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146 Posts
Chatting the Pictures Video December 3, 2023

Chatting the Pictures: Mourning Embrace in a Gaza Hospital

We discuss the photo's anonymity and intimacy, as well as other images of the woman and child to personalize the interconnection of grief and loss.

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Chatting the Pictures Video November 3, 2023

Chatting the Pictures: On a Gaza Playground, Seized by the Peril of Fighter Jets

The photo, timeless as it is specific, embodies the instinctual reactions, sustained fear, and psychic harm to children lacking true refuge.

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Notes Photo October 30, 2023

On Photography, Oct. 7, and Palestinians Under the Gun in Jerusalem

Philip Perdue examines Jerusalem news images after the Oct. 7 attack, showing how camera angles shape views and have moral consequences.

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Chatting the Pictures Video October 29, 2023

Chatting the Pictures: The Israeli Hostage Poster

Analyzing the posters of abducted Israelis, we examine their format, 9/11 parallels, wide circulation, and how they inform Israeli unity.

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Photo October 13, 2023

Chatting the Pictures: Considering Mahsa Amini’s Legacy on the First Anniversary of Her Death

It's a great illustration of the idea that you don’t have to be standing up to stand up for yourself. Considering the impact of Mahsa Amini.

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Chatting the Pictures Video August 7, 2023

Chatting the Pictures: Israel’s “Democracy SOS”

We note the scale and urgency of the "judicial coup" protests in Israel and their failure to garner international attention.

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Chatting the Pictures Video June 16, 2021

Chatting the Pictures: Photo of Gaza Vigil an Appeal to the Senses

Amidst the rubble, this photo of Palestinian family members attending a candlelight vigil in Gaza makes an exquisite appeal to the senses.

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Notes Photo April 23, 2018

With Media Fixated on the Terror, a Good Time to Look Again at Everyday Middle East

With western media concentrated on Gaza and Douma, crisis and violence again come to stereotype the Middle East and Islam.

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Notes Photo April 13, 2017

Seeing War For What It Is: Ridiculous

War is not fashion and suffering is not funny. But the photo of this missile is both familiar and odd enough to seem uncanny.

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Notes Photo February 15, 2017

Overshadowed by his Photo: The Afterlives of Omran Daqneesh

Omran's suffering essentially disappeared at the very moment the image of it became visible.

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Notes Photo October 25, 2015

Country and Class and How We Look at the Migrant Crisis

There is always a risk of seeing refugees or people in flight as poor and needy, especially if the photos focus on their dehumanization.

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Notes Photo October 18, 2015

Israel / Palestine: Visual Politics of the Knife

What does it mean to spotlight these huge hunting knives when younger Palestinians are just grabbing whatever is in the kitchen drawer?

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Notes Photo October 12, 2015

Welcome to Intifada 3

What surprisingly informative about this photo of Palestinian's at war with Israel in the Occupied Territories is how much they have to work with.

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Notes Photo September 10, 2015

Simply Transcendent: Bar Palestine Balances Despair and Dignity in Gaza

The achievement here is how the group can take this mindlessly oppressive rubble world and reduce it to pure geometry.

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Notes Photo September 1, 2015

Why We Saw the Photo of the Israeli Solder Giving the Palestinian Boy a Headlock … Not Fighting a Girl

It’s not just man vs. child, especially female child, that exposes the state. It’s also the sense the otherwise omnipotent soldier might actually be over his head.

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Notes Photo April 27, 2015

More Absurdity in Baltimore

Maybe the reporter knows something we don't because his reaction to this potentially explosive situation is primarily one of bemusement.

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Notes Photo April 3, 2015

Loaves and Fishes

It's not that this photograph or this scene from Gaza is unique at all. What so impactful is its resonance this Holy Week, today being Good Friday.

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Notes Photo March 5, 2015

Character Moments Versus Political Ones: Netanyahu's State of Disunion

If the general public failed to grasp the audacity of Tuesday's imagery, it's only because commentators, activists and partisans were so overwhelming focused on the politics and ideology.

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