Eideard

Rick Norsigian’s hobby of picking through piles of unwanted items at garage sales in search of antiques has paid off for the Fresno, California, painter.

Two small boxes he bought 10 years ago for $45 — negotiated down from $70 — are now estimated to be worth at least $200 million, according to a Beverly Hills art appraiser.

Those boxes contained 65 glass negatives created by famed nature photographer Ansel Adams in the early period of his career. Experts believed the negatives were destroyed in a 1937 darkroom fire that destroyed 5,000 plates…

The photographs apparently were taken between 1919 and the early 1930s, well before Adams — who is known as the father of American photography — became nationally recognized in the 1940s, David Streets said…

Photography expert Patrick Alt, who helped confirm the authenticity of the negatives, suspects Adams carried them to use in a photography class he was teaching in Pasadena, California, in the early 1940s…

While most of the negatives appear never to have been printed, several are nearly identical to well-known Adams prints, the experts said…

“I have sent people to prison for the rest of their lives for far less evidence than I have seen in this case,” said evidence and burden of proof expert Manny Medrano, who was hired by Norsigian to help authenticate them. “In my view, those photographs were done by Ansel Adams.”
Norsigian, who has spent the last decade trying to prove the worth of his discovery, is now ready to cash in — by selling original prints of the photographs to museums and collectors.

RTFA. Interesting tale in several chapters: discovery of the negatives at a garage sale; why had they ended up in storage in the first place; Norsigian appears to have been casual about validating the negatives until about 6 months ago; how they were authenticated.

The answer is always “No”. I hope I haven’t missed something.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Dutch twin brothers who mugged a teenager in the northern town of Groningen were arrested after being caught on camera by a car gathering images for Google’s online photo map service, police said.

The pair stole the 14-year-old boy’s mobile phone and 165 euros in cash last September.

“The picture was taken just a moment before the crime,” a police spokesman said.

In March, the victim recognized himself and the two robbers while surfing Google Maps, which has a “Street View” feature allowing users to see images of buildings. The images are usually taken by a camera mounted on a car.

After an investigation by the police, one of the 24-year-old twins confessed to robbing the boy.

Har!

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he may be willing to reconsider a ban on the photographing of slain soliders’ flag-draped coffins.

Gates said that he was ordering a review of the military policy that bars photographers from taking pictures of the return of the coffins, most of which go through Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, The New York Times reported.

“If the needs of the families can be met and the privacy concerns can be addressed, the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better,” Gates told reporters in Washington.

The policy was put into place in 1991 and has been renewed several times, most recently by the Bush administration a year ago. That’s when Gates raised the possibility of changing the policy, he said, but was told by unnamed administration officials that allowing photographers would put undue pressure on families to go to Dover themselves.

Critics say the coffin-photo ban is a political ploy meant to sanitize the unpopular Iraq war.

I’m one of those critics and no one should be surprised over the way that even the deaths of American military personnel wasted in Iraq were used to serve the sleazy political interests of the thugs who used to be in the White House. Everything was supposed to serve their purposes. Everything was a means to their holy ends.

Wil Gates have the integrity to tear down that wall?

Sharda Janardhan Chitikar, left, grieves the death of her two children in the terrorist attack
Daylife/AP Photo by Gurinder Osan

As I would expect, Daylife is doing the best job of collecting news photographs from the terror underway in Mumbai.

One Taliban fighter is clad in the bulletproof vest of a dead French soldier. Another proudly shows off a French walkie-talkie. Yet another wears a camouflaged French Army helmet.

A glossy six-page photo spread published in Paris Match and featuring a group of insurgents who say they killed 10 French soldiers in Afghanistan on Aug. 18 has reinforced uneasiness about France’s military presence there.

The spread reflected the Taliban’s media strategy of undercutting support for the war in Europe and raised concern about journalists’ giving insurgents a platform. Above all, it fed a broader debate about a war that is seen as increasingly protracted and deadly – and that is unpopular in several European NATO countries with troops on the ground in Afghanistan…

The 10 deaths were France’s worst military loss in 25 years. Since the ambush President Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly ruled out withdrawal of French troops…

But at home in France his words were drowned out by the emotional reaction of family members of the dead soldiers to the magazine report.

Chantal Buil, the mother of a dead soldier, wrote a letter to Sarkozy, pleading with him to withdraw from Afghanistan.

“Stop following the example of President Bush,” the letter read, according to the magazine le Nouvel Observateur. “Let’s stay French. Let’s get our soldiers out of the quagmire.”

Is self-censorship still anything more or less than censorship? I believe that political decisions should be part of pretty much every aspect of life – given how connected this world and life have become.

Click on photo for series

Through half a decade of war, a team of 100 Reuters correspondents, photographers, cameramen and support staff have strived to bring the world news from the most dangerous country for the press.

This is their testimony – bearing witness to ensure the story of Iraq is not lost.

Click on the photo to get to the slideshow.