The Decisive Network by Nadya Bair;

Author:Nadya Bair; [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520300354
Publisher: University of California Press

FIGURE 88 “A Baby’s Momentous First Five Minutes,” Life (November 16, 1959), 110–111. © Eve Arnold/Magnum Photos. Courtesy of International Center of Photography.

At Magnum, the pictures earned Arnold double praise as both editorial and advertising work. The Paris bureau editor, Michel Chevalier, called the photo essay a prime example of “a good story, picked, photographed, edited, and distributed with care.” These were the kinds of photo stories, he explained, that sustained Magnum’s editorial income and that helped it earn more per story than any other agency in Europe.131 In New York, Inge Bondi saw in it a new way to promote the photographer to future clients. “Make your next baby an Arnold baby,” she wrote in a publicity mailing to her advertising network, attaching the Mennen ad for reference.132

While Arnold showed that advertising and editorial photography were not mutually exclusive, an advertising campaign seemingly gone awry led Elliott Erwitt to make the most famous news photograph of his career and of the Cold War. It happened in the summer of 1959 at the American Exhibition in Moscow—a giant fair organized by the U.S. Information Agency to show off the riches of American culture and make Soviet citizens think twice about their stereotypes of capitalist society.133 The fair included exhibitions of American art and photography (including Edward Steichen’s already famous Family of Man), fashion shows with American models, a multiscreen cinematic feat by Charles and Ray Eames called “Glimpses of America,” and a model American home with all of the latest appliances. Realizing a great promotional opportunity, American companies had lined up to send their toasters and washing machines to Moscow. Magnum, for its part, saw that the expo could yield infinite photographic possibilities, from publicity reports about individual exhibitors that Magnum could sell to the press as news, to advertising pictures for specific products.134 The agency wrote to a slew of companies advertising its services and even temporarily hired John Williams, a former public relations manager from General Dynamics Corporation, to organize Magnum’s Moscow coverage.135

When Elliott Erwitt went to Moscow that summer, he had an assignment to photograph Westinghouse refrigerators, but it is not clear that he succeeded in shooting the campaign or any other advertisements.136 Like his Magnum colleagues—Rodger in the Sahara and Arnold in the delivery room—he knew that there was much more to the story than refrigerators. With his photography permit secured, he turned his camera on Soviet visitors watching the fashion shows and studying displays of consumer goods.137 He was there when Richard Nixon stood in an American model kitchen and debated Khrushchev on the advantages of American consumer goods. Working alongside Life staffer Howard Sochurek, Erwitt snapped close-ups of the debate (fig. 89). Life published both of their pictures on August 3, 1959, pairing a shot of Khrushchev shaking his fist (by Sochurek) with one of Nixon in apparent retaliation (by Erwitt). Together the photographs gave readers a sense of how the event had unfolded—a sequential layout trick that Life publisher Henry Luce encouraged his art directors to employ as frequently as possible.

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