Peter Adams: Photographers

I photographed George Rodger, one of the four founders of Magnum, in front of the row of three cottages he combined into his home in Kent. There was a problem - George was 6’ 3”and the ceilings were 5’ 10”. Upstairs wasn’t a problem. He removed  the attic plaster so he could walk amongst the rafters. Downstairs, he removed the floorboards, excavated a couple of feet down then replaced the floorboards. Problem solved.

Rosenthal’s picture of the ‘Raising of the Flag at Iwo Jima’ was not posed. It was, however, the second shot of the raising of ‘Old Glory’ that day. The beachhead had cost a lot of lives on both sides - 7,000 US marines and 22,000 Japanese soldiers were killed in three days of fighting. The US commander, wanted to demonstrate to the Japanese that he had taken the high ground, and ordered a flag twice the size to be raised. Joe just happened to be there at the right time. The reason the marines appear to be struggling is that the flag pole is actually a twenty-foot piece of steel pipe.

Rosenthal’s picture of the ‘Raising of the Flag at Iwo Jima’ was not posed. It was, however, the second shot of the raising of ‘Old Glory’ that day. The beachhead had cost a lot of lives on both sides - 7,000 US marines and 22,000 Japanese soldiers were killed in three days of fighting. The US commander, wanted to demonstrate to the Japanese that he had taken the high ground, and ordered a flag twice the size to be raised. Joe just happened to be there at the right time. The reason the marines appear to be struggling is that the flag pole is actually a twenty-foot piece of steel pipe.