Scene on the Road

Yeah, it was shot it here in Philadelphia when candidate Barack Obama delivered his speech on race back in March at the National Constitution Center. And now it’s been turned into a drawing!

***** JUST KIDDING ***** ***** JUST KIDDING *****

No, my photo was NOT used to create the cover of Time magazine’s Person of the Year issue (the artist used a photo by Time photographer Brooks Kraft). But see how easy that was? So why hasn't the real photographer who shot the photo that inspired the original Obama poster stepped forward to make that claim?

The illustration of the president-elect by Shepard Fairey is a variation of the artist’s instantly recognizable Progress/Hope/Change Obama poster. Fairey readily admits the poster started with a news photo he found in a Google Images search. I have been wondering since then what the photographer who made the photo had to say about the appropriation. But after countless searches on the web and an unanswered email to the artist, I have yet to find out anything about the photographic source of the poster.

It really is a memorable image, and I recall vividly my first encounter with the now-iconic poster in West Philadelphia last winter (below). I was so impressed, I actually crossed the street to get a closer look.

Seeing the Time cover on the newsstand last week, I was still amazed that nobody has come forward. Or if anyone has, I wonder why they haven’t received any noticeable media attention for it. Any readers see or hear anything? Any idea who the photographer is who shot it?

When fifteen nurses and twice that many sailors can claim to be the subjects of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s V-J Day hug in Times Square photo, you’d think a whole bunch of photographers would step forward - like I just jokingly did – claiming to have shot the Obama photo. There must be a dozen shooters who have similar images.

Fairey was the Rhode Island School of Design student responsible for those "Obey Andre" stickers of the graphic face of pro-wrestler Andre the Giant that were plastered on walls and signs all over America. Time included him in a photo essay a few years ago on street artists. He sees no problem with using work created by other artists and photographers and “repurposing” it as his own. He is often accused of plagiarism, but art critics often point out that Andy Warhol did the same thing.

Writing in the September issue of the Los Angeles arts magazine Bedlam, Kaelan Smith quotes Fairey saying, “I just basically went on the internet and looked for a good photo of Obama to work from…”So, I found an image that I felt had the right gesture, and then, of course, did my thing to it – re-illustrated and simplified it to this really iconic, three-color image.”

Included in the online version of the Time cover story is a video of Fairey talking about the illustration. Last summer, the Washington Post created an interesting graphic about the thinking that went into the original poster. Fairey’s Obey Giant website still has a downloadable B&W pdf version available.

Lastly, if you want to create a Progress/Hope/Change poster of your own, check out these two sites for help Fairey-izing your own photos:

David Wolbrecht, a graphic designer at the University of Washington wrote a How To guide for Adobe Illustrator-armed artists who want to emulate the poster. That's his Martin Luther King on the left. And Dubi Kaufmann, a programmer in Chicago created a Photo Booth plugin "as an exercise in pop culture." The software is a free download but he asks that you acknowledge him if you build on it (it only works on macs running OS X 10.5 Leopard). That's him Obamafied on the right.