The College Years

Many of us have been on one side or the other of this exchange: back in 1980, fellow Occidental College student Lisa Jack asked her classmate Barry Obama to pose for a roll of pictures for her portfolio. She went searching for the old negatives when he became a candidate for president, but she put them in a safety deposit box until after the election so they couldn't be used for political purposes. TIME magazine has a slideshow.

Keep those old negatives!

Inauguration Satellite Image
And here's another really wonderful photograph—a picture of the capital Mall from space, taken just before the Inauguration yesterday, that you can scroll around in and zoom in on. Fun, although the clots of crowds look vaguely like patches of microbial growth.

Mike
(Thanks to Joe Cameron and Randall Teasley)

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Comments

[Tanya Plonka]

Those are wonderful!

In my vault I have photos of the winner of the last Canadian Idol at an early performance of his, and I'm glad I kept them even though I wasn't all that impressed with the pictures I took. (Time to rework them in Photoshop!)

[Kurt]

I only wonder - what if Lisa Jack had a roll of film of a young Sarah Palin that she uncovered prior to the election? Would she have kept it secret? I hightly doubt it. The fact that she now publishes these photos after the election, enjoying the recognition but minimizing the possible negative impact of her phots seems unethical to me. For me it summarizes perfectly how the press overlooked Obama's vast inexperience and questions about his past - nothing could stand in the way of the dream - no matter what.

[Kurt]

The more I think about the young Obama photos the more wrong I think this is. These are being published in a news magazine. Therefore they are being considered news - right? These photos were purposely held back from publication until after the election to minimize possible damage to candidate Obama. This is not just unethical this is dishonest.

[Andrew]

Mike,

You say "Fun, although the clots of crowds look vaguely like patches of microbial growth."

Fine Description :-)

[Mike C.]

If nothing else, this may give some insight into what an older, wiser Hendrix might have looked like ...

But ... "Barry"??

[John Roberts]

To me, this satellite photo makes the crowds look much smaller than the TV camera view from the Capitol building. It's still a bunch of people, but the crowd looked more dense on TV.

[Ger Lawlor]

Anyone know what sensors and lens's these satellite cameras use? - Probably wont see them on DPreview any time soon......

[Joe]

My 17-year-old son was in one of those crowds at the mall in DC. I asked him why the people were gathered in huge clots like ants around crumbs rather than spread out evenly. He explained that huge screens were placed about the mall so the crowds could follow the inauguration.

[Michael Johnston]

Kurt,
You're right, publishing a handful of pictures of the candidate as a freshman in college would definitely have thrown the election the other way.

Translation: what the heck are you talking about?!?

Mike J.

[Michael Johnston]

Mike,
"Barry" was the nickname Barack Obama went by for much of his youth.

Mike

[Nick]

Obviously a hat wearing, smoking, Cuban sympathizing socialist! She would definitely have thrown the election to the other side with these scandalous pictures... Woe be unto the United States now that it is obvious that we have a Panama hat wearing freshman as our President. Oh gloomy portent!

:)

More to the point- I have all my digital files since 2004, when I went digital, I have 2 backups of them, one of which I keep meaning to take off site, and I full intend to keep all my files for perpetuity. That being the case, will I be able to read JPEGs or various RAW formats in 2034?

[Bill Bresler]

What I still want to see are photos of George W. when HE was in college.

[Robert Noble]

Not to beat a dead horse (whatever that means), but I'm guessing that had they been published before the election, Lisa Jack's photos would have only *helped* Obama with the "change"-oriented constituency, not hurt him. Those who find his entertaining freshman-year photos troubling or negative in some mysterious way are those who wouldn't have voted for him under any circumstances anyway.

[Mike C.]

""Barry" was the nickname Barack Obama went by for much of his youth."

Well, I sort of worked that out, but even so ... Maybe "Barry" sounds different over here, where it has a sort of golf club, suburban, regional sales manager kind of ring to it. It's a bit like when you first discover that Keb Mo is the artist formerly known as "Kevin Moore". Again, maybe "Kevin" works differently over here...

[ctein]

Dear Kurt,

You've got to be kidding, right? You are saying it's OBLIGATORY for any photographer who has photographs made at any time of an important public figure to present such photographs to be published?!

That's ludicrous. My work is not a matter of public record. I can do with it as I choose, as a private citizen. If I think my photographs might be used in ways that would be detrimental to my interests, it's my choice not to provide them. (Not that anything like that has been remotely proven in this case; you have built a notably flimsy case.)

It's a different matter if a news agency already has those photographs and decides not to publish them. Then you can argue about their motivation and whether they should've made them public. But a private individual? Nonsense!

Mind you, I would have done just the opposite from Lisa. If I discovered I had photos in my archives of someone important like that, I'd get them into the hands of a good agency as fast as possible. They'd be worth money to me! And honestly, historical photos don't throw things much one way or another. Not ones as innocuous as these, anyway.

And I wouldn't wait until after the election. Obama, the presidential candidate makes the photos worth a lot more than if he turned out to be Obama, the LOSING presidential candidate.

This is not making me any more or less ethical than Lisa. Just greedier [ grin ].

By the way, a news flash. The election is over. Continued griping about his "inexperience" is a waste of time. Wait and see what he does. If he does smart things, then it turns out you were wrong. If he does dumb things, then you can chortle that you were right. But until then, such assessments are now profoundly irrelevant

~ pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. MacSpeech in training! ]
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-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com 
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com 
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[Kurt]

I don't think the young Obama photos would have changed anything. I was more concerned with the actions of the photographer and Time magazine. The photos were published in Time which I would assume means they are "newsworthy". But as you state in your post, Lisa purposely held back newsworthy photos because she was worried what impact they would have. That seems unethical to me. Secondly, if Time knew this and published the photos post election are they not participating in action of suppression?

I guess as a Republican and seeing the way Palin and her family were attacked at every opportunity by the press and then to see Obama, who was even less experienced than Palin, get a free ride from the press is a little fustrating. People say that the press is not biased. I read these stories and think how could they even think that?

[Mikal Grass]

Nick,

It is doubtful, especially if the photos are important. All kidding aside, I would imagine that they would be readable in 2034. If you are alive in 2034.

Kurt, what is the big deal about the photos? They aren't newsworthy, and will never be newsworthy, regardless of where they are published.

Mikal

[Michael Johnston]

"People say that the press is not biased. I read these stories and think how could they even think that?"

Kurt,
The further you are to the right, the more there is to the left of you.

And that works both ways. I'm pretty far to the left, and the press seems almost intolerably right-wing to me. I'm aware that that's partly a matter of my perspective.

Mike J.

[ctein]

Dear Kurt,

Lisa is a private citizen. She's not a journalist, she's not even a professional photographer. What possible obligation do you see her having to publish her photos during the campaign?

The press didn't have a say in that. Whether you think they're biased or not, they don't even enter the discussion.

pax / Ctein

[jedrek]

I'm not sure why anybody assumes Time knew about this - as a weekly it's lead times are so much shorter than 2 months (lest we forget, that's how long it's been since the election). Also, Lisa Jack didn't say she didn't want them published before the election not because they would hurt Obama, but because she didn't want them used for political purposes. I can totally respect that.

This is actually one of the reasons I oppose releasing photographs as CC - you lose control of them, while your name is still linked to them. It's exactly what would have happened to these images.

[EWilcox]

Lisa Jack's pictures of Obama are so well done. Lisa Jack did a great job. I found this place to buy Obama Keepsakes with Lisa Jack's photos. See below:

http://www.123print.com/Obama-Keepsakes

Awesome!