‘99% Invisible’ have an episode about a similarly disliked statue of conquistador Juan de Oñate, in New Mexico. (Note that the podcast sometimes has more info than the written text.)
Why’s it black and white? It’s 1992
Black and white film was cheaper and commonly used by journalists (who were generally taking photos which were going to be printed in black and white anyway) up until the 2000s.
It’s Mexico. Everything is sepia-toned in Mexico.
Complaining on why black and white photos still being a thing in the 1980s and 90s is such a first world problem.
I’m not complaining, I just assumed the original was in colour, because it was fucking 1992.
I assumed someone at some point did this deliberately to make it seem like another time, the way a lot of civil rights era photos (from way fuckin earlier than the 90s) were presented in black and white rather than the ORIGINAL colour.
Coloured ink is expensive until much recently. Newspapers in richer countries have only gradually started to printed more in colour from late 1980s onwards. But in poorer countries, only the more serious newspapers who charges higher for their papers, could afford to print in colour, while the tabloids printed in black and white until the 2000s.
That’s why the complaint that “they intentionally print and post pictures in black and white, even though colour is available long ago, is so that people would think the events are old and feel detached” is silly and a first world problem for me. Printing in black and white was simply cheaper and also technically easier than printing in colour. Not to mention most photographers before the 1980s feel that taking photos in black and white is far classier and superior, in their minds.
I mean I’m happy to say I’m mistaken, but is is ALSO the case that images captured from the civil rights era in full colour have been routinely reprinted in textbooks, articles, histories etc in a deliberate fashion
It almost looks like he just sucker punched it off 😆
Subcomandante Marcos smiles on…
