Wonkette
There has apparently been a raging mystery over the source of the SERIOUS Barack Obama photo in that HOPE poster we’ve all seen so many times that the only logical reaction, now, is to give the same Soviety red-blue Socialist Realism treatment to, uh, Bill Kristol. But the mystery is now solved! Turns out a Reuters campaign-trail shooter named Jim Young took the picture way back in January 2007. And even though Young was following the Obama campaign for the next two years — constantly seeing and even photographing the HOPE/CHANGE posters that were plastered to every vertical surface — he didn’t recognize his shot!
Philadelphia web designer Mike Cramer decided to look for the Historic Source Photograph and pretty quickly came up with the Reuters shot, used in a bizarre TIME piece about Obama not being black enough to get the support of black people.
In a hilarious preview of the next two years (and the next eight years to come), the weird column starts like this:
For all the predictable outrage Joe Biden’s recent comments about Barack Obama elicited, the gaffe put a spotlight on one of the more unfortunate forces fueling Obamania.
Biden, what a jackass! Anyway, the photographer, Jim Young, snapped the shot at the Senate, during confirmation hearings for John Negroponte to be the Torture Czar. This is why Obama looks so serious. He is confronting complete & total Evil, yet congressional decorum prevented him from hopping over his desk and planting a pitchfork in Negroponte’s nutsack.
Let’s see, what else? Ah, Jim Young is honored that his Reuters shot was flipped and posterized by the poster artist, Shepard Fairey.
Four months from now, Richard Cohen will write a Washington Post column about how this incident proves Barack Obama needs to subscribe to the print edition of the Saturday Evening Post, and make a blackberry pie like mom used to buy, the end.
MYSTERY SOLVED! The Obama Poster Photographer ID’d [Scene on the Road]
Are they going to send him a check?
Now Joe can hate Reuters even more.
The plumber, that is.
Dire squirrel: JOE THE JOURNALIST HATES JOE THE JOURNALIST. It’s like an ironic twist of irony. And Gay. Also.
seriously though, who didn’t realize it was just some Reuters photo?
Min: My understanding of Fair Use says “Probably not,” and it sounds like Reuters and the photog are fine — or at least realistic — about it.
american mutt: For those who thought about it at all, the assumption was that it was an official campaign photograph.
Glad someone cleared up the world’s most inconsequential and straight-up boring “mystery” ever.
Fairey is a thief?
Ken Layne: oh okay. i think during late 2006 early 2007 i was trolling around for so much obama info that i saw that photo at some point. also, fairey don’t get permission to do nothing. the punk.
shortsshortsshorts: As someone who haz teh gay, I’m going to have to protest that insult. We don’t want him.
Are they still accepting applications for Torture Czar
Does this mean I can’t use the term “ripping beefers”, which I think JtP trademarked? Not even for entertainment purposes, which is how the phrase came about anyway?
Wait a second, an artist who made his name doing guerilla art, STOLE a photo, flipped it around, changed it completely, and made a poster out of it? Shit, this can not stand. Is it too late to go back and change my vote to the Trig/Truck Nutz ticket?
I would much rather see a picture of Negroponte with a pitchfork in his nutsack.
Oh… Reuters.
Condiments-Only Diet: There’s really nothing more boring than journalists.
CollegeStudent: How street of him.
Ken Layne: Actuaries.
And nobody thought to ask Shepard Fairey? I’ll bet some editor did try to ask, but when he told his secretary to call Shepard Fairey he got connected to a gay guy in Tennessee.
I like the half-man, half-cyborg illustration in the article.
Soon wingnuts will be using that to prove Hopey was not born human!!!
SayItWithWookies: Or some Greek with a flock of sheep on a Mediterranean livestock barge.
It’s “value-added” art. Different work entirely.
CrunchyKnee: “Fairey is a thief?”
SHOCK OF THE CENTURY!
I’m glad that in this case the photographer is flattered, though it may just be a public response. It’d still be nice if he threw him a bone, but I doubt Fairey’d want to set that precedent now.
SayItWithWookies: It’s not fun to puncture a ‘raging mystery’ with an obvious solution.
yet congressional decorum prevented him from hopping over his desk and planting a pitchfork in Negroponte’s nutsack.
Well, heck, *I* crossed my legs when I read this.
Get this - Shepard Fairey has actually sued people for copying him.