4 ms·

We don't know (and in a sense can't know, unless we have separate first hand records) what was behind the black spots. Cigarettes? Disfigurement? Nudity? Famous

by l0b0 5y ago

We don't know (and in a sense can't know, unless we have separate first hand records) what was behind the black spots. Cigarettes? Disfigurement? Nudity? Famous people's faces?

ars 5y ago
These photos are mostly duplicates and poor photos. You can often find the missing info in the published versions. Don't buy the "censored" garbage the article is peddling, it's not true.
- the_af 5y ago
  Yes, the implication that it was censorship or a cover up is unwarranted. It's still sad that the censor felt it was necessary to completely ruin the photos in order to mark them as "not fit for purpose", why simply not use them? He didn't burn them up, so they still take up space, he just decided to permanently damage them. Some of the photos are obviously flawed or uninteresting, but others look good and even touching. Why ruin them?
  - ars 5y ago
    He was working off of negatives, so he marked the negatives he didn't want to publish. The negatives come as a long strip, so you can't just remove the bad ones. Presumably if there was an entire strip of bad ones, it would be tossed, but most of the time it was a mix, and it was a way to mark them. Not a great way, since someone else might like the photo, but I guess he saw zero value in the poor photos (basically the same as pressing delete on a digital camera - do you keep every photo you take, even bad ones?) Don't forget - he wasn't working off of "historical" photos, to him, these were present day photos, and easily replaceable. To us these are irreplaceable parts of history, but it wasn't like that to him. > It's still sad that the censor Editor, not censor - he was preparing interesting photos for publication.
    - BrandoElFollito 5y ago
      > do you keep every photo you take, even bad ones? Unfortunately yes. This is the problem with digital photos, at least on a phone: the effort to remove the bad ones is not worth it for someone like me who takes pictures occasionally and never looked at them anyway (this is why I do not take a lot either) I wonder if people who are not into photography actually manage their photos (sort, tag, prune)?
      - justsomehnguy 5y ago
        I have thousands of photos from 2005 to ~2014, lousily sorted by the year and some events, stored on a USB HDD. The last year I took a camera again, with a mobile photo too. After a couple of hundreds of shots and a futile attempt to manage them I understood what while some photos could be of interest for me a couple decades later, if I don't have a strong desire to save some exact shots now - I just wipe them all. Of course I found myself wanting to show a couple of photos half a year after I wiped them, but the value was in showing them to a person I unexpectedly met again, not in the photos themselves. I still don't touch my old library. "Some other day". Though if I manage to organize and merge my two NextCloud instances I would probably upload some of the photos to it for the safekeeping.
    - the_af 5y ago
      I don't disagree with you. > basically the same as pressing delete on a digital camera - do you keep every photo you take, even bad ones? I used to keep everything, now I make an effort to delete the crap or even redundant photos. I agonize over this, but I try to do it. Then again, most photos I take I never look at again in my life, which I'm guessing happens to many of us in the age of digital cameras. > To us these are irreplaceable parts of history, but it wasn't like that to him. Yes, this is the crux of the problem. Like you, I don't think this was censorship. I used the word "censor" because that's how the article frames it, but I agree this was an act of editing/choosing, not censorship.
- Ansil849 5y ago
  > These photos are mostly duplicates and poor photos. You can often find the missing info in the published versions. Where?
thunderbong 5y ago
It looks more like a hole to me. Maybe a punch hole?
pvaldes 5y ago
Many spots are centered and at a similar distance from the margin. The majority of hole positions would be random respect to the content, and much more directly linked with the paper puncher size and shape.

by l0b0 5y ago

We don't know (and in a sense can't know, unless we have separate first hand records) what was behind the black spots. Cigarettes? Disfigurement? Nudity? Famous people's faces?

ars 5y ago

These photos are mostly duplicates and poor photos. You can often find the missing info in the published versions. Don't buy the "censored" garbage the article is peddling, it's not true.

the_af 5y ago
Yes, the implication that it was censorship or a cover up is unwarranted. It's still sad that the censor felt it was necessary to completely ruin the photos in order to mark them as "not fit for purpose", why simply not use them? He didn't burn them up, so they still take up space, he just decided to permanently damage them. Some of the photos are obviously flawed or uninteresting, but others look good and even touching. Why ruin them?
- ars 5y ago
  He was working off of negatives, so he marked the negatives he didn't want to publish. The negatives come as a long strip, so you can't just remove the bad ones. Presumably if there was an entire strip of bad ones, it would be tossed, but most of the time it was a mix, and it was a way to mark them. Not a great way, since someone else might like the photo, but I guess he saw zero value in the poor photos (basically the same as pressing delete on a digital camera - do you keep every photo you take, even bad ones?) Don't forget - he wasn't working off of "historical" photos, to him, these were present day photos, and easily replaceable. To us these are irreplaceable parts of history, but it wasn't like that to him. > It's still sad that the censor Editor, not censor - he was preparing interesting photos for publication.
  - BrandoElFollito 5y ago
    > do you keep every photo you take, even bad ones? Unfortunately yes. This is the problem with digital photos, at least on a phone: the effort to remove the bad ones is not worth it for someone like me who takes pictures occasionally and never looked at them anyway (this is why I do not take a lot either) I wonder if people who are not into photography actually manage their photos (sort, tag, prune)?
    - justsomehnguy 5y ago
      I have thousands of photos from 2005 to ~2014, lousily sorted by the year and some events, stored on a USB HDD. The last year I took a camera again, with a mobile photo too. After a couple of hundreds of shots and a futile attempt to manage them I understood what while some photos could be of interest for me a couple decades later, if I don't have a strong desire to save some exact shots now - I just wipe them all. Of course I found myself wanting to show a couple of photos half a year after I wiped them, but the value was in showing them to a person I unexpectedly met again, not in the photos themselves. I still don't touch my old library. "Some other day". Though if I manage to organize and merge my two NextCloud instances I would probably upload some of the photos to it for the safekeeping.
  - the_af 5y ago
    I don't disagree with you. > basically the same as pressing delete on a digital camera - do you keep every photo you take, even bad ones? I used to keep everything, now I make an effort to delete the crap or even redundant photos. I agonize over this, but I try to do it. Then again, most photos I take I never look at again in my life, which I'm guessing happens to many of us in the age of digital cameras. > To us these are irreplaceable parts of history, but it wasn't like that to him. Yes, this is the crux of the problem. Like you, I don't think this was censorship. I used the word "censor" because that's how the article frames it, but I agree this was an act of editing/choosing, not censorship.
Ansil849 5y ago
> These photos are mostly duplicates and poor photos. You can often find the missing info in the published versions. Where?

thunderbong 5y ago

It looks more like a hole to me. Maybe a punch hole?

pvaldes 5y ago

Many spots are centered and at a similar distance from the margin. The majority of hole positions would be random respect to the content, and much more directly linked with the paper puncher size and shape.