The Daring Life of a Forgotten Female War Photographer | Hacker News Reader

The Daring Life of a Forgotten Female War Photographer

nationalgeographic.com

47 pointsbrudgers30 comments

What's amazing to me is just how many World War 2 were used in Vietnam. If you look at those pics: M1 Carbines in abundance (heck, I have my dads), a couple BARs, Thompson SMGs, a Grease Gun, M1919 MGs (probably converted to 7.62mm NATO), and the M1 Garand. All ceased production after WW2.

It boggles the mind to think we made SO MANY small arms for WW2 the leftovers could be shipped halfway around the world to fight another war.

Weapons from ww2 are still being used in warfare to this day.[0] You fight with what you can get your hands on, I guess.

Edit: Also military logistics are not following the same pressures for upheaval and progress as civilian organizations. During my compulsory military service I remember getting handed a bedsheet with the year 1933 embroidered on it. Looked liked it had never been used. We were also trained in usage of out-phased rifles on top of our normal weapon training. Somewhere they had a huge pile of old weapons, should they ever be needed. It would not sunrise me if they still have the Garands on store.

https://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/whats-inside-a-ta...

They might still have a big pile of Garands, but many were sold to civilians.

Many through the Civilian Marksmanship Program to try to increase the shooting ability of the public.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Marksmanship_Program

My anecdote is not about the US. I thought the compulsory military service part would make that clear.

We got some of those Garands to rebuild our military after ww2.

Sorry, when I initially read your comment I simply interpreted that to be referencing the draft, e.g. conscription.

I could have been more precise. The Garands were a mislead. I served in 08.

And that's after discarding and selling off a lot of them.

Small arms are pretty durable. There's a thriving black market shipping them from war to war; the same guns can be involved in kicking off many different civil wars across the globe. Every now and again some country destroys a few thousand knockoff AK-47s in an attempt to keep this down.

The scale of WW2 manufacturing is wacky.

Some friends when I was in high school were buying surplus M1 Garands in new condition, packed in grease from the factory in the early 1990s.

Lots were used in the Korean War too. The North used surplus Soviet arms and equipment, and the South used American surplus.

In some cases ammunition is the limiting factor https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/10/24/buying-sellin...

Isn't the Thompson SMGs a World War 1 design - although it wasn't quite ready in time before the end of that war:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_submachine_gun

Yep, and the BAR is World War I vintage too. And the M1919 machine gun was derived from the WWI-era M1917.

If you look at the picture in the header, you can see that she's using a VISOFLEX in a warzone (a Visoflex is a very bulky and finnicky accessory for a Leica that turns it into a reflex camera), I wonder how that came to look like a good idea.

My experience with artists and craftsmen of all stripes is that, once they find a tool or combination of tools that resonate with them, and that with which they feel they can do better work than with alternatives, they will go to great lengths to continue using the platform regardless of inconvenience or other drawbacks.

I have known, for example, .NET developers that worked in emacs instead of Visual Studio, which is something I have a hard time understanding, but there was no arguing with his results even if his toolchain was odd and finicky.

In any case, it's a damn shame she's not around to ask. Photography was VERY different in the 60s.

After doing more photography I have developed a lot of respect for that attitude. Their focus is on the results whereas I (and I believe a lot of developers) am often more focused on cool tools and always need new stuff to stay interested. A lot of the best photographers I know have pretty old cameras because they think about taking pictures and not reading equipment reviews.

The recent (~ 10 years) era has also made lots of folks think of photography as fast-moving, because pro-level digital happened and then improved SO FAST that there was an upgrade treadmill where none really existed before.

We're back at a stasis point, though. My 6- or 7-year-old Olympus still takes great pix; I'm not leaving a lot on the table with it. Any full-frame DSLR is even better, and they've been around for even longer.

Today's high-tech cameras are definitely more susceptible to life-ending obsolescence than the mechanical cameras of yore, but I think we'll see folks use a given body much longer now than we did 5 years ago.

Especially for photographs that are mostly about getting an image rather than wringing the last piece of technical quality out of a scene, DSLRs have pretty much approached good enough. Sensitivity is still improving a bit, as is autofocus, but I'm at the point now where the gear I have is at the point where a new camera isn't going to really improve on my enjoyment, quality of photograph, etc.

There's still miniaturization going on. My Fujifilm X-E3 was a big improvement over the X-E1. But as long as I'm willing to lug a full-frame DSLR around, there isn't a lot I feel I'm lacking even though it's 4+ years old at this point.

"My Fujifilm X-E3 was a big improvement over the X-E1."

There is definitely still a lot of movement in mirrorless but judging from the latest releases they will plateau in a few years too. It looks like mirrorless will soon reach the point where their AF is as good or better as the best DSLRs.

> The recent (~ 10 years) era has also made lots of folks think of photography as fast-moving, because pro-level digital happened and then improved SO FAST that there was an upgrade treadmill where none really existed before.

By ten years ago the most dramatic gains had already been had. Nikon D3S (2009!) still sells for $1,000+ where I live (Japan). To me that is way past "obsolete curiosity" pricing, and more in the zone of "I can still use this for work".

It was only last year that Nikon released a camera approaching double the resolution of the D3 (12MP), the D850 (45MP).

She took pics in WWII (when for all practical purposes "real" SLRs didn't exist yet), so I guess it was what she was used to

I saw a shoe mounted meter. I didn’t see a visoflex

You can see a Leicameter in a later picture, the visoflex is here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/cultureexplor...

If anyone is interested in another great war photographer at the time, Robert Capa is another great one. His book 'Slightly out of focus' is one of my favourite books. Highly recommended and is only 2-300 pages long.

According to wikipedia, she killed in 1965 by a booby trap explosion triggered by the marine in front of her while on a patrol. She was 47.

well, it is stated in the article itself too

These days it seems to be wrong [1] to use the word "female", thus I suggest changing the title to "The Daring Life of a Forgotten Woman War Photographer". Yes, it is ambiguous because it seems that we are talking about a certain "woman war", but we'll get used to it over time.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17891710

So we should stop using a word with an etymologically going back thousands of years, because some lowlifes are misogynistic? It feels very wrong to let them turn such a fundamental word in to a hate slur.

Of course I was parodying that position :)

No you weren't. People get annoyed when it's used as a noun, not a verb.

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