Posted Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Not-So-Popular Photography

I've never been a big fan of the practice of running some April Fool's articles in a publication. Reviews of obviously phony products, fake news stories -- to me, that sort of thing is just one step above a "knock knock" joke.

But in its April 2005 issue, the venerable Popular Photography magazine pulled off a funny one. Its editors chose three utterly iconic photographs -- one each by Dorothea Lange, "Doc" Edgerton, and Walker Evans -- for a "makeover" in the magazine's monthly photo-makeover column, called "The Fix."

That's clever and all, but what's really funny is the reaction from some clueless and humorless readers. The magazine has published some of them, and they're a hoot. Please, if you have a few extra cents of humor, donate them to these folks.

Oh, and by the way:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Control freak. Now say "control freak who?"