BEN CURTIS: It was a different photograph, but was from the same viewpoint. Basically, there was a hill outside Beirut that provided a really beautiful view of the whole city, and there was one bend in the road where you could get a view of the city that wasn’t blocked by apartment buildings. And so, you could go up there on any given day and you’d find a lot of media up there. And you’ve got the same point of perspective. When people looked at the photos and complain, “These are the same buildings, this is the same viewpoint,” they make the assumption it must be the same photo. “Isn’t it coincidental that two photographers happen to be taking a picture at the same time in the same place?” But when you understand the reality of it — no, it wasn’t. It’s not unusual. There’s nothing untoward about it. It’s the fact that that particular point gives a good view of the city .
And we’d go up there and sit for eight hours. You’d have other people covering other stuff around the city, of course, but you might send a photographer to go up and sit on that hill, on that bend, for eight, nine hours, waiting. And if something happens, everyone is going to photograph it, and they’re going to be at the same point and they’re probably going to have a fairly similar viewpoint. That’s what made people think it was my photograph that he’d taken and cloned. But it wasn’t.