaps even more so than in 'real' candids.
The staying power of Kodachrome amazes me also. The archivists' standard!
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jul 14, 2011 2:54:10 GMT -5
Bob, Wiki does Rosie the Riveter - fairly well it would seem as there are plenty of references.
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Post by Rachel on Jul 14, 2011 3:22:11 GMT -5
What are the aircraft in the second picture? Curiously the aircraft on the left has a star insignia which I associate with US air forces but the flash on the rudder looks RAF or Commonwealth.
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 14, 2011 4:46:07 GMT -5
Dave
Plenty of Rosies in our town, Canada Car built Hurricanes here during the war.
Rachel
Good catch on the confused markings. I think these are Curtiss P-40s which the RAF and Commonwealth Air Forces did use. Maybe it was early on in the war and the markings were an attempt to protect American neutrality while the planes were being delivered?
Bob
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jul 14, 2011 6:17:46 GMT -5
Rachel, a little digging on the tail markings confirms that the tail isn't RAF, but the Tricolor. The plane is destined probably for Casablanca and the Free French Airforce. from that and the camo colouring, it may well be a P40F 'Desert Hawk' with a Packard-built Merlin under the hood, but without seeing the nose, I can't tell.
The two visible tails/rudders are also different from the more usual P40 'rounded' design. Someone more expert than I might be able to tell more. There are several differences in at least two of the planes, so at least two different Mks are represented in the photo.
Michael.
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 14, 2011 10:49:03 GMT -5
I should have been more awake when I made the post about them being P-40s. With Michael's comment about the tail. I did some more digging and am going to change my mind. I now think these were Mustang Mk 1a planes. The squared off rudder, clipped wings, cooler under the fuselage aft the cockpit (no big chin cooler), retractable tail wheel further forward (not under horizontal stab) and 2 20mm cannon per wing. The Mk 1a Mustangs were sold to Britain and were among the first produce. They did not have the bubble canopy of later Mustangs. OTH I could be wrong yet again.
Bob
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Post by alanegreen on Jul 14, 2011 10:55:05 GMT -5
These aircraft are A-36 Apaches, which was a ground attack version of the North American Mustang, that retained the Alison engine after the Mustang had adopted the Merlin. The tail and undercarriage of the P-40 are quite different.
The photo appears on the Wikipedia page for the A-36!
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jul 14, 2011 13:51:33 GMT -5
Michael, Thanks for posting those pictures taken on 5x4 Kodachrome. I’m glad you called them examples of the photographer’s craft because that is what they show, superb examples of photographic craftsmanship.
But, as Dave says, they are essentially studio type pictures set up on location. To me, they aren’t “wartime” pictures, not all of which are grainy – at least not those taken by British press photographers of wartime in the UK before D-Day, the Battle of Britain, setting up anti-aircraft guns, the Balloon Barrage, women taking over in factories and so on
A few were using 35mm in pre-war Leicas and Contaxes, and some were still using 9x12 cm FNs, but many pictures taken at this time, during the Blitz of 1941-1942, the night-time shots of the docks and east end of London ablaze, the firefighters, rescue workers and ambulances were taken on 120 roll film using pre-war Rolleiflexes loaded with Ilford HP3 rated at 800 ASA and push-processed in deep tanks. This naturally increased the grain and the contrast but gave an air of action to the pictures. Quite a different atmosphere from the “morning after” daylight pictures of streets of rubble which had once been houses and the rescue workers still digging.
Some of the photographers who landed with British troops on D-Day were serving soldiers with their regiments, but a large number were employed by the Ministry of Information – essentially civilians in uniform who would probably have been in the army had it not been for their photographic skills. The favoured cameras were pre-war Leicas and Contaxes. Thre wasn’t a British made or American made camera to compare with them for action photography. At the start of the war the Government put out an appeal for anyone who had a Leica or Contax to donate it to the war effort. It brought in hundreds of cameras.
I have the greatest admiration for these photographers, armed with nothing but a camera, who often put themselves in positions of extreme danger to get the picture they wanted. I talked with some of them after the war, and one said that when he looked into the viewfinder it was as if he were invisible and detached from reality.
The exposed films were sent back to the UK for processing and the prints were distributed by the Ministry of Information. Very few, if any, of the photographers ever got a by-line if, indeed, the MoI ever knew which film came from which photographer.
I know almost nothing about the set-up with combat photographers with the US forces, nor those with the German forces. It would be interesting to find out.
Yes, the pictures were often grainy from over-enlargement, there was sometimes camera shake and the main subject was not always in sharp focus. But could you or I have done better with a 12 megapixel digital SLR? I doubt it.
I agree when you say they make the experience of war distant and otherworldly. But it is now distant, and even though there have been other wars since, they have not been the total war of WW2 in Europe. Europe in the 1940s was another world from the Europe we know today.
Going back to the picture of the planes, I don’t think they are P40 Curtis Hawks. My guess is early P51s with Allison engines. When the Packard-built Merlin was put in the P51 the air intake for the carburettors had to be moved under the engine to suit the updraught supercharged carbs on the back of the Merlin.
Just one thing spoils it slightly for me and shouts “posed!”. The men “working” on the wheels are all in casual civilian clothes. Had this been a true wartime picture the servicing would have been carried out by groundcrew in overalls.
PeterW
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 14, 2011 14:03:05 GMT -5
I read the wiki description of the A-36 variant of the Mustang and saw the photo, same one as posted, which does not match the armament specs of the A-36A. The plane pictured in the Kodachrome has fittings for 2- 20mm canon in each wing and no 50 cal chin guns. There is a wiki link en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_P-51_variants#Mustang_Mk_I.2FP-51.2FP-51A on Mustang variants that mention the 20mm canon armament as either British contract Mk 1a or the first USAAF order as Mustang 1A. One thing for sure with all this searching I am impressed at the versatility and longevity of the Mustang airframe. Whatever Mustang variant the Kodachrone illustrates, the photo itself is still impressive 70 years on. Yea the undercarriage is very different between the P-40 and P-51. Bob
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jul 14, 2011 14:23:45 GMT -5
It's funny, I woke up this morning thinking I wasn't seeing the woods for the trees. Of course the tail and under belly air scoop don't belong to a P-40. All the above comments about P51/A36 are more accurate than my amateur ramblings. Looking up the serial number FD553 took me straight to the wiki-file mentioned by Alan. Peter, you spotted right with the civvies, but there is an answer (which I suspected), this is at the factory, not on a military base. Here is the answer, via Wikipedia: North American NA-91 Mustang fighters being serviced at North American Aviation at Inglewood, California (USA), in October 1942. After passing of the lend-lease act in March 1941, the USAAF ordered 150 NA-93 Mustang Mk IA fighters on 25 September 1941 for delivery to the United Kingdom. The RAF serial numbers assigned were FD418-FD567 (FD553 is visible on the left). For contractual purposes, these aircraft were assigned the U.S. designation of P-51 (USAAF serials 41-37320 to 41-37469). The Mustang IA differed from earlier versions in having the machine guns replaced by four 20 mm wing-mounted Hispano cannon. After December 1941 serials FD418-FD437, FD450-FD464, FD466-FD469, and FD510-FD527 were reposessed by the USAAF (and briefly named A-36A Apache).
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