Friday, January 29, 2010

MLK Shooting the 11-Ball from behind his back

This is a pretty awesome photo of Dr. Martin Luther King shooting from behind his back. A fan from the Pool & History page on Facebook brought it to my attention. I can't quite tell, however, if it's authentic. It looks slightly doctored. Perhaps someone else has seen this photo reproduced elsewhere -- and if so, where the photo was taken and the circumstances surrounding it. I found this picture and other photos of celebrities and historic figures playing pool at Ace's Web World. Check it out.

-- R.A. Dyer

5 comments:

dvicci said...

Playing pool, or posing for a PR shot? I'm betting on the latter...

Cary said...

Nice shot, although with the cue ball so close to that 11 ball it seems unlikely he's going to pocket it anywhere!

As for the doctored look you mention, I'm certain that's from the photographer using a grease pencil to outline certain areas on the actual print. Photographers would do this on pictures that were heavy on grey tones as a way of keeping the tones from "going muddy" as the result of ink spreading when applied to newsprint (aka "dot gain"). I saw this a lot looking through old prints at the newspaper I used to work at in Michigan. For example, take a nighttime crime scene photograph, say, of a black car riddled with bullet holes. The edges of the fender of that car would be traced with a light grey grease pencil as a way of preventing it from bleeding into the dark background. You can see it going on here on King's left thigh as well as along the left arm of his suit jacket, all around him in fact. Same with the brim of the hat in the guy in the immediate background. Great shot, thanks for sharing.

Roy Zornow said...

Is that's what's going on just above and to the right of his head?

Cary said...

You're right, you can see the shoulder, lapel and collar of a man, but his face appears to have been marked out.

Michael McCafferty said...

bogus.