Most people’s first reaction to this image is to laugh. But why? What makes it funny? I don’t know, but it is – at least to me. Maybe it is just the shock of recognition: the truth that we see, but don’t really notice, this sort of thing all the time.
Which leads to another reaction: ‘I could have taken that!’ Well, yes. On the other hand, did you? It’s simple enough, after all. I have taken ‘something very like it’ many times. Some, I think, are probably as good as this. Admittedly, Ernst Haas got there first, but that’s only if I take ‘first’ to mean ‘before me’. I sincerely doubt that no one had ever shot anything similar before 1962.
Nor can you say, ‘Ah, yes, well, but…
