Virtually everyone on this site will know the etymology of the name "Redan:" it was a mighty fortress defending Sebastopol against siege in the Crimean War. (As far as golf
holes named Redan, they will know the ur-hole exists at North Berwick.)
Has anyone followed the sleuthing by NY Times' blogger (ha!) Errol Morris on two photographs taken by Roger Fenton of the infamous "Valley of the Shadow of Death," during the Crimean War? Morris became obsessed to divine which photograph, taken in the shadow of the great Redan fort -- neat map in the blog -- came first.
So obsessed, in fact, he actually traveled there, located the original site, did tons of interviews, etc. etc.
In other words, a fellow obsessive-compulsive -- an "optically-stimulated" one to boot!
Getting the right order is no small thing, for the photographer, Roger Fenton, has suffered posthumous accusations of fakery and staging of these two famous photos of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
One shows cannonballs
off the road, (
click here to see OFF) another with cannonballs
on the road. (
Click here to see ON.)
The question / accusation is, did Fenton move cannonballs from the ditch ("OFF") to the road ("ON") for dramatic effect?
(Part 1 of Morris' blog is
here. For Part 2,
click here.)
Now, why am I sharing this with you?
*First, and most importantly, it is an absorbing read of a person's efforts not unlike many of those on this site. You will find a fellow traveler in Morris: for the first two-thirds of the story, I kept thinking, "Why does he care so much? It's just a few stupid cannonballs." But then as I thought more, and he shared his motivations, I came to deeply appreciate his need (obsession) to uncover the truth. This is a man seeking to defend the reputation of another man who cannot defend himself ("old dead guy") against those who have not done the legwork to uncover the truth but rather assign motives to Fenton where none may exist. Morris's determination I think helps legitimize what many on GCA.com attempt: truth-hunting, when drawn from evidence and facts rather than speculation and accusation, is a noble exercise.
*Studying the photos (read the reader comments for pointers) has been an excellent exercise for honing my photo-reading skills -- and for imparting two valuable lessons: 1, don't assume things, assign motives, etc., use the evidence at hand (e.g., the photographic record), BUT also 2, don't overstate the evidence
that appears in the photograph. I have to warn you, if these two photos can lure one OCD guy into the mystery, it can lure another!
*I got a mini-history lesson in the siege of Sebastopol. I will never hear the word "Redan" in the same way again. I hope I don't trivialize it again yet associate it with golf hopefully, a little like David Owens' observation that "nations who play golf don't go to war with each other." I would love to know how a symbol of this terrible war came to be associated with the name of the hole at North Berwick. Who first labeled it that? It must have been a veteran, yes? Surely
his intent wasn't to trivialize that horrible war but memorialize it. Why did it stick instead of fade away? What does it say about the game of golf, and human nature, that such a name could stick? We don't go around calling holes "World Trade Center" or "Bloody Lane" (Antietam): the association of the Berwick hole to the actual fort must have been more than a little discomforting to the veterans -- assuming they saw visual similarities.
If unlike me you find this post "extended-OT" rather than "adjacent-OT,"
please accept my apologies for wasting your time and bandwidth. But I hope you find the exercise of sleuthing the two photos as useful and educational to photo-analysis as I did.
We now return to our regularly-scheduled programming...
Mark
PS If you enjoy this type of "fact-based" historical sleuthing, I highly recommend "Sleuthing the Alamo" by James Crisp, a brilliant monograph on myth, fact, and outright laziness of many historians with regard to this icon of the Texas Revolution.
PPS Just to go on the record, and establish my complete lack of photo-reading credentials, I say "ON" came after "OFF" -- but I doubt Fenton moved the cannonballs because it appears to me that "ON" has more cannonballs than "OFF" and that the cannonballs in the ditch of "OFF" also appear, unmoved, in the ditch of "ON."