Academy award-winning documentarian Errol Morris has been doing a blog about photography for the New York Times. He looks at truth and interpretation, and whether seeing is believing, and all that good stuff.
The latest few entries have been a fascinating look at his examination of the famous photo “valley of the shadow of death”. Specifically, he posts two photographs, one with cannonballs all through the landscape, and one with a dearth of cannonballs, and asks “which photo was taken first”.
If you enjoy photography, mythbusting, or academic dick measuring, you might enjoy these entries.
He, and his readers play detective. He talks to numerous scholars, reads notes written by the photographer, discusses psychological clues, etc. It’s fascinating.
Absolutely fascinating, as well as maniacally detailed.
Whichever is the correct solution, and I have now drawn my own conclusion, it just goes to show how “Chinese whispers” works, with authoritative voices repeating speculation as fact.
having read and looked at both my best guess is that the on photo was first. there are a hell of a lot more balls in on than in off. it doesnt make sense that 2 guys could bring that many balls from off camera or for that matter Would bring that many for a fake shot.
as for the why he didnt comment on what was going on…my guess is that he just assumed people would know they were being harvested. it had to be a common practice back then. I mean who the hell would spend the time and effort to make new balls for every shot when you are just throwing round iron balls back and forth. its just to easy to reuse a cannon ball vs making a new one. also I seriously doubt he even gave it a second thought as to how history would think about those photo’s he just took them.
At first I thought “Hmm, this could be quite fascinating”. And then I started reading and I very quickly realised that I don’t give a rat’s patootie. Way too much information for what ought to be some minor experiment.
The question of how we know what we know, given the layers and layers of filters and competing agendas sitting between ourselves and the basic facts of history, is hardly minor.
It’s rather obvious that they were “on” first, and the “off” photo was the second.
At least, IMHO.
If you look at the “on” shot, just above the caption word “photo” at the bottom, there are two cannonballs. There are also two cannonballs just above the word “by.” There is also one just above and between these two groups, if you look just above a bit the word “Restoration.”
Now, if you look at the “off” picture," these have mostly disappeared. And why would they not be there any longer in the “off” picture??? Why, because the British troops had harvested them, along with the low-hanging fruit balls on the road. If I’m an army grunt, and assigned to picking up heavy iron balls and tossing them on a cart(which is obviously on the road, not in a ditch), then I pick up the usable balls which are easy. I ain’t walking twenty feet off the road to get one.
So, the Brits come along and pick up the volley out in the road, and a few more easily reached ones on the shoulder.
The possibility that he was actually under fire. Maybe.
But, I’m not sure.
The comments are very interesting. People have made the speculation “there’s more in the road AND the ditch in ON, so clearly the balls were harvested”.
But, some people seem to think that’s a flash in the upper left indicating that perhaps they stood there – just out of range? – as balls rolled up. For instance, comment #59 in Part Two.
The sunlight on the balls seemed to be inconclusive, and conclusions can be switched depending on whether they were facing north or south.
Morris claims he found the exact spot, and that Fenton was facing north (or NW).
I don’t know ANYTHING about that photographic process. How long is the exposure time, for instance? Some of the balls in the ON picture seem to have more blur than others. There do appear to be plumes of dust on the hillside.
“Under fire” has limited meaning here. As Baldwin said, “The ravine was a place where the Russians feared a surreptitious attack would be launched on a position of theirs and to forestall that, they shelled it periodically regardless of whether there were people there.” That spot does not appear to be directly viewable from the Russian batteries, thus Fenton had time between bombardments to set up his equipment and take a picture. So much time that the camera, if it were moved at all between exposures (I can’t be sure from the cropping), it was moved just a short distance. Exposure time in sunlight like that would probably be under half a minute, but the real time consumer would be in setup and preparing the plate.
The dirt appears to be lighter in the “off” shot where some of the balls are located in the “on” photo, which makes me think it was disturbed by the balls or removing the balls , so I’m going with “on” as the first. And with all those balls sitting on the surface, I’d say this spot was at the extreme edge of the cannons’ range and the balls had bounced or rolled to a stop there. As in-danger as Fenton felt there, the real hot spot was a wee bit further north. That is no reflection on his courage–nobody else wanted to be any closer to the batteries, either!
FWIW, I posted on this last month and got no replies. I’m pleased to see it doing better now.
What I’m still taken by is how seemingly reasonable Sontag’s conclusion is. Why is that? How badly does it infect my everyday thought? To what extent can I control it?
It’s because she played on the current meme that all news is, to one extent or another, managed. Don’t worry. She’s dead and won’t do that to you anymore.
Sorry Hawthorne. I must have missed your first post.
I read the original piece by Errol Morris, and even typed up a post myself before going, “nah”. But after part 2, and the better photos came out, I thought it was a bit more riveting.
The more I think about it, the less I realise the conclusions I drew make a strong argument one way or the other.
My feeling is that, given the task of clearing the balls off the road, either to allow vehicular movement, or for the purposes of a manipulated photograph, it would be far more likely that they would be kicked into the gutters at the side of the road.
Further, if people were commissioned to scatter cannonballs on the road, they’re far more likely to grab them from the gutters at the side of the road, since they’re the closest and easiest.
Therefore I reckon that either they fell following a bombardment, or they were harvested.
I’m going to get really nerdy with photoshop, and count the balls etc. to see if I can form any more half-assed conclusions.
Yeah, same here. After clicking among the links I lost track of what I was looking at and why. Of course, some days I have only enough intellect remember to breathe, so maybe this is one of those days.
His other ones are interesting, too. But, this one is the best so far, IMO.
Links on the right hand side of that column to his other essays, one centered around a photo of the Lusitania, and one about the famous hooded man photo from Abu Ghraib.
Agreed. I wasted a lot of my employer’s time this morning reading some of this, and among everything else, I just really enjoy his writing style. Hopefully if someone has no interest in this, they can determine that in the first couple paragraphs rather than having to read both articles plus the comments… because that can take a while.
