Visual Culture: Daily Briefing

Two Color D-Day Shots by Scherschel

Diaz's Side View

Quote of the Day: “Sex is the sexiest word in the English language.” The New York Post reports that Cameron Diaz’s favorite sport is not baseball, even though she dates Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez, but sex. Diaz, starring in the new movie Bad Teacher, also told the Post her relationship with A-Rod “is awesome.” Why this is a photo story: Diaz covers of the June issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. Cosmo covers, like Kabuki theatre, adhere to a highly formalized structure, usually a three-quarter frontal shot with abundant cleavage. The slightest variation--in this case, Diaz's side-cleavage pose, comes as a visual shock ...This Day in History, Part 1: To mark the 67^th anniversary of D-Day, Life.com has a vibrant portfolio of color photos of the buildup to Operation Overlord and its aftermath. The pictures were shot by Frank Scherschel, who covered both the European and the Pacific theaters of World War II. (Scherschel also snapped this iconic color image of Winston Churchill dabbling as a painter.) Among Scherschel's tack-sharp D-Day images: a shot of a French couple sharing cognac with a GI (above left) and a shot of an American soldier back in England, waiting for the "GO' order ... Those Darn British Liberals Are Coming!: Sarah Palin defended her revisionist history of Paul Revere's ride today. It seems Revere really was trying to warn the Red Coats "that they weren't gonna be

Palin's Revisionist Ride. Photo by Molly Riley/AP

Indrani

takin' away our arms by ringin' those bells." (Business Insider Reports that some Palin fans have been trying to rewrite the Wikipedia entry on Revere to make it cohere to Palin's version of events.) Why this is a photo story: The Palin-Picture-of-the-Day award (something tells me we'll be handing out quite a few over the next year) goes to this shot (by Molly Riley for AP) of the would-be presidential candidate, which appeared in the Week In Review section of yesterday's New York Times to illustrate a story about Palin's recent East Coast tour, but it works even better for the Paul Revere tale. Photos are malleable.  ... Also In the News: Aero Films announces that Indrani (of the noted Markus Klinko and Indrani photo team)  has transitioned to live-action directing, recently creating spots for the London Sunday Times and Ralph Lauren. Meanwhile, Carolyn E. Wright, who writes the very informative Photo Attorney website, reports that the Texas Motor Speedway has become the latest venue to require photographers to give up the copyright to images they shoot there. "Because the Speedway owns the property where photographers want to shoot, it has the right to require photographers sign the agreement before they can get access to the races," says Wright.