Photos Tell the Story

 

Last week I wrote about using memoirs and other personal accounts to research a historical novel. This week I’ll cover the benefits of using old photos to supplement those resources.

Again I’m going to draw my examples mainly from the research I did for Desert Jewels because the War Relocation Authority hired professional photographers to take thousands of photographs during the removal and internment of the Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. The photos were presumably intended to show the country that the Japanese Americans were being treated humanely, but some, especially by Dorothea Lange, ended up being censored because they showed a different story. Fortunately, they have since been released and are available for historical research.

In most instances, the Japanese Americans were originally sent to assembly centers, which were intended as temporary homes until more permanent camps were built. The photo at the top of the page shows four children, presumably siblings, after arriving at the Turlock Assembly Center. Notice the tags they had to wear for identification but which also made them feel like a number rather than a name.

Then there is this photograph, showing the horse stables that were turned into makeshift “apartments” at Tanforan Assembly Center and were occupied for months before the families living in them were transferred to the Central Utah War Relocation Center, commonly known as Topaz. As you can see from the photo, living conditions at Tanforan were not humane.

The third photo is a panoramic view of Topaz. Several families were crowded into each of those barracks. Worse, the desert was a desolate setting for the Japanese Americans, most of who were used to the lush vegetation of western California.

Or to use a research example from another book, here is how downtown Chicago looked a day or two after the Great Chicago Fire had burned itself out. (The photo shows the corner of State and Madison.)

Memoirs and other personal experience accounts are the most important research sources, but photos can supplement that research by providing a more a vivid picture (literally and figuratively) of what life would have been like.

And that makes them another valuable research tool.

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Dorothea Lange took the first two photographs and Francis Stewart took the third. All three are in the public domain because they were taken by War Relocation Authority photographers as part of the photographers’ official duties as employees of the United States government.

The last photo is in the public domain because of its age.

It's Still God's Beautiful World

It’s easy to get depressed in the midst of the pandemic, but there is a lot to celebrate, and I’m reminded of it every time I take a walk. In an effort to cheer up everyone (including me), I’m posting photos I have taken since the “shelter in place” order took effect. As you can see, it is still God’s beautiful world.

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The photographs are all © 2020 Kathryn Page Camp.

When a Photo Isn't Worth a Thousand Words

Unaltered photos don’t exactly lie, but they can mislead. Consider this series of library photos taken by Dorothea Lange at Manzanar, California on July 1, 1942.

First, let me make it clear that I don’t believe Lange had any intention to mislead. To the contrary, her photos show a real desire to generate sympathy for the Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. As noted in last week’s post, many of her photos show the miserable conditions they were consigned to. She also personalized them with photos of family groups and children or ones showing them improving the camps on their own initiative.

I’m assuming Lange took the library photos because that’s the assignment she was given. But the captions she added had subtle messages contradicting the subject matter. Take the above photo. It appears to show a man comfortably reading (but note the crate for a chair) in a well-stocked library. And at first glance, that’s exactly what the caption says:

A barrack building has been turned into a library at this War Relocation Authority center for evacuees of Japanese ancestry. A trained librarian of Japanese ancestry employs modern techniques in the management of this library which already contains a large stock of books donated by friends.

“A large stock of books donated by friends.” In other words, the government didn’t take any responsibility for stocking the library. The caption with this photo makes it even clearer.

The Main Library of this War Relocation Authority center. The Librarian is a graduate of the University of California Library School and employs modern library techniques. All books have been donated. [Emphasis added.]

Many donations were used books that people simply didn’t want, so the library collections at the camps weren’t nearly as varied as at public libraries and couldn’t meet the demand for popular reading material. And the donated magazines were probably more outdated than the ones you find in your dentist’s waiting room. The lack of variety comes out in the caption of this next photo.

A corner in the library at this War Relocation center for evacuees of Japanese ancestry. This section contains books in the Japanese language, most of which are translations of English classics.

Since books written in Japanese were confiscated before or when the Japanese Americans left their homes, Lange’s caption tells us that they had no access to books with their own cultural stories and history.

Taken alone, these photos imply that the U.S. government was taking good care of the Japanese Americans it had incarcerated against their will. But the real story—or at least part of it—comes out in the captions.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but those words can be misleading even without Photoshop.

So be skeptical.

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All photographs in this post were taken by Dorothea Lange. They are in the public domain because she was a War Relocation Authority photographer and the photos were taken as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government.

Is That a Flaw I See?

I spent a nervous Thursday and Friday waiting for UPS to deliver copies of In God We Trust so that I could sell them Saturday and Sunday at book sales events connected to a writers’ conference. I didn’t relax until they arrived at mid-day on Friday.

After they arrived, I inspected them. It was the first time I had seen the book in hard copy, and it looks great. Then I took a closer look at the picture on the front, which I took in Wisconsin in 2010, and my heart sank.

Looking above the chimney on the right-hand side of the picture, I saw a thin line. I must have had a hair on the lens when I took the picture, and I hadn’t noticed it before. There was nothing I could do about it for these first thirty copies, but I decided that as soon as I had time I would remove it from the picture and redo the cover. And once I saw the blemish, I couldn’t unsee it.

At the mass book signing on Sunday, I sat next to a friend and fellow author, Michael Poore. He complimented me on the cover and the photo, so I pointed out the flaw.

Then he did what I should have done myself. He took an even closer look. Where I saw a hair on the lens, he saw a bare branch hanging from a tree. But I couldn’t give up on the idea that I had used a dirty lens, so I noticed and pointed out the dot you can see farther up on the right, just below where the tree branches cross the steeple. Mike said it looked like a single leaf hanging from another branch.

When I got home and enlarged the original on the screen, I discovered that Mike was 75% correct and I was 100% wrong. What I thought was a hair is indeed a branch. The dot is not a leaf but is something (probably a light fixture) attached to the steeple by a long metal rod. But neither of them are flaws in the picture, and neither are my fault.

It’s so easy to see what we think are flaws when they are just part of the scene. I may be convinced that I received a rejection letter because my story isn’t good enough. Or you may think you missed out on that job opportunity because you blew the interview. But maybe the story just wasn’t a good fit for that particular magazine and God has a better job in mind for you. Sometimes we just need to trust and move on.

But now I have a different dilemma. Should I try to brush the branch and the light fixture out of the photo so that others don’t see them as flaws and think I messed up? Or should I trust my readers to view the picture with Mike’s more discerning eyes?

What do you think?

Photos are Creative Works

This isn’t the blog post I intended to write this week. I had a totally different topic in mind. So why am I postponing it for a week or two or possibly three? I found the perfect picture to use with it, but the photo is copyrighted by someone other than me. So Friday I sent a request for permission to use the photograph, and I’m deferring the post in the meantime.

But that makes this a good time to remind my readers—especially those with their own blogs—that the copyright laws apply to photos, too. And just because you can find it on the Internet doesn’t mean you have permission to use it.

The following post originally appeared on the Hoosier Ink website on October 25, 2012. I have made a few very minor edits.

Photos Are Creative Works

As with anything else, photographs must have some minimum creativity to enjoy copyright protection. But almost every photograph qualifies.*

Consider the above picture of Autumn colors, which I took in October 2012 at Crapo Park in Burlington, Iowa. I didn’t create the subject, nor did I stage the picture. But I did choose the camera settings and select the scene that filled the frame. I even get credit for being in the right place at the right time.

Then there’s the second picture, which I used in my September 27, 2012  Hoosier Ink post on art versus science. The posed subject may not look very creative, but the copyright laws say it is. The first holder has a candlestick in it to demonstrate its function, and the second is empty so the viewer can get a better idea of its design. All purposefully done to make a point.

Because both photos meet the standards for creativity, you can’t use either without my permission.

There is a distinction between natural subjects and posed pictures, however. I can stop you from using my photo of the leaves in Crapo Park, but I can’t prevent you from going there at the same time next year and taking your own photograph. With a posed picture, I can keep you from copying the pose as well as the actual photograph. That’s because the subject is also a result of my creativity.

As with my photographs, yours are also copyrighted. That’s a good thing.

Because it isn’t just our writing that is creative.

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*For an in-depth discussion of the elements that make a photograph creative, see Mannion v. Coors Brewing Co., 377 F.Supp.2d 244 (S.D.N.Y. 2005).