Latest news with #photograph
Washington Post
3 days ago
- General
- Washington Post
Book Review: A diary sends a woman on a quest to solve the cold case of 6 missing Black girls
At age 13, Sydney Singleton discovered an old photograph tucked away in a drawer in her paternal grandmother's guest room. It was a portrait of a Black girl just entering her teen years — a girl who looked a lot like Sydney. Next morning, Sydney asked her grandmother about it. The woman, her voice 'firm as the oak tree on her front lawn,' would say only this: 'We don't talk about Carol.'
Irish Times
6 days ago
- General
- Irish Times
Picture This - Frank McNally on knowing your onions, the sophistication of French scammers, and journalism with legs
A reader had appealed to me as a 'last resort', seeking help in finding an old photograph. His name is Richard Evans, and he's writing a history of his family, the Irish branch of which began in the 1880s when his great grandfather – a Shropshire lad – moved to Dublin to become a butcher's apprentice. The apprentice later struck out on his own with shops in Baggot Street and Ranelagh, the latter beside where Humphrey's Pub still stands. When the building was redeveloped years ago, Richard salvaged the mosaic tiles on the footpath outside, bearing the name ' But he is now 'desperate' to find a photograph of the shop and has tried all the obvious places - including Susan Roundtree's book Ranelagh in Pictures - without success. If this column can't help him, he fears the quest is a 'lost cause'. On a tangential note, his email also notes that the butcher later transferred the business to his nephew, one Tom Onions. An aunt of Richard's, another Onions, tells him there were three shops in Ranelagh at one time owned by people called 'Lovely, Hamm, and Onions' respectively, although he doesn't remember that himself. READ MORE Alas, I can't confirm this either, although I dearly want to and have tried. But then, searching for a 'Lovely shop', or an 'Onions shop', or even a 'Hamm shop', tends to confuse search engines. As for asking AI to tell you more about 'Lovely, Hamm, and Onions' in Dublin 6, that's just a fool's errand. *** Also among my emails this week was one from a woman I'd never heard of before, and who didn't know my name. I immediately assumed it was spam, but it was in French. So before deleting, I mentally translated the opening sentences and was intrigued by their intellectual and philosophical tone. They began like this: 'In death, the family does not destroy itself, it is transformed, a part of it goes into the invisible. We believe that death is an absence, when it is a discreet presence. One thinks it creates an infinite distance, while in fact it suppresses all distance, restoring to the mind what was located in the flesh…' There was more in that vein, all of it sounding vaguely profound, at least in the original. Then at last the lady got around to introducing herself, stoically detailing the terminal illness with which she was diagnosed recently, and mentioning the €1.8 million she would now like to donate to a 'trustworthy and honest person'. Sigh. There are scammers everywhere these days. But it's extraordinary that even fraudulent attempts to get your bank details seem to be so much classier in French. *** Further to the theme of Connacht, Hell, and Longford (Diary Wednesday May 28th), regular correspondent Damien Maguire has written to point out that the Cavan panhandle was another destination from farther north. To this day, he says, there are families there – mostly from Donegal - known as 'Ultachs'. This even though Cavan itself is in Ulster (despite its GAA secessionist ambitions, circa 1915, to escape the baleful influence of Monaghan). Damien also mentions in passing that although everyone has heard of the famous 1947 All-Ireland in New York, not many people know Cavan also won in New York in 1958. This wasn't GAA, it turns out. It was a horse called Cavan, which won the prestigious Belmont Stakes that year, preventing the injured favourite Tim Tam, which had already won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, from completing America's Triple Crown. The 2025 Belmont Stakes is next weekend, June 7th, in Saratoga. And I'm delighted to see that favourites include a horse called Journalism, which has already triumphed in this year's Preakness. I may have to risk a few dollars. It's heartening to know that, even in Trump's America, Journalism in any shape can still win. *** On a more poignant note, this week marked the 30th anniversary of the demise of the Irish Press group, a milestone commemorated by a get-together of survivors in Wynn's Hotel. Disturbingly, that means the world has now been without Press newspapers for almost as long as it has had the Spice Girls, who have been the subject of 30th anniversary reunion tour rumours of late. Now I feel old. The last years of the Press coincided with the start of my career as a freelance journalist, which regularly involved pulling all-nighters, as they say. And seeking to get a jump in the competition, in those pre-internet days, it sometimes helped me to get the next day's papers as soon as they were printed. I was an Irish Times reader (although not yet working for it) by then. But having grown up with the Irish Press, thanks to a Fianna Fáil father, I still had a soft spot for that too. So, cycling into town circa 1am, I would first stop by Poolbeg Street, where bundles of the first edition Presses came rolling down a chute to the waiting vans. It was a bonus that the lads in the Press usually gave me the paper free. Atound the corner at The Irish Times, meanwhile, they always charged.
Daily Mail
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The unbelievable photograph of two female megastars that's buried in Diddy evidence files
Buried in a file submitted as part of Sean ' Diddy ' Combs' defense is a black and white photograph of two world famous female stars lying on a bed in bikinis beneath a seedy mirrored ceiling. The image, obtained by Daily Mail as it was submitted to the court, shows none other than Rihanna and Serena Williams.
Telegraph
27-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Churchill ‘Roaring Lion' photo thief ‘breached trust' of nation
A thief who stole a photograph of Sir Winston Churchill was told he had 'breached' the trust of the nation as he was sentenced to just shy of two years in jail for one of the most brazen art heists in Canadian history. Jeffrey Ian James Wood, a 44-year-old small-time art collector, removed the famed 'Roaring Lion' print of Britain's wartime leader from Ottawa's Fairmont Château hotel in January 2022. The 20 x 24 portrait of Sir Winston outside Canada's House of Commons, taken by by Armenian-Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh in 1941, features on £5 banknotes and is estimated to be worth millions of pounds. The theft was not discovered until months later, as Wood had replaced the original with a fake. After a two-year international search, the original print was discovered in the possession of a private buyer in Genoa, Italy, who bought it for £4,200 believing it was a signed copy. The picture had been taken to Europe and sold at Sotheby's, the British fine art broker which was not aware it was stolen. Wood, a failed philosophy student that struggled to keep steady employment, made approximately £2,700 from the theft. He had hatched the plot in December 2021 to try and financially support his brother, who he says was debilitated with mental health problems. He told the court: 'I had never in 40 years gone to bed or woken up considering committing a crime. 'I never even had a speeding ticket and some day in the first 10 days of December 2021... I knew that I had to intervene in a meaningful way and I had an obstacle. That obstacle was money.' Ninety minutes after he sold the painting, his brother was found dead in a bathtub, Wood told the court. Wood described lying in bed at night racked by guilt and 'formulating and reformulating apologies' to Karsh's family. Justice Robert Wadden said Wood had breached the nation's trust and that the print was 'irreplaceable'. 'It is a point of national pride that a portrait taken by a Canadian photographer would have achieved such fame.' 'There is an element of trust in our society that allows such properties to be displayed, to be enjoyed by all Canadians. To steal, damage and traffic in such property is to breach that trust,' he added. Lawrence Greenspon, Wood's defence lawyer, told reporters outside the courthouse that he would be launching an appeal within 10 days. He said: 'It was an unnecessarily harsh sentence. Given that he's a first-time offender, it's a property crime and he pleaded guilty.' Nicola Cassinelli, the Genoa buyer and a prominent lawyer, said an interview with The Telegraph last November that Sotheby's called him three months after the purchase imploring him not to sell or transfer the work to any third parties as an investigation was underway. Scotland Yard detectives, with the assistance of their counterparts in Italy's Carabinieri, had traced the portrait to Genoa following the Sotheby's sale. After a few Google searches, Mr Cassnielli realised he was unwittingly embroiled in the Canadian art heist mystery of the century and returned it to the Fairmont Château hotel. He said: 'This was the emblematic photo that captured his anger, the strength of the free world – good that triumphs over evil. It's historic. 'All my friends and guests who came to my house, we would joke about having such an important piece of artwork right before our eyes. 'Like having a Mona Lisa... because I paid a few thousand pounds but online I had read it was worth millions. It was as if I was in a film.' In 2023, Wood was successfully identified as the seller after Detective Akiva Geller of the Ottawa Police found a DNA match between a toothbrush left by Wood in a locker and the piece of duct tape used to fix the fake on the lounge wall. Inside the locker they discovered a second fake printout of the 'Roaring Lion' with an invoice from the online company Redbubble, Canadian media reported. The receipt was in Wood's name. Geneviève Dumas, the general manager of the Château Laurier hotel, said: 'We're very happy to see that Canadian history is recognised.'
