Scene on the Road

(UPDATE: The source photographer is MANNIE GARCIA, a Washington D.C. based freelancer on assignment for the Associated Press in 2006. Click here for more.)

When I came across the "Save the Date" opening notice on James Danziger's blog for his show - "Can & Did - Graphics, Art, and Photography from the Obama Campaign" - I was immediately ecstatic.

I thought I'd finally found the answer to a question that has haunted me for months now: Who shot the photo the artist used to create the now-iconic Obama HOPE poster?

There, among all the graphics, photos, and paintings on the press release was a David Turnley photo of a smiling Barack Omaba, and right next to it - the exact same image on the Shepard Fairey poster!

Well, almost.

It was only after I started another unproductive Google session did it hit me that this wasn't the original poster, but the one created for Election Day. It was the fund-raising "VOTE" version.

But, now I was even more curious. I blogged last month on my puzzlement over why no photographer has ever came forward to claim credit for taking the picture that became the ubiquitous poster. I’ve fixated on it ever since, so I started asking around again.

David Turnley told me he did give one of his images to the Obama campaign and granted Fairey the right to work from his photo for the "VOTE" poster, but didn’t think the original poster source was one of his pictures.

I e-mailed James Danziger figuring he might know, but he said he too, was “mystified.” I also e-mailed the Fairey people, but they never got back to me - either this time or when I originally asked back when he did the Time magazine cover.

Danziger said he would be pursuing the question as well on his blog, which is well read in both the journalism and art photography worlds. So maybe we’ll get an answer before the inauguration.

One can always Hope.