A few months ago, I made a poster for a client. It included many stock photos (purchased from Getty Images’ istockphoto.com service), including this one, of a woman in a military dress uniform.
Now, I thought I had done my due diligence at the time to make sure that it was a US military uniform (client runs a US-based company, caters to US-based clientele), but I don’t have any notes/bookmarks/etc. on the subject.
My client is in a meeting today. Meeting goes well, but after it’s done, his client takes him aside and says, “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but that photo [above] is kind of infamous.” My client didn’t know anything about it, and this fellow goes on to tell him that it was apparently used in a US Military recruitment ad, that created a huge controversy when it was revealed that the woman was actually wearing a NAZI hat. He told my client that he could search on Fox News’s site and find information about the story.
I have had no luck in finding anything about such a controversy. I’ve done many google searches, and made a futile attempt of searching on Fox News’s site (doing a search that includes “nazi” brings up dozens and dozens of stories … from the last month alone…), and nothing.
But … curiously, the image is no longer on istockphoto.com, as far as I can tell. Now, they went through a major site transition about a month or so ago (after my purchase), but I can’t find it in a search, can’t find it based on the serial number/original title of the image (“stock-photo-20584981-portrait-of-soldier-in-uniform.jpg”), can’t even find it in my download history or my lightboxes! I also have been unable to ID the hat itself—as being, say, a US Army cap worn between 1996-2000, or a USAF cap worn between 2002-2008, etc.
If anyone out there has any insight into the alleged controversy or into the hat (what branch uses/used this cap, and when; if it’s a fake prop hat; if it’s actually a Canadian armed forces cap, etc.)
