1) Genesse Hotel Suicide
The photograph was used in a psychological study. It seems that only 4% of students who look at the photo actually notice Mary falling to earth in the center of the shot.
According to the book Photography Handbook: Media Practice, this is Mary Miller, who had lived with her sister in Buffalo but had recently left saying she was going to Indiana to visit other relatives. (Her sister said she couldn’t think of a reason for the suicide, but remember divorce was very taboo back then.)
She checked into this hotel as “M. Miller, Chicago”, locked herself in the bathroom and crawled out onto the window ledge. Photographer Russell Sorgi happened on the scene by chance; driving home from another assignment he saw a speeding police car and followed it. In the book, he describes the mechanics of how he set up and took the shot. It was one of those cameras that you have to remove the exposed slide and put in another one for each shot. He took two establishing shots as she sat on the ledge, and had just slammed the third slide into the camera when Miss Miller waved to the crowd and pushed off.
The photograph was used in a psychological study. It seems that only 4% of students who look at the photo actually notice Mary falling to earth in the center of the shot. It was also used to amazing effect by Neil Gaiman in the story “Passengers”, in Preludes and Nocturnes.
Hello, miss, I would like a cup of coffee while I wait.
What are you waiting for?
Oh, you know, the usual.. the end of the world.
Via HERE.
Tags: falling, genesse, hotel, mary miller, photography, russell sorgi, suicide, woman
And interestingly, I found over here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=322761604111
“David F. Sorgi My father was I. Russell Sorgi, his first name was Ignatius, he took that picture on May 7, 1942.
He was a photographer for the Buffalo Couier Express
He was on his way back to the Couier, returning from an assignment (A local plant had sold a good number of War Bonds, took a couple of pictures)
He noticed a police car speeding, he followed it and came across a crowd of people looking up, he saw what they were looking at.
There was a woman on the ledge of the Genesee Hotel, which he did get a picture of, then she jumped. He took the picture, not knowing if he got her. But he did, and a photo of her on the ground.
He rushed back to the Courier, the Editor was in the darkroom with him, hoping he got the pic in mid-air, and mostly that her “stuff” wasn’t hanging out.
At his retirement in 1976, the CEO of Kodak informed him that he won the Pulitzer Prize, but because he was Italian he couldn’t win it, after all we were at was with Germany, Japan and Italy. I was standing next to him at the retirement party when the statement was read, I saw the tears running down the face.
He was a Beautiful Man & a great Father, he guessed he took over 250,000 pictures.
He passed in 1995, He was a Pulitzer Prize to our Family.”
[...] (3) Ancora una cosa: senza permesso mi sono impossessato da Antologia Portatile Dei Fatti Notevoli della foto B&W poco più sopra (grazie Milla, ti devo una birra) perché ci appizza con l’argomento suicidio; ecco cosa si sa via Stoking The Roots: [...]