Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Sweet vs Pellegrin

Photo: Ozzie Sweet


Honestly, I never heard of Ozzie Sweet till this week; then I read the very first paragraph of this NY Times article, and... deja vu all over again. No, it's not exactly the same as Mr. Pellegrin's modern day misadventure- then again, it pretty much served the same purpose (filling a visual gap by blurring both identity and reality). Mr. Sweet's Newsweek cover sold us near total fugazi; Pellegrin on the other hand, makes us more active participants in our own deception- there's just enough real weed in that oregano to take the novice unaware.



Reminds me of the old Johnny Carson joke: "Would you have sex with me for a million dollars? Well... yeah, of course. Would you have sex with me for five dollars? Hey, what kind of girl do ya think I am? We've already established that, we're just arguing about price."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is nothing new in photography? Reminds me of the Barnados picture of Florence and Eliza Holder.

http://colinpantall.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/did-goya-dehumanise-war.html

Stan B. said...

As you well point out- is there nothing new in all humanity...

Eric Rose said...

From what I can tell he was a photographer not a journalist. The journalists that used his faked pics, now that is another story.

Stan B. said...

Right on both counts- but what does it say of anyone who purposely stages a photograph in order to knowingly sell it to a... journalism mag.

PS- Actually, I'm inclined to just laugh this one off!