There’s a set of images which mock the photos they imitate
and that’s why we love them.
The original pictures changed the world, their tribute images question
how they did it.
Little men poke fun at human achievement, historic firsts and, most importantly,
at the images depicting them.
Many have commented that these pictures pay homage to photographic
history, but they’re parodies.
Much the way a yellow Bart Simpson and the rest of his
animated world often throw stones at the iconic, so do these images.
Toy Photographs
Classics in Lego recreates some famous still photographs in
Lego form. The artist says he loves to play with macro lighting
and these photographs prove it.
The light in several of the images re-creates the light of the original
images they imitate.
The tiny plastic men and women in many of the pictures make
me laugh.
The drama of these moments, the sacred status of the photographs
that captured them, all reduced to child’s play.
Comparing the original Execution of a Viet Cong Guerrilla 1968
with it’s toy counterpart reveals the true power of this child-like quality.
Viet Cong in Lego
A smile never felt so sinister.
The face of the original VC being shot is agonized. It contrasts the Lego
man’s smile so clearly that the distinction is memorable, but also
suggests multiple meanings.
Eddie Adams original image changed Americans’ perceptions of
the Vietnam War.
He regretted making the photograph because he argued that people
didn’t understand it.
In General Nguyen Ngoc Loan’s eulogy which appeared in Time, Adams
argued that still photographs are powerful but have limits.
“The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.
Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe
them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation,” Adams wrote.
Photo Illusions
Imprisoning, a 1989 article in Time mentioned Adams photograph along with
other historic pictures in photojournalism.
The articles author, Lance Morrow, worte, that “all great photographs have lives of
their own, but they can be as false as dreams.”
Or, maybe viewers perceptions of them are false, as false as a thin, inked
smile on a plastic face.
Charged 