The Face of Battle in the Ukraine
War is far more than battle, from the extensive organization that is required to project power and hold territory, to the thousand ways that it disrupts, distorts, corrupts, and shatters entire worlds.
Continue Reading
Poor Kanye: Cell Phones, Martyrdom and Celebrity Culture
I am partly posting Kanye’s shaming of the celebrity-crazed public and his indictment of mobile photography as an example of how much pictures can take on a life of their own.
Continue Reading
On Texas Muslim Capitol Day: Photos by Nina Berman from Austin
The hostility of anti-Muslim protesters on the seventh annual Texas Muslim Capitol Day pales in comparison to the recognition and appreciation of the different cultural and religious communities among us.
Continue Reading
"Breaking" Pic from Fukushima
Don't worry yourself what's bubbling beyond the tarp?
Continue Reading
ISIS Attacks Iraqi Base Full of US Trainers, Ho Hum
Whatever the reasons for the quiet, America's reengagement in Iraq is primarily significant for the lack of attention.
Continue Reading
Award Season and Western Cultural Exports
If the 2015 Oscars expose a diversity problem with western cultural exporting, then the selection by POY doubles down on the indictment.
Continue Reading
War Photography Family Portrait of the Year
What I find so powerful is how much Alexey Furman's photo from Ukraine manages to capture and express war as an act of domestic violence.
Continue Reading
Seven Years into a Presidency, What Lurks Beneath the Laugh Track
What's brilliant is the way the photo, on the surface a textbook example of political celebrity, also taps into America's racial polarization.
Continue Reading
On Those Migrants Up a Pole (POYi Spot News Award)
What is it about this photo of Sub-Saharan migrants high up a pole in Spain’s border town of Melilla that earned a POY award?
Continue Reading
USA(ID)! USA(ID)!: Full Salute to a Military Photo
And when in our lifetimes have we been made aware the military has been deployed to save lives?
Continue Reading
Seeing Surveillance Everywhere and Nowhere
In this day and age, when an image could as easily have been pulled off a civil defense drone or a surveillance camera, we also register that.
Continue Reading
World Press, Spot News: Tangled Up in Blue
Sure, the cops got their girl. But for goodness' sake, is a riot police scrum supposed to look so glamorous?
Continue Reading
Human Trafficking Awareness and Photographic Ensnarement: A World Press Winning Portrait
Despite the photo’s potential utility, however, it also raises important questions about the ways in which well-meaning outsiders and journalists depict the problem of human trafficking.
Continue Reading
Beyond FEMEN: That Arresting Photo Outside the Strauss-Kahn Trial
I doubt the group expected a photo this effective, even if Femen protesters are consistently “manhandled” by police.
Continue Reading
World Press Photo: As Much About News as About the Human Condition?
The picture of “Jon and Alex” seems to also be part of an emerging trend among the winning photographs of recent years: a cinematic aesthetics that combines artistic compositions with invitation to storytelling.
Continue Reading
Picture of the Year (Sports Feature): What is it About Men and their Balls?
It could have landed on his shoe. It could have bounced and landed on that other guy's straw hat. But, it didn't.
Continue Reading
LGBT Love and Anxiety: The Ambiguity and Politics of the World Press Photo of the Year
Perhaps the noirish quality serves as a buffer but this photo is at least as tense as it is tender.
Continue Reading