3D Image of the Flag Raising at Iwo Jima
In honor of Independence Day, here is a 3D image of the flag raising at Iwo Jima. We all know the famous photograph from World War II, but the filmographer who DIDN’T win a Pulitzer Prize, Bill Genaust, was standing right next to Joe Rosenthal. Using a frame from Genaust’s filming, we have documentation of a single historical moment in time from two different perspectives. You can use the two images to create a 3D image.
Read more here:
By juxtaposing Rosenthal’s photograph with the matching frame from Genaust’s film, it is possible to produce an authentic 3-D image of the Iwo Jima flag-raising.
For the first time, we can see one of the most iconic moments in U.S. military history with a real sense of depth and spatial relationships.
The 3-D effects are not the result of digital manipulation or computer trickery. They are based on the same photographic techniques that have been used to produce stereoscopic imagery for more than a century.
A 3-D photograph allows the viewer to see a single image from two slightly different viewpoints, mimicking the natural separation of human eyes.
If you were good at those Magic Eye stereograms back in the Nineties, then you’ll be able to view the image without 3D glasses here:
My whole life, I have seen the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima over and over so many times that it seems fake to me now. There is a whole debate about whether this flag raising was staged by the reporters so they could get a good shot of it. It has been proven that it this icon was the SECOND flag raising on the island.
The first flag raising was photographed by a Sgt. Louis R. Lowry.
Wikipedia has some great information on this controversy:
However, the photo was not without controversy. Following the second flag raising, Rosenthal had the Marines of Easy Company pose for a group shot, the “gung-ho” shot. This was also documented by Bill Genaust.[24] A few days after the picture was taken, back on Guam, Rosenthal was asked if he had posed the photo. Thinking the questioner was referring to the ‘gung-ho’ picture, he replied “Sure.” After that, Robert Sherrod, a Time-Life correspondent, told his editors in New York that Rosenthal had staged the flag-raising photo. TIME’s radio show, ‘Time Views the News’, broadcast a report, charging that “Rosenthal climbed Suribachi after the flag had already been planted… Like most photographers [he] could not resist reposing his characters in historic fashion.”
As a result of this report, Rosenthal was repeatedly accused of staging the picture, or covering up the first flag raising. One New York Times book reviewer even went so far as to suggest revoking his Pulitzer Prize. For the decades that have followed, Rosenthal repeatedly and vociferously refuted claims that the flag raising was staged. “I don’t think it is in me to do much more of this sort of thing… I don’t know how to get across to anybody what 50 years of constant repetition means.” Genaust’s film also shows the claim that the flag-raising was staged to be erroneous.
There are some that use the film and the photograph to prove that they hadn’t been staged, but I have never understood the argument there. I don’t believe that a member of the press can be independent and just document what is happening in a war or any other event. Just being there changes things whether you photograph, film or write about them. It’s like quantum mechanics. Anything observed is changed by the observation.
Did Rosenthal stage that photograph? I don’t care. It’s impossible to merely document history without becoming part of it. Staged or not, Joe Rosenthal documented a moment in history and deserved the Pulitzer Prize he won for it.