A Face of Hiroshima

Writes Chris Dumm:

When I was in college, I was  introduced to the work of Richard Avedon, an artist and portrait photographer for Vanity Fair.

Avedon had an undeniable gift for capturing exactly what he wanted from the people he photographed, using nothing more than a neutral backdrop and black and white film.

At a gallery exhibition of his in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I happened across the following  photograph of Major Claude Eatherly. Mistakenly identified as one of the pilots of the Enola Gay, Eatherly was nonetheless involved in the Hiroshima mission, conducting weather surveillance in the Straight Flush an hour before the bombing.

The human costs of this crime must always be remembered, both in the victims and the actors. This portrait of Eatherly in 1963 deeply affected me — Avedon managed to capture the exact mood I’d hoped to imagine in one involved in wholesale State-sponsored slaughter. It remains my favorite picture. Avedon nailed it. It seems more than appropriate to share it with you today.

Thank you again for lewrockwell.com, a site I’ve been more than fortunate to read nearly every day for the past six years.

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8:42 am on August 6, 2012