Imaging Resource unpacks the mystery of Robert Capa's 'Mexican suitcase'

If you look at the images on the ICP website you can see that the printed text in top is wrong way round, but in the buttom the KODAK print is right way.

I think ICP know what they're doing :-)

The International Center of Photography provides many ways for like-minded folks to communicate. I'm sure you'd be free to be as pretentious as you would like.

It's clear that it's not a literal presentation of the negative chip. The film is a negative but the inset photo (stripped in, of course) is a positive image. I believe the container negative with the sprocket holes is what is called a graphic device.

I don't see why we need to point out errors that are not errors.

What kind of question is that. Of course they will. It's called replication. Nobody shoots to an SD once then stores it away like a roll of film.

Plus, many of our current storage mediums are likely to last longer than 50 years, but they haven't been out very long so we won't know for sure until another 40 years.

elihu I believe is right. One advantage digital has over film is that it gets copied and shared a good deal more than film prints did and to add to that, important images are copied and shared even more.

Today these photos would not have been lost in the first place. They would have been uploaded to an agency a day or two after they were taken, probably before the photographers left the war zone. The photos would have had a greater impact on society in the past 50 years if that technology was available back then.

And yes, I believe that Getty Images and other companies that archive photos will be around in 50 years in some form.

Today these photos would be insignificant as they would be dozens out of millions.

You are absolutely right taotoo. The threat against today's images is not if any (or most) of them disappears. Its al that do survive that is the real threat. Its simply too many.

Indeed, and not only did British writer Orwell write about the Spanish Civil War, but also Hemingway, who is of course American--in his celebrated novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls", which also made it into a well-known film featuring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035896/?ref_=sr_1

"Americans who were brainwashed by years of anti-communist propaganda"...? Communist regimes murdered 100-150 million people, taking and maintaining power.

Oh, yes, foreigners know all about Spanish politics and history! Oh, yes, by way of old novels and movies. And Americans were "brainwashed" to prefer a Spain that was neutral in WWII and pro-West during the Cold War, rather than a failed state disputed between Anarchists and Communists. Oh, yes, and it is well-known that the alterative to Franco was a progressive commune of artist-workers. A nasty brute, that Orwell, for having some qualms about that vision. To this day, many literati conserve quaint ideas of "the cause," judged on very scanty grounds.

Fortunately, both the PSOE and PP are more enlightened than their ancestors--and certainly better informed than foreigners, other than perhaps H. Thomas.

Unfortuntately, history is nearly always taught as hagiography, hero stories, or fables of light and darkness.

I see the dumb-brigade is out again in full force. Really, Maaku, you have obviously no idea what you're talking about otherwise you wouldn't repeat such outrageous and long disproved lies. You have probably never bothered to inform and educate yourself about history about Marxism, about Anarchism ... couldn't be arsed to read? Instead you have developed strong opinions on subjects you know nothing about. What has happened to you? Been robert-conquested? Been propagandized to the hilt?

Agree with Maaku. In hindsight, Stalin was at least as bad as Hitler, if not worse. While Capra, Hemmingway, etc. may have been idealists, the commies thought of them as "useful idiots" and uninformed, naïve "fellow travelers".

Count me as part of the "dumb brigade" but maybe you can enlighten me. How many of his own citizens did Stalin kill? How many of their own citizens did the Khmer Rouge kill? How many of their own citizens have the Communist Chinese killed?

A lot of stupid people here, how many has america killed? After all the us Wiped out two CITIES in japan with nukes, ripped teeth out of the japanese, and are now committing war crimes equal to stalins and hitlers.

"The Spanish Civil War is well-known around the world..."

Humbug. Poorly understood at the time, and even worse now. Exactly what is "progressive"? Spanish Republicans were quite divided and not all were innocent of attrocities. Check Hugh Thomas.

In America at least, the dumbed down and politically correct history taught in schools barely educates students about WWII, much less the Spanish Civil War of the '30s.

Joe is right. If you said "Spanish Civil War" to the typical high school student in the US, they would have no idea what you were talking about. And a majority would not be able to identify the country on a map. Non-US readers here would be shocked to know how badly education has been dumbed down in the USA. US readers already know...

Barney, I would say that the Spanish Civil War is "relatively" more well-known than Robert Capa and his Mexican suitcase, even on a photography website.

John (and Barney), I won't contradict you on the fact that the Spanish Civil War may be poorly understood. However, as for saying that complexity correlates with or even leads to obscurity, there are any number of examples to disprove this. One COULD say that complexity correlates with how misunderstood something is amongst the general public and that seems to be what you are saying. But that was not my point.

And yes, the poor state of education in certain countries was a point I was making in my original post.

I'd agree with NotSteve that the Spanish Civil war is quite well known throughout Europe at least, because so many families outside of Spain were touched by it. And anyone who has some interest in arts must have heard of Picasso's Guernica.

I think it would be better to describe those brave young people as Idealists. Their later betrayal shouldn't undermine the hope they represented at that time in a battle against Fascism.

Your post is irrelevant because the DPR post is about is about photography from the Spanish Civil War, not gratuitous, anachronistic, Cold War trolling. Plenty of places you can sow doubt about the need to oppose fascism elsewhere on the internet, mein Herr.

It's unfortunate that DPR thinks of itself only as a camera website. With a properly-developed side specialty in editorial photography for art's sake, DPR could raise awareness of photography itself as well, to the benefit of all concerned. Simon knows I have tried for over a year to make this work for you.