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Reader riposte: Reagan and Gorbachev

Reader riposte: Reagan and Gorbachev

Gareth Evans responds to a piece flagged in last Thursday's Links:

Re: 'The story behind Peter Marlow's iconic image of Reagan and Gorbachev in Vienna, which you see in our banner image.'

So which image is the right way round, and which has been photo-shopped or whatever? Intrigued as to how you kept Reagan's handkerchief in the right place (tho deleting the dangles from his interpreter) while turning everything else inside out. If we can't trust you on this stuff, guys...

Guilty! The photo taken by Peter Marlow (in Geneva, not Vienna as I wrote last week) shows Reagan on the right of the image and Gorbachev on the left. That's the original and correct photo. We flipped it around and did some digital trickery to move Reagan's pocket handkerchief and remove the clutter from the interpreter's jacket. It was just a question of visual balance; our designers thought the banner would work better if the four characters 'swapped seats'.

But as I noted when the ABC's Leigh Sales raised this topic in 2010, the illusion is not perfect: we failed to move Gorbachev's flag pin, which should be on his left lapel. And Gorby's watch is on his right wrist rather than his left.




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