There is no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Capa’s surviving negatives from D-Day were ever the subject of any emulsion sliding or melting. The slight image displacement on Capa’s film resulted from a mechanical problem commonly experienced in that era: Kodak’s shorter film cassettes caused the film to get transported slightly lower in the camera — exposing the emulsion around the lower edges of the top sprocket holes as they passed over the film gate. […]
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If Whelan or Young had done their due diligence by consulting photography experts to learn why the image area of Capa’s negatives had encroached on the sprocket holes on one side of the film, they never would have floated such an easily disprovable theory in public. The real reason the sprocket holes along one edge of Capa’s ten D-Day negatives became partially exposed had nothing to do with any supposed emulsion slide from when the film was processed and dried. The cassettes containing the film caused the problem. […] The last thing photography needs, at this point or any other, is a generation of students whose instructors viewed teaching not as a calling but as a sinecure. […] In evaluating photography’s newly-conferred academic respectability, then, it is important to take note of the implicit premises thereof. Wrapping the mantle of scholarly approval around a medium which has received the cold shoulder from birth is surely a significant attempt at redefinition. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Spring Fever 2015: Bits & Pieces
We’ve become the first culture to produce substantially more artists with professional aspirations than our system can possibly absorb. Though more egalitarian than most gatekeeping systems, the photo portfolio review system enables entry to a few while feeding the hopes of the many — “American Idol” writ small, if you will. No harm done, I suppose, and it keeps them off the streets. […]