How can I find out if and/or where a given press photo was printed?

November 7, 2005 2:26 AM

How can I find out if and/or where a given press photo was printed?

The image in question is of this casualty of Katrina (potentially nsfw, another variation). I'm trying to determine whether this picture ever made its way into print. The first photo is attributed to David Grunfeld, Photographer & Photo Editor of Times-Picayune, but also to the Newhouse News Service, so I suppose it could have ended up anywhere.

Are there any good resources to track press photos? I've tried the sites of the T-P and Newhouse without finding mention. Are these photos at any point assigned some kind of ID they can be referenced by? I also tried a few runs at Lexis-Nexis, but that's not really working out either.

posted by moift to media & arts (4 comments total)

You can always try calling Grunfeld. He may not know though - in the chaos of the storm's aftermath, few photogs were paying attention to where their shots ended up. Normally, I would suggest you called the library or the photo desk at the Times-Picayune, but they only just got back into their newsroom and may still be stressed out. I would try calling the photo desk coordinator at Newhouse listed here.
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:49 AM on November 7, 2005

Why don't you just ask the guy who took it? After the photos are used to make the plates for printing, they go to the morgue. In my day, we'd write the date they ran on the back, but who needs to track it down in the morgue when you can just ask the photog.

The online and print editions are different, so I don't know why they would have information on the digital side about when it ran on the print side. They're too busy cranking out a newspaper everyday to mess around with info like that, I'd bet.
posted by planetkyoto at 4:59 AM on November 7, 2005

I saw *a* photo from that sad situation in a local paper in VT (probably Burlington Free Press, but I don't recall). It was after the man had been covered with the sheet. I am pretty sure it was an AP article though.
posted by terrapin at 6:36 AM on November 7, 2005

Thanks for your answers. Finding out about this from an actual person is probably the best method of attack, I guess it was just empty hope for a technological magic bullet. Whoever's in charge of this type of thing plz start tagging and indexing all press photos kthx.
posted by moift at 6:41 AM on November 7, 2005