[HN Gopher] The story of the Tank Man photo by its photographer
___________________________________________________________________
The story of the Tank Man photo by its photographer
Author : js2
Score : 527 points
Date : 2021-06-04 18:07 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jeffwidener.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jeffwidener.com)
| iso1631 wrote:
| Tank man is popular today because somebody noticed
| duckduckgo/bing were censoring search results
|
| This was raised on HN [0] and immediately flagged by "long
| standing boring users of the site" [1]
|
| There was then another story about the Tank Man photo, which was
| marked as "dupe", despite never having been posted before
|
| As of now (1919 GMT) the original DDG bug hasn't been fixed
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27394925
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27397406
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27395028
| kelnos wrote:
| Looks like both DDG and Bing are showing results for "tank man"
| now. I do wonder what the reason for the issue was; while I'm
| sure many people would like to believe it's some nefarious
| China-directed global suppression, I would guess the
| explanation is far more mundane.
| stonogo wrote:
| The results they're showing are not of the famous picture of
| Tiananmen Square's "tank man" incident, however. Today is the
| 32nd anniversary of the violent suppression by the Chinese
| government of that protest.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| DDG, at the time of this comment, isn't showing results for
| the man standing in front of the tanks for tank man. Moderate
| search shows generic military hardware photos. Safe search:
| off shows no results.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| 6th, 7th and 14th result in image search for me.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I have him at 7th and 9th with safe search off now.
| iso1631 wrote:
| This comment was flagged, it's been unflagged.
|
| It's quite amusing really. I've spent too long reading the
| reddit share conspiracy nuts to imagine dozens of bot farms
| attacking such trivial comments on such inconsequential sites
| as HN (which was about the only https site I could actually
| load last time I was in China) to suppress knowledge of
| Tiannaman Square amongst English speaking geeks (rather than
| the far more mundane excuse that people don't like meta
| threads)
| seppin wrote:
| NH has been the target of Chinese state bots for a while now.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| yeah fine there's a thing about the search engines and the pic,
| that's an ongoing/current story. We don't need twenty posts
| about the tank man pic itself or the stories behind it that are
| either on here already/widely known/not news at all!
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Its a shame that Microsoft does not have a backbone. If I were a
| leader in the Biden administration, I would give Microsoft a
| lashing.
| josefresco wrote:
| Related: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=tank+man
| [deleted]
| ryanmarsh wrote:
| I thought this was referencing the other (based) tank man, Marvin
| John Heemeyer, who died 17 years ago today.
| Scheherazade wrote:
| Something smells off. Especially these sentences: " I never
| ceased to be awed by the courage of ordinary citizens risking
| dangerous rescues that immediately followed the massacre. Press
| reports had claimed hundreds or thousands of people had died
| during the military crackdown."
|
| Presuming he was right at the scene of action, why does he pass
| the buck to the claims of 'press reports'? And it's also
| suspicious the word 'massacre' is only used once before said buck
| passing.
|
| The tactics of the writing style are more akin to CIA psyops.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| There are a few different photographers who managed to get a
| picture of Tank Man from different vantage points.[0] There's
| also a little known street view angle which, IMHO, is even more
| profound.[1]
|
| [0]https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/behind-the-
| scenes-... [1]https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/behind-
| the-scenes-...
| belter wrote:
| To make it justice has to be seen this way:
| https://i.imgur.com/bGP9oKf.jpg
| seppin wrote:
| Wow.
| psychomugs wrote:
| I love the story behind Charlie Cole's alternate perspective,
| where he had to hide his film in a toilet tank.
| Dah00n wrote:
| I at first thought Tank Man meant the picture from the gulf war
| of a burnt husk of a human pictured while trying to escape a
| burning tank. Such a horrible picture.
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/dont-photograph-people-like...
|
| You forgot to mention that it's from the Highway of Death,
| where US forces bombed a retreating iraqi vehicle column to
| ashes. The death toll was zero on the US side versus 1000-2000
| on the iraqi side.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| It's remarkable to imagine how different the world might have
| been if the Tiananmen uprising had succeeded. Democracy with
| Chinese characteristics, or whatever. A true ideological and
| moral competitor to the West.
| vmception wrote:
| I used to think that but its important to note what they wanted
| to do democratically: more communism.
|
| The winning regime wanted to move away from many marxist ideas,
| and they did, with liberalization of the markets and private
| ownership. Although they retain the name "Communist Party" and
| they teach and exalt marxist ideals in their schools, they just
| teach that whatever the communist party is currently doing is
| marxist.
|
| The protestors in 1989 saw and predicted this lack of
| accountability and wanted to move towards the promised land of
| communism that no country has ever done, the promise which
| keeps enamoring new young people in every generation.
|
| The state said no and had also concluded those ideals don't
| make sense, and moved towards state capitalism which has been
| extremely successful with unprecedented growth for any country,
| but doubly true for one with such a large population.
|
| We would likely have worse relations with a democratic actually
| communist china.
| pjc50 wrote:
| This is possibly the most Operation Condor thing I've ever
| seen on here, the idea that it would be bad for China to have
| democracy and a less authoritarian, more accountable
| government .. because it would be less capitalist? Needs a
| lot more evidence and moral support than fits in a hn post.
|
| Also says some pretty terrible things about capitalism that
| it needs to be defended by crushing protests with tanks. And
| this is supposed to be an argument in its favor?
| vmception wrote:
| That's not what I said at all.
|
| I said it would be bad for US, which was the only opinion
| added to the post. There are no arguments for anything as I
| only wrote about the accuracy of what occurred. Maybe
| somebody else will entertain the conversation you want to
| have though.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| I have to disagree. Democracies are generally better at
| course correction over long time horizons. I think a
| communist democracy would likely do what capitalist
| democracies do: economically drift toward center.
| vmception wrote:
| Could be center like Vietnam, or shut in, destitute and
| hostile like North Korea, but most likely broken apart with
| some hostile regions like the Soviet Union
|
| None of these are democracies, just greater pursuit of
| communism which is what the protestors wanted
| BobbyJo wrote:
| North Korea and the Soviet Union don't qualify as
| democracies...
| vmception wrote:
| None of those examples are democracies, just greater
| pursuit of communism which is what the protestors wanted
| BobbyJo wrote:
| The point I was aiming at was that the benefits of
| democracy outweigh the blights of communism over the long
| term. You can argue whether or not that is the case, but
| North Korea and the USSR aren't examples to the contrary.
| vmception wrote:
| Are there any examples that support your thoughts? A
| transition out of authoritarian single party communist
| rule to democratic [single or multi party] communist
| rule?
| BobbyJo wrote:
| An example to support my thought would be a communist
| democracies becoming more capitalist over time.
| Unfortunately I believe communist regimes have been
| predominantly authoritarian, so I don't have any good
| examples. I believe there aren't any good counter
| examples either tho, so it's anyone's guess.
| dnautics wrote:
| > Democracy with Chinese characteristics
|
| Isn't that just Taiwan?
| smegger001 wrote:
| A Tiawan without the constant fear of being steam rolled by
| communist china. Tiawan with the industrial economic and
| military power of communist china, a Taiwan with the largest
| emerging market in the world. Imagine A world without a
| dictatorial military expansionist Communist China looking to
| dominate The South China sea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T
| erritorial_disputes_in_the_So...
|
| Or taking over their smaller neighbors like, Tibet, https://e
| n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_by_the_Peo...
|
| Or crushing political descent in Hong Kong. https://en.wikipe
| dia.org/wiki/Police_misconduct_allegations_...
|
| A China not trying to push their boarder with India,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-
| Indian_border_dispute#Bou...
|
| or indulging and supporting the sociopathic regime in North
| Korea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93North_Kore
| a_rela...
|
| A China that that doesn't disappear a religious leader of one
| of the worlds largest religions
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11th_Panchen_Lama_controversy
|
| and force the another to live in exile and demand that said
| religions leader reincarnation be aproved by the Chinese
| communist party
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Dalai_Lama#Exile_to_India
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_of_the_14th_Dalai_L.
| ..
|
| Or participating in a mass genocide of their people
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide
|
| Imagine a china the wasn't evil but tolerated because
| corperations can there outsource for cheaper manufacturing
| zomglings wrote:
| China in our current timeline is also a true ideological and
| moral competitor to the west.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| It's hard to consider them a moral competitor when they are
| an authoritarian regime in the midst of committing
| genocide...
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Just because you don't like their morality doesn't mean
| it's not popular. I also dislike it but denying that they
| are geopolitically competitive would simply be a refusal to
| face an unpleasant fact.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Is authoritarianism popular? Is genocide popular? I think
| your confusing to he popularity of China's money and
| facade with the popularity of their morals.
| WalterSear wrote:
| Both are popular.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Doubtful, otherwise China wouldn't be hiding their morals
| with propaganda like: "Everything in XinXiang is fine!"
| and "COVID originated in the US or Italy!!".
|
| If their morals were popular that wouldn't have to
| constantly lie about them.
| throwfurthaway wrote:
| as opposed to an empire that enslaved the entire world?
| cortesoft wrote:
| Isn't that exactly what would make a country a moral
| competitor?
| BobbyJo wrote:
| I've always thought of 'moral competitor's as someone who
| challenges another to improve their morals. If that isn't
| what was meant in the parent comment, then I am wrong.
| vmception wrote:
| That puts them on even footing with the "moral competitors"
| that are left to compare to
| BobbyJo wrote:
| I think Germany and France are good moral competitors,
| along with a good deal of Europe. Much better moral
| competitors than China for sure.
| vmception wrote:
| Interesting, so I understand you are looking at
| comparisons between this snapshot in time.
|
| For me it is not separable from their pasts because those
| nations would not have stability or the flexibility to
| make moral choices if they didnt successfully do immoral
| things to people they didnt like until they were either
| eradicated or everyone else finally got the memo to
| leave.
|
| Although it is uncomfortable to be aware of and
| powerless, there just isn't a history of intervention to
| think there will be one with China, or more accurately
| there isnt a history to suggest that this particular
| problem wont solve itself.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| It's not just 'now'. I think there is a reasonable time
| window to apply: the one that most informs how we can
| anticipate one to act in the future. While
| France/Germany/Europe has done wrong in the past, I don't
| think anyone is reasonably concerned about them
| committing genocide or starting a war.
|
| Secondly, I have to disagree that present day Europe
| benefits from past imperialism. Pre-imperialist UK and
| France were doing just fine. In fact, they were doing so
| well, they decided they could be doing even better by
| going out and taking over more of the world. It doesn't
| make sense to me to attribute their modern day successes
| to their imperialist past. Imperialism isn't on the table
| unless you're already doing great relative to the rest of
| the world. I think the US is a perfect example of that
| actually. We were arguably at our peak globally well
| before we began military interventions elsewhere in the
| world.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| This is a difference between peers and competitors. There
| are countries in Europe, the Antipodes, or Japan that are
| peers in the sense of having similar (or in some respects
| superior) and compatible moral systems. A competitor is a
| different and perhaps incompatible system that is
| nevertheless striving with ours.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| What confused me about your comment is what you mean by
| 'striving.'
|
| If our morals are competing, I take that as we are trying
| to win in the domain of morality, not that the domain of
| morality is a piece of the competition in the domain of
| global mind share
| fvdessen wrote:
| > not that the domain of morality is a piece of the
| competition in the domain of global mind share
|
| Haven't the 'best morals' always have been those with the
| most mindshare ?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I see the US and most Western countries as more
| individualist, liberal, democracies. China is more of an
| authoritarian, collectivist, technocrat model.
|
| These models reflect moral as well as political beliefs.
| The models are also not compatible - meaning we can't be
| both and the more of one the less there is of the other.
| This is the sense in which we have conflicting views and
| are striving against one another to promote our ideology.
| pknerd wrote:
| I hope you are trolling because Gulf wars, Bosnian War,
| Gitmo are few of the medals earned by Western democracies.
| wbl wrote:
| The only thing we did wrong in Bosnia was not stopping
| the genocide sooner.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| I don't consider the US 'the west', but if you want to
| pick favorites based on body count, I'd be willing to bet
| China still loses given the red army and the great famine
| that birthed it's current dictatorship.
| Aunche wrote:
| If you're counting deaths caused by unintended
| consequences of poor policy, one could argue that the
| west also is to blame for tragedies like the Great Famine
| because the policies that caused it were born from
| reactions to Western hegemony from the previous
| centuries.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Then you have to blame the countries themselves for
| allowing western hegemony. Poor policies are to blame for
| a small population of foreign actors being able to wield
| so much power over those regions.
|
| I think we have to judge a thing on its actions, or the
| arguments get rather circular.
| Aunche wrote:
| There is no Qing emperor to blame anymore for allowing
| China to stagnate and losing the Opium Wars. Meanwhile,
| the same governments who used forced projection to coerce
| China into allowing the import of Opium are continuing to
| abuse force projection to this day.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| They are only the same governments insofar as there have
| been no total revolutions. The people, laws, morals, and
| even constitution in the UK are different today than
| during the opium wars. Probably as much so as the CCP
| differs from the Qing.
| Aunche wrote:
| The governments may have changed to a certain degree but
| not when it comes to geopolitics. It took CCP two years
| to figure out that bad agricultural science was bad. How
| many wars will it take for Americans to factor the impact
| of asymmetric warfare on residents into their calculus of
| whether to go to war?
| greatemulsifier wrote:
| Wait... are you saying it's the colonized indigenous
| peoples fault that they were exploited and oppressed by
| their oppressors?
| BobbyJo wrote:
| No, I'm saying the great famine is no more Britain's
| fault than the opium wars are the Chinese people's fault.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| It wasn't the PRC who killed all those Iraqis.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| It's true. They haven't killed most people who've died.
| In fact, the CCP has killed less than 1% of all humans
| currently dead.
|
| Praise China!
| p_j_w wrote:
| People replying to this comment: beware of Fundamental
| Attribution Error when trying to differentiate when your
| country is responsible for deaths versus when another
| country is.
| smegger001 wrote:
| ah whataboutism at is finest.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
| echoradio wrote:
| I love thoughts like this. To play devil's advocate, how might
| it have impacted Cold War events down the road?
|
| There's a great book called "When the World Seemed New," by
| Jeffrey Engel about the monumental world events which during
| George H.W. Bush's presidency.
|
| Tiananmen Square took place ~5 months before the fall of the
| Berlin Wall. One of the points made in the book (and other Cold
| War-related texts I have read, though pointedly in this one)
| suggested the events in China really gave the (East) Germans
| and Soviets pause on how to handle a rising protest movement.
| It's still regarded as a bit of a miracle the Leipzig church
| demonstrations and the Wall falling occurred without bloodshed.
|
| Would a peaceful resolution in China have changed the ultimate
| course of the Cold War? I don't necessarily think so; Iron
| Curtain nations were already fraying. But it would have been
| very, very interesting if two major communist countries,
| nuclear powers fell in quick order in terms of economies and
| alliances.
| eunos wrote:
| Looking at how it turns out in Russia and middle east post-Arab
| Spring, I heavily doubt it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Looking at how it turns out in Russia and middle east
| post-Arab Spring, I heavily doubt it_
|
| We don't have a good model for predicting the outcomes of
| revolutions _ex ante_. But if we 're calling to the stage
| Russia and the Arab Spring, we should also make honorary
| mention of the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Japan and
| India.
| magicsmoke wrote:
| India is probably the best comparison to China due to their
| similar population and level of development post
| independence in 1950. It's also used on Chinese forums as
| an example of why China dodged a bullet with democracy.
| vzcx wrote:
| Imagine caring about ideology and morals in the middle of a
| political, technological, and martial competition.
| another_poster wrote:
| I believe China will become more democratic within a decade.
|
| As China becomes wealthier, sustained growth will become more
| challenging. The low-hanging fruit of state-directed
| investments like infrastructure and manufacturing will have
| been plucked, and the country will need private capital and
| human capital formation for continued growth. Private capital
| and human capital have a tendency to migrate to the most
| hospitable locations, which are modern democratic nations --
| places with independent courts that respect human rights and
| property rights; with independent media that allow the free
| discussion of interests, events, ethics, and information; and
| with governments that are responsive and accountable to the
| population's interests through elections. If China is seriously
| committed to growth (which appears to be the case), they will
| necessarily become more democratic.
|
| So why do I think the transformation will happen within a
| decade? Not many authoritarian nations exceed their current
| GDP/capita (except for oil rich nations), so the transformation
| will need to happen soon to maintain growth.
| garmaine wrote:
| Just look across the straits at Taiwan.
| axguscbklp wrote:
| Is there any good reason to think that the Tiananmen uprising
| participants, had they gotten power, would actually have
| brought about democracy? Given what had happened during the
| Cultural Revolution, I can understand why some Chinese would be
| uneasy about militant students. To actually shift a society to
| democracy may require much more than just a revolution led by a
| small vanguard. If society as a whole is not ready, such
| revolutions might tend to just lead to a new, worse
| dictatorship taking power. And this may be the case regardless
| of whatever genuinely good intentions the more humane
| revolutionary leaders might have - in practice, they may be
| just purged and replaced by brutal opportunists if the
| revolution succeeds.
|
| I also wish for a more liberal China, I am just trying to
| explore some of the complexities of such events. To be fair, if
| by "if the Tiananmen uprising had succeeded", you mean "if the
| Tiananmen uprising had made China democratic", then some of my
| points do not make sense. It is just that, based on my reading
| about history, I know that successful revolutions often lead to
| outcomes that are very different from what idealists who root
| for those revolutions have in mind.
| genericone wrote:
| The college students (cultural revolution) were useful idiots
| egged on by ccp leadership. And they were absolutely
| authoritarian btw, not at all democratic, so its a difficult
| comparison.
| magicsmoke wrote:
| More specifically Mao than the entire CCP leadership. The
| cultural revolution was an attempted coup by Mao to regain
| power after he was sidelined by his disastrous economic
| policies. It also really colored the viewpoints of the post
| Mao CCP leadership on populist movements. Specifically,
| Deng who was in charge during 1989 probably saw echos of
| the same students that exiled him into the countryside and
| crippled his son now marching again in Tiananmen square.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'm not sure the "militant students" framing is very fair
| here, but it's otherwise a good point - we saw in the Arab
| Spring that the end result wasn't really democracy, and it's
| a good question which way China might've gone.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >I'm not sure the "militant students" framing is very fair
| here
|
| You may want to re-read the article. There's at least one
| passage of a group of the protestors approaching a
| surrendering soldier with pipes, rocks, and other weapons.
| The reporter continues, "surely the man would be killed.
| There was nothing I could do to help him in the chaos."
|
| Perhaps the argument here is that the guy got what he
| deserved, but I think if you want to argue that it's okay
| to kill someone who's surrendering, you might be fairly
| classified as militant.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think there is a difference between militant
| "Hongweibings" and a street lynching. One is ongoing and
| organized with tacit approval from the highest ranks, the
| other an ad-hoc mob phenomenon.
| duxup wrote:
| I think there's reason to wonder about the outcome of any
| revolution. Proclaimed goals sometimes are just rhetoric and
| something else happens.
|
| But I think it is fair to take the student's and those they
| were inspired by at their word and theorize that China might
| have been 'more democratic' had the movement been embraced.
|
| But we'll never know for sure.
| [deleted]
| altcognito wrote:
| There were already existing models for democracy that
| students and those fighting for self representation could
| see.
|
| A better question might be; will China ever have self
| determination? Or will it always be a self selected leader
| with a "5 year plan"
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > self selected leader
|
| I don't think that this is an accurate description of the
| process for selecting the PRC's General Secretary.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Indeed. And history shows that often the problem isn't quite
| the first revolution, inspired by democratic values, but a
| subsequent revolution that takes advantage of the temporary
| power vacuum and institutes a dictatorship. One example is
| the October (Bolshevik) Revolution in Russia, which overthrew
| the nascent democracy that had been instituted earlier that
| year in the February Revolution. Another example is the
| Islamic Revolution in Iran after Khomeini returned from
| exile, which quickly wiped out the varied mix of Communists
| and other secular political forces that had overthrown the
| Shah.
|
| Even the first, democratic-inspired revolution can look
| pretty dangerous in retrospect. I am sympathetic to many
| ideals of May '68, yet at the same time I feel like Western
| Europe dodged a bullet, because the subsequent regime could
| have turned out very badly.
| nzmsv wrote:
| Not sure why the downvotes. Revolutionaries actually have a
| terrible track record at creating democratic governments.
| Russia got Communism at the beginning of the 20th century and
| an oligarchy at the end of it. More recently Egypt got
| religious fundamentalists. Revolutionaries having legitimate
| reasons to protest isn't a guarantee of a good outcome.
| croes wrote:
| Democracy with 1 billion people? Challenging. Just look at
| India and it's problems.
| dnautics wrote:
| I mean the us has 350M, what makes it categorically easier in
| a factor of 5, versus, say, Venezuela, which has a factor of
| 5 less than the us and is a failed state?
| duxup wrote:
| All government is 'challenging'.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Democracy
|
| It's the least bad system we have.
| vmception wrote:
| It produces average case results in efficiency the most of
| the time. Other systems produce the best and worst case
| results more often, in efficiency, specifically due to
| their lack of inclusivity. We know its better to have less
| cooks in the kitchen, you just better pray you have good
| cooks.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| Socrates might've disagreed. I can see why mob rule gives
| the illusion of consent when manufactured consent is
| needed. It's simpler to not have popularity contests for
| corrupt officials and instead have randomly-assigned
| professional administrators.
| ketanmaheshwari wrote:
| It is not about the count of people, it is about the
| diversity that creates problems. 1B people with same
| religious, ethnic background would do well. Compare that to
| 1B with hundreds of languages, tens of castes, and at least
| 10 religions on the other hand are bound to face problems.
|
| It could actually be argued that India has no business being
| a one country, should have been a union of countries a la the
| EU.
| jahnu wrote:
| It's challenging in the US with a lot less but still the best
| system we know of
| skeletal88 wrote:
| It is better in other countries where there are more than 2
| parties who have a chance of getting to power. A coalition
| government is better than the winner-takes-it-all system.
|
| The two party system creates an us vs them mentality where
| both are equally bad on most things but there is no real
| choice for the voters.
| jakeva wrote:
| aside from a benevolent dictator
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > It's remarkable to imagine how different the world might have
| been if the Tiananmen uprising had succeeded
|
| Yeah, they might have brought Larry Summers and friends in as
| well, and had their economy devastated as well.
| threshold wrote:
| Shame on Microsoft.
| zeeshanqureshi wrote:
| What an incredible story this is, an absolute must read for all.
| Dig1t wrote:
| Wow this is so interesting, I didn't know there were so many more
| photos of these events taken by this photographer. The image of
| the burning tank is especially striking.
| danbolt wrote:
| It's interesting to know how Jeff's innocuous camera didn't have
| autofocus at the time, not to mention how he was doing a lot of
| the ISO-related math when looking to take the shot.
|
| I've done manual black-and-white photography before with older
| cameras before, but I take pictures with my smartphone so freely
| these days it becomes hard to conceptualize the amount of work
| Jeff had to do.
| Aunche wrote:
| With street photography, the philosophy is "f8 and be there."
| Focus doesn't matter with a narrow enough aperture.
| psychomugs wrote:
| For leisure walks with wide/normal lenses <50mm, sure. For
| documentary work with an 800mm, with only ~10ft of depth of
| field from a couple hundreds of feet away [1], focus still
| matters.
|
| [1] https://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
| porphyra wrote:
| The Nikon F3 he used has automatic metering so I don't think he
| had to do any ISO-related math.
|
| And manual focus with its great split prism viewfinder isn't
| that hard, although obviously more challenging than autofocus.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| His F3 gets broken the day before the Big Photo and he was
| shooting with a manual back-up lens, according to the blog
| post.
| porphyra wrote:
| Oh I must have missed that, my bad.
| bentcorner wrote:
| It's astounding how difficult photography must have been back
| then. Today if you're trying to learn with a digital SLR you
| can take pictures and change aperture/focus/exposure and see
| the result and gain an understanding of how changing them
| impacts the picture.
|
| Back then you had to take an entire roll of pictures and it'd
| be a long time until you could see if you were "off".
|
| Equivalent is like the old days of punch-card programming.
| You'd better hope you didn't have any bugs because you wouldn't
| find out until much later when your job ran.
| wrs wrote:
| It wasn't really that bad. It didn't take much practice to
| get reasonably good results. Built-in camera metering worked
| well, and you got a feel for aperture vs. depth of field
| (sometimes that's even marked on the lens). If you were
| trying for a special effect you might have to do an
| experimental roll, but ordinary circumstances typically "just
| worked".
|
| Punch cards, on the other hand, really were that bad. :)
| [deleted]
| duxup wrote:
| I prefer a digital camera with the related speed, aperture, iso
| settings in physical button form. I have an old Fuji x100T that
| I like to use.
|
| It's not so much just getting the math right as much as what
| you're giving and taking with each setting. Your camera makes
| the decision about what the right math is, but there's a lot of
| possible 'right' settings depending on the situation.
| ISL wrote:
| The X100T is old? So, apparently, am I. :).
| duxup wrote:
| 6 years old in gadget years is like 60 I think ;)
|
| If we were in the age of film it would still be nearly
| brand new :D
| vmception wrote:
| Wait the tank man photo was taken after the first night of
| massacres!? Man I thought it was before
| lostlogin wrote:
| It really changes the context doesn't it? It's pretty
| incredible.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2016)!
| duxup wrote:
| It's such a powerful / stark image.
|
| After the horrors that occurred , one man who looks like he was
| going about their day stands in front of a column of tanks. For a
| little while he stops an oppressive the state, or at least a
| small bit of it ... and then like a lot of people involved
| vanishes and we just don't know.
| lostlogin wrote:
| It's all the more impressive that he did this after a night of
| the army shooting, killing and grinding bodies with tanks and
| APCs.
| duxup wrote:
| I think that's what makes it all the more poignant, there's
| still hope even after such horrible events.
| altcognito wrote:
| There was so much optimism at the time that China would reject
| communism and move to a model of self governance by its people.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Eventually that will happen. But the chances of it happening
| soon are now lower than before, because the Chinese powers that
| be are now hip to how quickly things can get out of hand. They
| have stepped up monitoring of their citizens considerably in
| spite of an outward appearance of openness.
| eunos wrote:
| > self governance by its people
|
| Aren't 90 million members of CPC Chinese people?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| cm2187 wrote:
| I imagine HN must be temporary blocked in China right now if this
| story is on the front page. Did someone submitted this as payback
| for all the pro-china comments on the covid lab-leak threads?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Please don't do this. Thank you.
| rkagerer wrote:
| "This guy is going to screw up my composition".
| giantg2 wrote:
| The first thought when I heard tank man was the guy that built a
| tank out of a bulldozer.
| hateful wrote:
| (2016)
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