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Bush Focus Photo October 14, 2005

Repeat After Me And Then Raise Your Right Hand

Let’s just talk about lines of sight. From all internal calculations, the new Bush PR team (led — from what I hear — by Andy Card) assumed that the cameras would just line up squarely behind Bush and set up that wonderful shot below.  What they didn’t calculate, however,...

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Photo October 13, 2005

The BAG Opens Its Frist Investigation

Since I began analyzing news images, one thing I’ve been interested in is the ability to do investigative work primarily through visual analysis.  For lack of a better term (at least, at this point) you might call it: “forensic photojournalistic research.” A current target I have in mind for...

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From the Archive (Oct '05): Exit The Green Zone

Okay, so this post was 4 1/2 years too early, the Americans only exiting the Green Zone today. ********* Let’s go back to mid-August.  The U.S. had imposed a deadline of August 15th for Iraqi legislators/power brokers to come up with a constitution. At the same time, Condi Rice...

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Disaster Focus Photo October 11, 2005

Bush City

"The idea that — in a community where we could place people in the private housing market to reintegrate them into society — we would put them in ghettos with no jobs, no community, no future, strikes me as extraordinarily bad public policy, and violates every conservative principle...

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The Selling Of One Iraq

(Sorry for the extra long post.  Given the significance — and hypocrisy — of the Iraqi referendum, however, I felt it was worth this broad sweep.  …And no, the BAG will not be examining yesterday’s photo of the suicide bomber who blew himself up in front of the election...

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Iraq and Afghanistan War Photo October 10, 2005

Practically Obvious

After London authorities discovered that that the July 7th bombers had cased the underground two weeks prior to their actual attack, you would think this was the only picture made available to the media. Not true.  Video and stills revealed three of the four perpetrators in various places and...

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Disaster Focus Photo October 9, 2005

Breaking News/Pakistan Earthquake

I was struck by the face of this man looking back at this destruction.  Just before calling it a night (or morning), I found out about the tremendous earthquake in South Asia.  I anticipate much quiet speculation about what these times must have in store for us, and how...

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Alan Chin Photo October 8, 2005

St. Rita Ongoing

In considering all the failures associated with the Katrina disaster, how are we to understand the abuse of the grief process? Because we’re all pretty much friends here now, and I, along with you, have tacitly contracted to participate in the ongoing analysis of the prominent political images of...

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Spin Focus Photo October 6, 2005

Please Pass The Danish

(click for larger version) What I find so interesting is the persistent (visual) characterization of Harriet Miers as a secretary.  Of course, so many of the images made available by the White House emphasize Miers in a subservient or functionary role, usually with a "gal Friday" feel to them....

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Media Focus Photo

Anatomy Of A Photograph

One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is the veracity of a news photo.  For example, consider the image that circulated a few weeks ago following a raid by the British on an Iraqi police station in Basra.  Purportedly, the men were rescued because they were about to be...

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Iraq and Afghanistan War Photo October 5, 2005

Unleashing Hell Ironically

The other day, while thinking about the National Guard’s Katrina deployment, I started fantasizing about what other socially worthwhile military applications might possibly be achieved with my tax dollar.  And then I woke up. One thing I learned from Abu Ghraib is that, if we didn’t occasionally receive direct...

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Bush Focus Photo October 3, 2005

All I Need Is You: The Psychology of George And Harriet

Because so few images of Harriet Miers are available, you probably have already seen the photo of her with Bush in the canyon.  (As soon as I heard the news, I even used it in my rather snarky piece on HuffPo this morning.) It’s not just the single picture,...

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This Year's Fallujah

With Katrina having drowned out most other news in September, I thought it was worth taking a look back at two iconic images. The TIME cover is from September 26th issue, but the photo itself was taken on or around September 2nd, during a military offensive in Tall ‘Afar. ...

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Media Focus Photo October 1, 2005

The Signs Are Obvious

(for the "full effect," click image) Although it tosses in a few token lines to appear even handed, the piece in today’s NYT Week In Review (The War Against Tom DeLay – link) is a classic smear job implicating the left wing for bringing down Tom DeLay. Essentially, Anne Kornblut’s...

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