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The Kiss that Ends the War

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This iconic photograph of a jubilant sailor kissing a nurse near Times Square has always held a special place in my personal history. To an aspiring photojournalist, it was a benchmark of great news photography. That it bordered on the contrived and was compositionally simple (yet satisfying), only added to its greatness for me. Behind the joy was Japan’s defeat, but it was the optimism so perfectly captured in this photograph that led my father to leave Tokyo in 1956 to do his medical internship in New York.

Anyway, yesterday I stumbled upon an interesting postscript to Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photograph in the archives of Life magazine. While I knew that Eisenstaedt had been anxious to get a great kissing image, shooting at least a half-dozen frames of other kisses in the crowds, I didn’t know that another Life photographer, William C. Shrout, captured Eisenstaedt, seen below with his shouldered Leica M3, getting a taste of the decisive moment himself.
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For photographers, who are basically voyeurs at heart, there’s often a tension between bearing witness and participating in the drama unfolding before your eyes. On August 14, 1945, Eisenstaedt had his cake and ate it. For more about the famous photograph go here.
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Bush in Tears

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U.S. President George W. Bush re-enters the White House East room to say goodbye to staff and friends after his primetime address in Washington, January 15, 2009. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)

This Bush photo, along with many others, are discussed on Errol Morris’ blog at the nytimes.com. It’s hard to feel sorry for the man after all the colossal mistakes he’s made, but this photo, taken right after his final public address to the nation, makes feel sorry for him. As one of the photo editors who talked with Morris said, it seems pretty obvious that Bush had been weeping right before he returned to the room to privately thank his staff and the press corps for the last time. Most of Morris’s Mirror Mirror on the Wall blog entry concerns the subtle role of photography as political propaganda and the way society--even presidents--have come to view images as aesthetic validations of history. The list of the Bush administration’s failures and lies and outright cronyist greed is just amazing, and Bush’s reaction to a lot of these photographs seems to confirm that he remains incapable of contrition. No surprise, given his genius for denial. Of course he did have one great success...

Anyway, this marks my last post about Bush--call it the final catharsis.
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Obama Inauguration at BAM

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BAM Obama Inauguration panorama
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The Tumor Was Finally Removed!

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It feels like a giant cancerous tumor has been removed. Thank god!
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Another of Snow on the Trees

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Snowy Night

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The Pintchik Oracle

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Obama Inauguration Count Down

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Marmaduke (Tomkins Square Park)

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Obama Fever in E. Village

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"Blow Out," 2009

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Mixed media: poop smear on turtleneck onesie. Edition of 1.
© 2009 Max Miles Takeuchi
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Contact Sheet: A Photo a Day

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Unfortunately I didn’t think of this until Max was a few days old. But I took out my beautiful Leica M6 and shot a picture of him everyday--just about. 36 frames from about August 24th until mid October.
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SoHo Vase

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Photoshop Grafitti

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High tech grafitti invades Berlin. In an effort to demystify the photoshopification of beauty, somebody has been applying large photoshop palette posters on top of ads in Berlin. More pix are here.
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Mochi Between My Knees

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Max's Eye and Mouth

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Max's Swirl

My father once said that a swirl of hair on a baby’s crown meant the baby would be intelligent...
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