Talk:Leonard McCombe

Formatting, etc

Paging Whereisdevilshole (though of course others are welcome to comment), about this edit:

It is conventional -- not only in Wikipedia but in published English in general -- to put the titles of magazines (such as Picture Post), newspapers, journals and books in italics. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles.

Being italicized and in this context, Life is pretty obviously a print publication (and for details, you just click on it). So italicizing it is helpful and adding "Magazine" to it is not.

If describing a photoessay (and not, say, religious imagery), the word "iconic" is conspicuous puffery.

Why both italicize and enclose in quotation marks? See MOS:BADEMPHASIS on what it calls "double emphasis".

For "Life and Work" versus "Life and work", see MOS:SECTIONCAPS

-- Hoary (talk) 03:00, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Please feel free to edit the puffery. Whereisdevilshole (talk) 05:35, 24 September 2020 (UTC) Whereisdevilshole

Thank you, Whereisdevilshole. And the format-related stuff? -- Hoary (talk) 05:50, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Actually, I'm editing as per your all of your feedback at the moment. I'll do my best but hope you can cast your eye over it and fix whatever needs to be fixed. Gimme 20 minutes. I appreciate the feedback. One thing - iconic is really what his Career Girl photoessay is, in the same way Eugene Smith's Country Doctor photoessay. Photojournalists would not contend this. Equally, his Marlboro Man photo is pretty indisputable as an iconic photograph of the 20th century. However...there isn't much in the way of decent sources to cite in support of this (part of the reason, probably, why McCombe didn't have a wikipedia article at all). So I'm dropping the use of the term "iconic", not really because it's puffery but because it's unsupported by legitimate sources. What would your recommendations be about approaching this? Whereisdevilshole (talk) 06:01, 24 September 2020 (UTC)Whereisdevilshole

I'm familiar with Smith's "Country Doctor". I have a high regard for it. But my opinion of it is of no importance. I'd agree that it's highly regarded by people whose opinions, unlike mine, count for something in Wikipedia. If I were in the mood to add some praise to either of these photo-essays, I'd see what was said about them, and quote or paraphrase that. ¶ Notoriously, Life doctored photo-essays to fit the higher-ups' prejudices and agenda; because of this, and because of the general falling out of fashion of what's called humanist photography, there hasn't been much discussion of this kind of thing. But I think I read a year or two back of some well-informed book-length study of Life photo-essays in general (not just those by Smith, Parks, or any other star). Am I imagining this? If there is such a book, it would be worthwhile. And if there isn't, could there be something about McCombe in Hughes, W. Eugene Smith: Shadow and Substance, Bussard, Life Magazine and the Power of Photography, Willumson, W. Eugene Smith and the Photographic Essay? -- Hoary (talk) 08:04, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I'm done.

Quick question. A citation is needed for the "The last reference for him on his RPS membership record card is in 1973 in New York state.[citation needed] Life claims that he "became the youngest Fellow in the history of the Royal Photographic Society"[5], though the Royal Photographic Society records are unable to categorically support that claim." I agree but I'm quoting what the Royal Photographic Society's Director of Education and Public Affairs sent in an email and said to use. What is the best way to relate the quote from email.

thanks

Whereisdevilshole (talk) 06:12, 24 September 2020 (UTC)whereisdevilshole

Simply, that can't be cited. Cited sources have to be accessible (see Wikipedia:Verifiability, and of course readers won't have access to your email account. It's OK to say Life claims that he "became the youngest Fellow in the history of the Royal Photographic Society". In practice, "X claims that Y" does make the claim sound a bit fishy; so better would be According to Life, he "became the youngest Fellow in the history of the Royal Photographic Society". -- Hoary (talk) 08:04, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Hoary, thanks for the considered responses and for helping shepherd this article, my first (obviously!). I'll follow up on them as best I can. Quick note - Life may have doctored photoessays but Smith was fired because he was hard to work with, because he would neither let Life dictate the types of photographs they wanted for stories nor let the photo editors select the photos. No idea how the relationship between Life and McCombe went. But, he does say that in Career Girl, the first photo he took was of her in the bathtub - she was wearing a swimsuit and that was edited out. Done out of sensitivity/modesty etc I'm sure but doctored nonetheless.

I've contacted various organisations for more details about McCombe and am hoping to feed those into this article as they come in and as mentioned above will respond to/apply your feedback however I can.

Thanks again, Whereisdevilshole (talk) 22:45, 24 September 2020 (UTC) whereisdevilshole